Shimza Sends a Postcard Home With ‘Sunset in Pretoria’ EP on KUNYE
Three tracks, three collaborators, one Pretoria dusk: the South African Afro House figurehead turns his own label into a love letter to home.
By Wax Staff · June 20, 2026
"Rooted in home, resonant on dancefloors anywhere."
Fresh off announcing his summer residency at Pacha Ibiza, South African Afro House mainstay Shimza has handed in something quieter and more personal. Sunset in Pretoria, a three-track EP out now on his own KUNYE imprint, gathers a small cast of collaborators — Demayä, Jnr SA and Thatohatsi — into a short, focused tribute to the city and country that raised him.
KUNYE — founded by Shimza in 2020, its name meaning “together” in Xhosa and Zulu — has spent the last few years cementing itself as one of the more thoughtful homes for Afro House and Afro Tech, throwing parties from Johannesburg to London and releasing work from artists like Thakzin, Blanka Mazimela and Darque, with remixes from the likes of Louie Vega and Rodriguez Jr. Sunset in Pretoria reads as another chapter in that story, but a noticeably more intimate one.
A Pretoria Dusk, In Three Movements
The title track opens the EP with French and Dubai-based producer Demayä, an artist whose blend of Afro, organic, melodic and Berlin-leaning club sounds has drawn co-signs from Black Coffee, Damian Lazarus, Keinemusik and Laurent Garnier. ‘Sunset in Pretoria’ unfolds with cinematic patience — warm pads, hypnotic percussion, soaring melodic flourishes — letting the sense of dusk settle before opening into a full, transportive groove. It’s less a club tool than a slow exhale.
The mood shifts on ‘Uma Wami,’ where Shimza links with South African vocalists Jnr SA and Thatohatsi for the EP’s most outward, song-shaped moment. Rolling rhythms meet soulful harmonies in a space that sits between dancefloor energy and emotional warmth — intimate without ever feeling fragile. Thatohatsi, currently one of Spotify’s most-streamed female artists in South Africa and riding a recent charting album, lends a distinct local feminine energy to a record explicitly built around bridging home and the world.
Closing cut ‘Entle’ is where the EP’s emotional weight lands. Built around an expressive vocal and a slow-burning arrangement, it holds its tension through restraint before letting go in the final stretch. It earns its ending — the kind of closer that frames everything that came before.
Local Roots, Global Reach
Born in Tembisa and now one of the more globally active figures in Afro House and Afro Tech — with festival runs through Tomorrowland, Ultra and Cercle behind him — Shimza has framed this one as personal, and the framing holds up. Across its three tracks, Sunset in Pretoria moves through different shades of South African electronic music while keeping a single, cohesive identity: rooted in home, resonant on dancefloors anywhere.
Sunset in Pretoria is out now on KUNYE.