From the HARDER series of high-energy global electronic music:

https://soundcloud.com/djzhao/sets/harder

Danca Do Sal - Sale X Mr Snowman - Be Alright

From the upcoming 3 volume HARDER series of seamlessly mixed mash-edits of uptempo high-energy global rave music.

Unknown - Do Cutuvelo X Benga & Coki - Night (Burgaboy Remix)

HARDER 3

This mix originally made to promote BlackBox 1 has grown into a proper NGOMA release – with a few changes and much new goodness including 2 special edits – one of the Ethiopian classic by Mahmoud Ahmed (following a funktastische number by Berlin’s own Woima Collective), and another of a very unique cosmic disco track by the techno head Lego Welt’s Afrocentric alter ego Nacho Patrol. 

(old version of this mix can still be heard here: <a href="https://soundcloud.com/rebootfm/11-dj-zhao-blackbox-1-ngoma">Rebootfm – 11-dj-zhao-blackbox-1-ngoma</a>)

Unlike the last installment of NGOMA Classic which consisted entirely of vintage Soukous and Congolese Rumba, the borders of this one is much more fuzzy: music both classic and new is included, plenty of African Rock, Soul, Disco, with even a few electronic remix treatments - within the loose parameters of the various sounds comprising the "Afrobeat" constellation, the primary concern here is the dance floor.

full track list here:  http://ngomasound.com/2013/11/13/ngoma-classic-2-funk-original/

NGOMA Classic 2 - Afrobeat

Very excited to bring you this long time coming Neuvo/Electro/Bass Cumbia mix, about time i showed solidarity with all my South American sisters and brothers, Christmas day is as good as any other :)

For a long while i played mostly classic Colombian Cumbia from the Discos Fuentes "Golden Age", but recently more and more quality urban electronic and digital Cumbia which combines bass and tradition, with lots of groove and soul, has been added to the crates.  The tracks here encompass many different worlds simultaneously: Afro-Latin heritage, international electronics, Hiphop, Dancehall, Reggaeton, sometimes even East Asian or Middle Eastern sounding melodies. While many diverse elements are involved, I have stayed away from related styles such as reggaeton, Moombahton, Latin Hiphop, Latin House, Tribal Guarachero - the selections here are nearly all immediately recognizable as Cumbia, with the characteristic chugging rhythm and copious amounts of distinct accordion.  Most of the big names in the game are represented here, as well as several relatively unknowns, and a few unreleased exclusives and special edits from me.  It was also difficult to not include any of the hundreds of Classic or "Trad-Modern" all time favorites.  There will be time for all that and above mentioned...  hopefully :)

This wave of "Digital Cumbia" is of course only the latest in a series of revivals, reinventions, and re-constructions of the music. Its roots are several hundred years old, in the coastal areas of Colombia, from a cultural (and biological) fusion of Africans with indigenous populations ("gaitero" music made with the large Amerindian flute is a good example - check track 07 and 08), with influences from Europeans (accordion), as but 1 of dozens of Afro-Latin styles.   From its rural origins to modernization for urban audiences in the 1920s; its absorption of swing, jazz and other foreign sounds; building up to the Discos Fuentes era "Golden Age"; to relative negligence by the world at large for some decades as the ghetto music of the underclass; to where we are now, the context of this mix: Cumbia's current place at the center of hipster party scenes world wide - it's a long, fascinating, and complex story, told by quite a few different historians and musicologists, here are a few links, i encourage everyone to dig further into it:

http://www.indiana.edu/~libarchm/index.php/outreach/podcasts/cumbia-the-construction-of-a-musical-genre-in-the-mid-twentieth-century.html

http://www.npr.org/blogs/altlatino/2013/09/30/227834004/cumbia-the-musical-backbone-of-latin-america

