Various – Gumba Fire (Bubblegum Soul & Synth-Boogie In 1980s South Africa) (3xLP)

With the compilation "Gumba Fire" the reissue specialists from Soundway turn to a music genre that was extremely popular among the black population of South Africa in the eighties: Bubblegum. The genre emerged, as it were, from the ruins of the declining disco boom, comparable to the electro boogie that was burgeoning in the USA at the same time. Like machine funk there, bubblegum was based on a stripped-down lo-fi sound whose central features were synths, keyboards and electronic beats. The only difference was that Bubblegum still featured the soulful and harmonic vocal elements for which the South African music landscape is famous.