Artist of the Month: Vigro Deep

“I’m always working,” Vigro Deep confesses when we eventually jump on a call. “I always intend to find fun in my work. I always go to different countries, so just getting there and working, that’s my fun.” The 25-year-old amapiano producer and DJ shares when we ask what he does for recreation. Vigro is currently on a promo run, post the release of his latest LP, Baby Boy V so it wasn’t surprising that he had a clash at the time when our initial conversation was supposed to happen. 

A few hours later, though, we bump into him at DJ Maphorisa’s birthday celebration event – partying and reconnecting with local industry peers and colleagues. A rare occurrence for the South African musician who hardly goes out for leisure, in his home country, at least.

“I find joy in just being there,” Vigro says of his travels abroad. “For example, if I get booked into a hotel and the gig is 10 minutes away, I prefer to walk so I can just see [the area].” The globetrotting amapiano heavyweight uses such moments to just exist as a normal being. This year alone, the celebrated producer and DJ has added debuts in New York, Washington DC, Ibiza, Madrid, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver to the long list of places where he’s brought his thunderous DJ sets to. 

Before the international acclaim and a hectic tour schedule, Vigro Deep — whose real name is Kamogelo Phetla – grew up looking up to his father, DJ Spring of the duo The Godfathers of Deep House SA. “I had to learn music by fire, by force,” he admits. “When I started producing, I started by doing deep house because of what I was hearing every day in my house. My father inspired me just by travelling the world. He went to Dubai, and all these other places.” 

One of the other lessons he says he learnt from his dad was to be unique, and not “sound like the rest”. These teachings were clearly evidenced in Vigro’s earlier records such as “Black Power,” “Untold Stories” and “Bundle of Joy.” From the minute these started doing rounds in the streets circa 2018, it quickly became evident that his approach to the then-emergent genre was different. His production style and use of the logdrum was loud, daring and in your face. His tracks often had rattling basslines, quirky piano solos and thrilling build-ups with breaks that sounded like someone is hitting a glass bottle with a metal rod or a marble free-falling on a thin layer of glass while a member of a matching band bangs the Tom drum vigorously. 

As an independent producer, coming from the township of Atteridgeville, Pretoria, Vigro put out his first project Baby Boy on YouTube. He garnered so much attention that by the time the sequel dropped, it received “sixty thousand downloads in one hour” on file sharing site, Datafilehost - a staple for the distribution of music for the genre at the time, along with WhatsApp and other easily accessible platforms. 

Though he now admits to having been “fooling around” when he chose that title, the name stuck and has since become synonymous with his entire brand. At the time, the name – inspired by South African rapper A-Reece – was perfectly fitting for the baby-faced whizz who found success at the tender age of 17 years old. 

Not long afterward, mentorship and guidance from pioneering acts like Tsitso, DJ Bucks and the legendary Oskido helped Vigro to harness his skill. With the latter even signing the then child-prodigy to the seminal Kalawa Jazzme. The inventive producer displayed growth and artistic expansion with each track, remix, feature and project that came next. His productions — most notably on DJ Maphorisa & Kabza De Small’s “Vula Vala” in 2019 and Focalistic’s 2020 hit “Ke Star” – became instrumental to the growth and global expansion of amapiano, propelling the genre into new heights and territories.

As more bookings outside of his native land came, Vigro’s appetite for the international market grew. Far Away From Home (2021) and My House My Rules (2022), released under the London-headquartered Rinse, represented a pivot for the innovative producer as he boldly widened his sonic horizons. Influenced by what he was hearing around him at the time, Vigro incorporated elements of techno and big room house into his already energetic sound. It was his way of going against the grain and refusing to fit in genre norms, again. 

“I got tired of playing the same thing,” Vigro reveals. “As a person, the more you travel, the more you experience things. Whenever I get to a place there’s something that I learn. About 70% of Far Away From Home was done in Europe. I had to stay there and think about what could take my sound to another level.” In this quest for musical elevation, Vigro became a sponge and soaked up the different Euro-centric, “rave-y” sounds. He cites David Guetta, Morten and Black Coffee as the biggest inspirations of the project as he strived to “fuse their sounds” with his. “My House My Rules on the other hand speaks to where I come from, especially the deep house side. It’s me mixing deep house with my own style and some electro-house.”

He credits this mindset and stylistic shift with his encounter and conversations with Skrillex – whom he speaks very fondly of. The pair first met in 2021 after Skrillex directly messaged Vigro, expressing his interest in attending Vigro’s Boiler Room gig in London. The Baby Boy 012 label owner says being in the studio with the globally recognised producer/DJ “blew his mind.” 

