Word.ws English Dictionary

gqom

/ɡoʊm/

gqom noun: a minimalistic style of house music from South Africa.

Noun

gqom (uncountable)

  1. A minimalistic style of house music from South Africa.
    • South African artists include rapper Sho Madjozi, gqom acts Rude Boyz, Dominowe and Phatstoki, and sgubhu producer Sleeping Buddah.2018 September 4, “Lokodo: This ugly thing called Nyege Nyege not happening this year”, in Daily Monitor
    • Although gqom's early history is blurry, its originators generally agree that it first emerged from Durban around the start of the 2010s, recorded using pirated software, shared on social media and by mobile phone, and popularised by minibus-taxi drivers who blasted the sound to attract young...2018, Matthew Collin, Rave On: Global Adventures in Electronic Dance Music, University of Chicago Press, →ISBN, page 202

Origin of gqom

Derived from an onomatopoeic combination of click consonants from the Zulu language, representing the sound of a drum.

Questions about gqom

What does gqom mean?
Gqom means a minimalistic style of house music from South Africa.
What part of speech is gqom?
Gqom is a noun.
How do you pronounce gqom?
Gqom is pronounced /ɡoʊm/.

Words near gqom in the dictionary

  1. GPWA
  2. GPWS
  3. GPX
  4. GQ
  5. Gqeberha
  6. gqom
  7. GQP
  8. GQPer
  9. GQPers
  10. gr
  11. GR-S

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gqom (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “gqom.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gqom. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.