SA's TxC and their fast rise to global stardom

A vibrant amapiano duo is what I would call Tarryn Reid and Clairise Hefke, collectively known as TxC. As the two Disk Jockeys (DJs) headlined the recent Full moon party at Kendwa Rocks Hotel in Zanzibar alongside other DJs from different parts of Africa including our own DJ Romy Jones, DJ Ghboi from Ghana, DJ DukeDeep from Swaziland, DJ Moscows and DJ Lady Dee who are both from South Africa.

Sitting down with The Beat Tarryne and Claire unravelled how their journey into the ‘DJ-ing’ world began.

“It started on a balcony in 2019 where we would play different kinds of music for the sake of having fun,” Claire narrates.

She adds that the two started to enjoy the balcony sessions, and “we decided to take them as further as attending a DJ- ing school called Kue DJ Academy that refined our skills to this duo the world is witnessing right now,”

But before Tarryne and Claire enrolled at the academy, they were stressing on a genre that would make people enjoy their outstanding work hence Amapiano came in the picture.

Claire says, “It was at that moment we knew ‘this is it, this is the sound’ and here we are,”

Three years later, TxC released their first EP dubbed ‘A Fierce Piano’, a five song project featuring different music icons including Unlimited Soul, Dinky Kunene, TNK Musiq, Tim Lyre, Murumba Pitch and Daliwonga that exposed their work event more.

“We named it that way to bring out the fierce in us, we wanted to share with the world our energy and realities through the sharp instruments and sounds,” Tarryne explains.

She adds, “Fierce is more like our duo theme, it identifies us as DJs because our aim is to portray a confident inspirational yet energetic image,”

Speaking on the signature move, Tarryne says that the public adores the group’s contradicting profiles.

“People know and love when I do my little dance (she laughs) and when Claire is being chill and cute behind the Booth as she keeps the music on the groove,”

Tarryne recalls that in the beginning, the crowd loved the move and through it, the parties the two worked at became more enjoyable.

“We got more responses which made us crave to become better at it, however we are still learning on how to fully master it. It is such a balance to us as a duo” she says. TxC are the first South African female duo and the fact that TxC began when the Amapiano era had just started, it differentiated them from other DJs around the continent.

“Amapiano started when we started, it made us indirectly give out a statement that it was a genre that is embedded by our duo. This made us stand out and even inspire the birth of other duos who are following our steps,” says Claire

Tarryne adds that, “Through this genre, we have been able to open up to the world and be the best version of ourselves. We have connected with people from all parts of the world, one of them being Zanzibar as we share an understanding of how enjoyable Amapiano is,”

Speaking of their goals, the two say that they see themselves dominating the global scene.

“We have a plan, and that includes getting us everywhere! We see ourselves on Vogue, on Televisions, we see ourselves everywhere. We have got a plan and we will get there,” says Claire.

The duo is currently preparing for a performance at the 2022 FIFA World Cup that is set to take place in Qatar in November this year.

“We are at the moment preparing the remix that will be played at the World Cup but we already foresee how we will steal the audiences’ hearts with our Amapiano playlist,” says Tarryne.

Gracing the Kendwa Rocks’ full moon party last weekend was such a beautiful moment.

At some point, my heart was thumping to the sounds as my feet were slowly jamming to the playing sounds. A thought that was more of a rhetorical question to myself crossed my mind; ‘should I join Tarryne on this very stage?’ Of course, I brushed it away

The DJ booth was first graced by other talents including DJ Ghboi and our very own, DJ Ally B and a few seconds to 2am, the DJ Booth was empty. The crowd began to roar Tarryne and Claire’s names. The event MC loudly chanted with the audience ‘TxC! TxC! TxC! And as the clock hit 2:00am, the duo got on stage.

Claire wore a black set that matched her straight black coloured hair complemented by four thick hair strands that hung from the front. Tarryne put on an orange set that was paired with curly black hair that reached to her waist. She wore white air force kicks ready to set the stage ablaze.

The girls’ playlist did not only match the energy of the audience, it made people dance to the rhythm of every sound that was played. It was like Amapiano was the language that was fluently spoken by both the crowd and the South African duo.

They played a number of songs from their recently released Extended Play (EP) titled A Fierce Piano to other songs such Uncle Waffle’s Tanzania, Musa Keys’ Selema Popo featuring Loui and Ku Lo Sa, one of the bangers running the charts by Oxlade.

With Claire’s hands playing with different instruments, there were a number of times Tarryne danced along the tracks that were played, a tactic which the two call their ‘signature move’.

Whenever she slowly teased her way out of the booth, the crowd cheered as this hinted it was about to go down. In other words, this somewhat connected the audience with the duo whom people often mistake for twins.