“I’ve always wanted to understand how he does it, ‘cause he comes up with new sounds regularly. He told me how, at first, people never used to like his music, but he had to continue…” Vigro remembers, reflecting on his own come up and the remarks people used to have about his artistry. “He told me the power of learning and being in a studio with other people. He said, ‘push the boundaries, as a producer they respect your name and your music. Doesn’t matter if you do gospel, people are still gonna listen to you.’” The pair would eventually play a one-of-a-kind, multi-genred B2B alongside Nigerian DJ/producer Sarz, in 2023, and collaborate on a Burna Boy and Amaraae-featuring tune that is yet to be released.

For the significant part of his illustrious career, the 2025 Beatport Producer of The Year nominee has exhibited traits of being a Lone Ranger who only selected a few to join his sonic universe. But that interaction with Skrillex continues to shape him, today. In the past year, he’s collaborated a great deal with other producers within his scene, and has added joint projects to his lengthy discography. He teamed up with Mr JazziQ on The Grass Is Greener and Freddy K on Your Piano Is Not My Piano, and co-produced Kabza De Small’s 2024 hit “Wishi Wishi.”

“Collaborations are very important because you always need someone else,” he attests. “It’s not possible to always want to do your own thing.” The amapiano flagbearer – who has played at major stages such as Dour Festival in 2022 and Glastonbury the year after – highlights the collective energy of the genre and points out the importance of staying true to this tradition, even when global pressures and standards of the music industry advise otherwise. “Working with Freddy, featuring JazziQ and doing things with Kabza was my way of being connected to the culture,” he proclaims.

Along with these joint efforts, Vigro recently introduced a new trick of playing the keyboard live during his DJ sets overseas. This is a return to the roots, both for him and the genre – the instrument was omnipresent during the sound’s early days. “It's keeping the culture of ‘piano, how it’s supposed to be like. To be honest, I think, we’ve now lost the concept of it… it’s missing keys,” he says, sounding concerned, but also taking accountability for his contribution to the current state. 

This new addition to his live DJ sets, coupled with an exercise of looking at his geographical streaming data, reminded him to never forget about catering to his core audience, as Johannesburg and Pretoria still appear atop of his backend analytics. “This is where I’m from, and this is where my music first blew up. South Africans made people from Europe and the United States know me, so I thought why don’t I feed them and then continue doing my own things. People kept telling me,’we see what you’re doing outside [of SA], but it’s just that we don’t understand.’ So I had to come back and show them that it’s still me and I haven’t forgotten where I’m from.”

Such comments from dedicated supporters and his own longing of wanting to return home, sonically, is the foundation Baby Boy V is built on. It’s a continuation of the collaborative explorations the ever-evolving producer did last year. Finalising it at a studio and recording camp hosted a few months back, Vigro invited a slew of prominent amapiano producers and vocalists such as Mellow & Sleazy, Djy Biza, Ch’cco, Cowboii and Moonchild Sanelly – who guest appears in four thumping tracks, out of the 20 the album houses.

The “Soundcheck” hitmaker stresses that amapiano street bangers are typically driven by trends or follow a similar tried-and-tested formula. Be it catchy, call-and-response chants or working with the same popular vocalists, and these days, TikTok dance challenge-ready tracks, he wishes to shy away from them all, eventually. And it’s for this reason he says he wanted to give his fans the last taste of what he describes as the ‘Baby Boy sound’ before exploring what comes next. 

”For me, it was just, I wanted to close the chapter of straata (street bangers),” he explains. “Yes, they can still be there, maybe one track, but not the whole project. The plan was to feed them one more time, because my brain is now focusing on other things. I’m not leaving my core sound behind altogether, but I’m just taking my style somewhere else.” 

Baby Boy V acts as both a curtain close on the sound he’s grown to be revered for and a sneak peek of what is to come. “I had to mix gqom, I had to mix 3Step but on a slower tempo… just to show people the direction I’m going so people are not surprised when I do Afro-tech or 3Step as I’ve introduced that on this project.” 

Traces of these other homegrown genres surface towards the second half of the LP. Hints of gqom resound in “Iscabha 2.0” and “Uyaganga 2.0” – the grainy edits of original tracks from Goldmax and Worst Behaviour, both featuring vocals from Dladla Mshunqisi. While “Chipi,” “Unga Joli” and “Muye” show inklings of Afro-house/Afro-tech, with the latter even being a namesake with Keinemusik’s landmark 2017 record (which later got reworked by Black Coffee).

The fifth and final instalment of Vigro’s Baby Boy album series achieves its intended purpose. And as fate would have it, the project has already spawned the local hits “A-Z (Yashi Moto)” and “Bhampa,” which have maintained Vigro’s relevancy in South Africa. The prolific producer/DJ is, however, not satisfied. And still has his eyes fixated across the pond. With an unreleased track with UK rapper Pa Salieu in the vault, and Travis Scott as his dream collaborator, Vigro is still in pursuit of deepening his global visibility. “I want to be able to reach places that I haven’t been able to go to. Doing different styles and music, that’s the journey I’m headed to.”

Check out Vigro Deep's 'Artist of the Month' chart below: