What began as a dedicated stage within ULTRA South Africa has steadily grown into something with an identity, sound and community all of its own. This December, The Groove Room takes the next step in that evolution as it arrives at Cabo Beach for its first standalone Cape Town edition, bringing together some of the most influential and exciting names across South Africa’s electronic music landscape.
Kelvin Momo, DJ Kent, DBN Gogo, MÖRDA B2B DJ Zinhle and DJ Lag lead the line-up for The Groove Room Cape Town on 26 December, joined by Thakzin, JNR SA, International Pantsula and NOT A SHE.
Together, the line-up moves across generations and sounds — from Amapiano and Gqom to house, Afro House and the new directions continuing to emerge from South Africa’s club culture. In doing so, it captures what sits at the heart of The Groove Room: reflecting where African electronic music is now, while creating space for where it is going next.
Kelvin Momo brings the soulful, immersive edges of Amapiano; DJ Kent carries the lineage of South African house; DBN Gogo represents a generation that has helped push contemporary Amapiano forward; while DJ Lag brings the unmistakable pulse of Gqom. One of the day’s distinctive moments will see MÖRDA and DJ Zinhle go back-to-back, bringing two major forces in South African dance music together behind the decks.
But the story of The Groove Room has never belonged to the DJ booth alone.
Created as a dedicated stage within ULTRA South Africa, The Groove Room provided a home for African electronic music within one of the world’s biggest electronic music festivals. Over time, something began happening around the music: the dancers, fashion, movement, chants and shared rituals of the dancefloor started creating a culture every bit as distinctive as the sound itself.
The room became the experience. And now, for the first time in Cape Town, that experience gets a stage entirely of its own. With that move comes an opportunity to reimagine The Groove Room on a new scale. The standalone edition will introduce an ambitious technical production designed specifically for the experience, bringing together sound, stage design and production elements to transform Cabo Beach and create an environment built around the music and the people within it.
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From the way the stage is conceived to how sound moves through the space, the production will form an integral part of the experience rather than simply its backdrop, creating a new setting for The Groove Room’s next chapter.
Shaun Duwe, CEO of Anything Goes, says the move from ULTRA South Africa stage to standalone experience happened organically.
“We realised that people weren’t only coming to The Groove Room for individual artists. They were coming for what happened when those artists and that audience came together. It developed its own energy, its own community and eventually its own identity. This line-up reflects that journey - different generations and different sounds, but all part of this incredible African electronic music culture that continues to evolve.”
Cape Town on 26 December provides a fitting setting for The Groove Room’s next chapter. From late afternoon into the early hours, Cabo Beach becomes a meeting point for the sounds, people and culture that have shaped South African dance floors — and those taking them somewhere new.
Because if its evolution from festival stage to standalone experience has proved anything, it is that the people make the room.
We are African Electronic Music Culture. Step in.