http://www.dukeupress.edu/Assets/PubMaterials/978-0-8223-5433-8_601.pdf

Latin America has of course a long history of struggle for justice, freedom, equality, and human rights, against repressive economic policies and disastrous political measures, mainly coming from and at the hands of the United States.  Just like in Africa, many democratically elected Latin American leaders were systematically removed and replaced by corrupt lapdogs in the making of foreign controlled states which brought immense suffering for local populations but made money for Corporations such as United Fruit (origin and meaning of the phrase Banana Republic).  Generations fought and survived, and today the fight continues against neoliberal global capitalism, which brings to the continent a new wave of intensified neo-colonial exploitation with disastrous social consequences and catastrophic environmental devastation.  In trying to acknowledge and spread awareness of these movements toward liberation in South America, and align good music with the people from whom it comes, the often under privileged and marginalized classes, this mix includes the sampled voices or words from Subcomandante Marcos, Che Guevara, Hugo Chavez,  Nicolas Maduro, an environmental activist, and Tanja Nijmeijer*.

* I hope the inclusion of the voice of this Farc member will not be offensive to anyone:  while i am aware that the integrity of the group has been increasingly compromised since the 1970s, this woman's words here still ring true and i believe come from a place of sincerity. 

TRACKLIST:  http://ngomasound.com/2013/12/24/ngoma-17-cumbiatronic/

Enjoy and have a great holidays!

NGOMA 17 - Cumbiatronic

Amapiano emerged out of Soweto in Johannesburg in the recent 5 years, popularised in the legendary Poniaza club. 

Musically, it is a reaction against the previous style to dominate the South African scene for some years, Gqom, an intense and heavy Afro-rave music defined by a relentless and often manic energy, which evolved out of the rougher side of Durban House.  

Amapiano swings the vibes hammer all the way in the other direction: towards more melody, more musicality, more conventionally pleasing sounds, and drops the BPM from 130 down to exactly 114. 

A vision of African Futurism decidedly the opposite of European sonic futurism:  

The music featured in the prestigious European showcase festivals has been and is primarily about a rejection of history: minimalist bleeps and bloops, noise and bass, that comprise attempts at total divorce from past movements and genres, at destruction of music as we know it. 

In stark contrast, Amapiano, perhaps emblematic of African Futurism, embraces all of the past styles of social music in the modern period at the same time as it is informed by pre-modern traditions: recognisable influences from Jazz, Reggae, Dancehall, Hip Hop, R'n'B, Disco, House, Electro, Bass, even vocal chart Pop, all held together by re-emergent ancestral polyrhythms finding new expression with a signature percussive bass.  

At the same time as it is “accessible”, Amapiano is revolutionary in a formal sense.  The very structure of dance music is radically transformed as the relationship between lows and highs, between bass and melody, is flipped. 

In Western (Afro-American) modern dance music, the bass kick provides a constant repeating pattern on top of which higher frequencies float, doing variations within sameness.  

The central passages of Amapiano tracks turns this on its head: the constant repeating patterns are done with the highs, such as melodic refrains, and it is the BASS which does variations within the sameness, recalling the Mama Ngoma drum of the Congo, largest and heaviest of the family of drums, always doing the solos.

With radical innovation happening in many places all over the mother continent every few years, Amapiano is only 1 wave in oceans of living, constantly evolving rhythm culture.   But it clearly demonstrates a modus operandi that is both very different from Western approaches, as well as an exponentially more vast knowledge and conceptual base on which new configurations can arise.

2 AmaStorm

Amapiano emerged out of Soweto in Johannesburg in the recent 5 years, popularised in the legendary Poniaza club. 

Musically, it is a reaction against the previous sound to dominate the South African scene for some years, Gqom, an intense and heavy Afro-rave music defined by a relentless and repetitive energy, which evolved out of the rougher side of Durban House.  

Amapiano swings the vibes hammer all the way in the other direction: toward more musicality, more melody, more conventionally pleasing sounds, and drops the BPM from 130 down to exactly 114. 

