Johannesburg's first trendy rock'n'roll export, Blk Jks are the sound of a new South Africa. Indeed you'd be hard pushed to find a better example of the post-apartheid nation's new cultural momentum and boundary-breaking sensibility.
Four East Rand boys who defy convention by shunning the indigenous urban soundtrack of kwaito, Blk Jks make sense of their world with guitars, their leftfield dub-rock powered by an unmistakable 'heart of voodoo'.
'Rock was always seen as a white thing, the music of the enemy,' says guitarist Mpumi Mcata. 'When we started, we encountered a lot of hostility. Soon, though, people realised that what we were making was far more in tune with what's going on in South Africa now than any of the pop music playing on the radio.'
The band's appeal has spread throughout South African culture and onwards, their multifaceted sound bridging class divides. Numerous rock and traditional African staples inform Blk Jks, but Mcata claims it's their dub haze that resonates in the townships, while an art-rock element - recently honed for their forthcoming EP by Secret Machines' Brandon Curtis at New York's Electric Ladyland studios - has excited tastemakers across the globe.
'I like bands that sound like the country they are from,' says Mcata. 'So we just want to leave people with an original feeling of who we are and where we're from.'
· Blk Jks release an as yet untitled EP in June