Why Risk It All Still Matters: TannyTeeY, Blastfemi and Auto-Tune R&B

A South African Producer, a Blastfemi Feature and the Auto-Tune R&B Lineage Behind It

Risk It All by TannyTeeY puts an Auto-Tune-treated R&B vocal at the centre of a compact pop single. Frequent collaborator Blastfemi shares the billing as the featured artist. Released on 7 April 2022, the track runs just over two and a half minutes. It also marks an early point in the catalogue of a South Africa-based producer-artist. That work now reaches from reggae to amapiano and gospel.

TannyTeeY and Blastfemi’s single sits in the playlist below, beside the alt R&B and neo soul on this desk’s rotation. The rest of the coverage is collected on TannyTeeY’s profile. Risk It All reached BlackSounds.News through PopHits.Co Music Charts, the programme that verifies independent artists and places their releases across its network of music news titles. Listen now, then read on for the full story.

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The Auto-Tune Lineage Behind TannyTeeY and Risk It All, From Talk Box to Amapiano

Vocal processing as an instrument has deep roots in Black music. In the 1980s, Roger Troutman of Zapp turned the talk box into a signature voice. Its robotic glide sat on top of funk grooves as a lead instrument. Two decades later, T-Pain carried that idea into R&B with Auto-Tune. He has also credited Troutman’s talk box as the sound that led him there. As a result, the pitch-corrected slide stopped being a hidden studio fix and became a sound in its own right.

Since then, the effect has settled into R&B’s everyday vocabulary. Independent producers now reach for it the way an earlier generation reached for a string pad or a vocoder. For them, it is one more colour on the palette. Risk It All belongs to that lineage, and its billing says so plainly. The tags read alternative indie R&B, with Auto-Tune named as part of the sound.

In Southern Africa, meanwhile, the same R&B vocabulary has moved onto the dancefloor. Amapiano is the South African house offshoot built on rolling log-drum basslines. It spread well beyond the country from around 2019, and R&B singers and producers have fed it melodies ever since. TannyTeeY works on both sides of that line. That is what makes this small single worth a second look.

Where TannyTeeY Fits, a South African Producer Moving Between R&B, Amapiano and Gospel

TannyTeeY is a producer first and a vocalist alongside it. The artist’s own link page lists the roles as artist, writer, beatmaker and sound engineer. A beat store also sits next to the streaming links. Likewise, the YouTube channel reflects the same mix, with finished songs posted beside instrumentals and amapiano cuts such as Dilemma.

The catalogue shows how wide that range runs. The earliest singles, Bad Gril and Go Down, arrived in 2018 and are filed as reggae. In 2022, the output turned towards R&B and dance. Tsvodii came in January and Risk It All in April. After that came the Afro house single Kwadoka in August and Rosé with KAYOTO in November. The Underwater EP followed in 2023. Next, the gospel single I Belong to You and the house track Bambelela arrived in 2024. More recently, the New Jersey EP landed in 2025 and I’m Your Child in 2026.

Within that run, Risk It All is a pivot point. It is the first release TannyTeeY and Blastfemi share, and the partnership has kept going. Blastfemi returned for Kwadoka four months later. In 2023, TannyTeeY appeared on Blastfemi’s own track Till I’m Done. The two then teamed up again on Usawomera in 2025. So the single works as the starting line for a collaboration that has now run for more than three years.

The record itself is short and direct. It clocks in at 2 minutes 37 seconds, and Apple Music files it under pop. Meanwhile, the R&B vocal treatment carries the hook. There is no long intro and no extended outro. For a producer who also sells beats, that economy makes sense: the song is built to get to the point.

The Adjacent Acts Around Risk It All, From T-Pain’s Auto-Tune to Tyla’s Amapiano Pop

T-Pain is the obvious reference for anyone curious about the vocal approach. His run of hits in the mid-2000s proved that Auto-Tune could carry emotion rather than hide a flaw. In fact, every R&B singer who leans into the effect today is working in the space he opened. Risk It All uses that tool on a far smaller, independent scale. Even so, the logic is the same: treat the processed voice as the instrument.

Tyla is the other useful neighbour. The South African singer took amapiano-leaning pop global with Water. The song reached the Billboard Hot 100 in 2023. It then won the first Grammy for Best African Music Performance in 2024. TannyTeeY operates far from that spotlight, but in the same meeting point of R&B vocals and South African dance rhythm. The later catalogue also leans further into that space.

So who is Risk It All for? Listeners who like their R&B with the effects left in, first of all. It also suits anyone following independent producers across Southern Africa. Similarly, it will appeal to anyone who enjoys tracing how one short single can open a working partnership. It is a quick listen, and it rewards being heard alongside the Blastfemi releases that came after it.

From the BlackSounds.News Curator Team: “Risk It All keeps things tight. It is done in under three minutes and rides one idea. It also opens a TannyTeeY and Blastfemi partnership that was still producing records three years later.”

Hear Risk It All and Follow TannyTeeY Across Every Platform

Stream Risk It All on Spotify or Apple Music. Then follow TannyTeeY through the Spotify profile, the Apple Music artist page, Deezer, Audiomack and SoundCloud. For videos and updates, head to YouTube, Instagram, TikTok and Facebook. Alternatively, find every link in one place on Linktree.

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