The South African DJ and house producer Black Coffee released a yearning video for the single “Wish You Were Here” on Friday. The video is full of isolated people looking into empty space; during the clip’s dramatic peak, one character kneels on the pavement and shouts at the sky, nearly overcome by longing. Before his outburst, the vocalist Msaki sings simply, “my dreams are of you.”
Black Coffee mastered a specific style of house — gentle but heavily syncopated, friendly to both dancers and wallflowers — on tracks like “Turn Me On” with Bucie. He later rocketed to international fame after being sampled by Drake for the More Life track “Get It Together.”
But instead of using the Drake spotlight to flood the market with new music, like so many Drake collaborators before him, Black Coffee tried a different strategy. In the nearly two years since “Get It Together” came out, he’s remained quiet, focused almost entirely on DJing.
That’s not to say he’s been completely silent. Black Coffee contributed to David Guetta’s bloated double album 7 in 2018. But fans looking for the Black Coffee sound have been forced to try to find it elsewhere — or revisit the oldies.