Vampire Weekend came to public attention via a variety of blogs, first on the African music audioblog "Benn loxo du taccu"[3] and then six months later on Stereogum,[4]on which they claimed to "want to be like the nogs" leading many to cite them as another example of the "blog band" phenomenon. The band is influenced by both African popular music and Western classical music. They describe their genre of music as "Upper West Side Soweto", performing such songs as "Cape Cod Kwassa Kwassa," which references Congolese soukous music.