A vision of African Futurism decidedly the opposite of European sonic futurism:  

The music featured in the prestigious European showcase festivals has been and is primarily about a rejection of history: minimalist bleeps and bloops, noise and bass, that comprise attempts at divorce from past movements and genres, at destruction of music as we know it. 

In stark contrast, Amapiano embraces all of the past styles as it is informed by pre-modern traditions: recognisable influences from Jazz, Reggae, Dancehall, Hip Hop, R'n'B, Disco, House, Electro, even vocal chart Pop, all held together by re-emergent ancestral polyrhythms finding new expression with a signature percussive bass.  

At the same time as it is “accessible”, Amapiano is revolutionary in a formal sense.  The very structure of dance music is radically transformed as the relationship between bass and melody, between lows and highs, is flipped. 

In Western (Afro-American) modern dance music, the bass kick provides a constant repeating pattern on top of which higher frequencies float, doing variations within sameness.  

The central passages of Amapiano tracks turns this on its head: the constant repeating patterns are done with the highs, such as melodic refrains, and it is the BASS which does variations within the sameness, recalling the Mama Ngoma drum of the Congo, largest and heaviest of the family of drums, always doing the solos.

With radical innovation happening in many places all over the mother continent every few years, Amapiano is only 1 wave in the ocean of living, constantly evolving rhythm culture.   But it clearly demonstrates a modus operandi that is both very different from Western approaches, as well as an exponentially more vast knowledge and conceptual base on which new configurations can arise.

1 AmaSunshine

Preceded by 2 hours of slow and uplifting Cumbia from an 8 piece live band from Portugal, the hall was relaxed, full of good cheer, and the crowd was ready for a different vibe.   

This set took them from deepest night to the first rays of sunlight.

FUSION FESTIVAL 2022 Salon DeBaile Saturday Night 3-6 am

Futurism in Europe, the sonic avant garde, for the past half century or more, has proceeded on a total rejection of tradition.  A cultural product of post-modernism and historical nihilism, the assumption rested upon is that the past is only shit and must be destroyed, wiped clean, to have tabula rasa - which is nothing but a fantasy, never mind the result of false understanding.   So what we end up with at Atonal or Transmediale is an aversion to melody, a rejection of musicality, thousands of artists making bleeps, bloops, rigid,  mechanical, inhuman forms, all of which mono-cultural, mono-rhythmic, and deeply pessimistic.  But in the end, contemporary European electronic music, for all its rhetoric and pretence at "futurity", fails to innovate, and is today in 2024 still near entirely reliant on innovations made 40+ years ago in Detroit and Dusseldorf -- clubs are mostly still playing the exact same single  untz untz rhythm pattern. 

Futurism in the Global South is the opposite.  

Firstly there is a formal revolution every few years in which new palettes, new rhythm patterns, and new dynamics emerge.  In South Africa alone, we have seen radical new styles like Gqom and Amapiano within just the past decades.   

Secondly, contemporary African electronic music is characterised by an EMBRACE of tradition, and not only those of the music makers themselves.  In a heavy bass number, all of a suddent bursts of ecstatic deep jazz saxophone.  Forms like Samba, Jamaican dancehall, etc., etc., are often alluded to and paid respect or re-interpreted.  Angolan Kuduro often references Brazillian music as well as include Portugese influences; Amapiano encompasses near everything that has happened in not only African but also African American music during the past century, from jazz to house to hip hop and reggae, but done in unmistakeably South African ways.  There is no allergy to melody, no fear of musicality, no aversion to sentiment -- and it is often the contrast between challenging and even abrasive timbres and bits of traditionalism that sometimes even celebrates dripping wet romanticism that gives the music that much more progressive power.

_____________________

The horrors unfolding around the world today in 2023 can be seen as the birth pangs of a new, more just and peaceful world to come.  

Along with the final and real removal of colonial forces and increased cooperation with the multipolar world, we will see, are already seeing, authentic economic development, connection, and integration in and of the motherland.  In the next decades to century or more, the humanist technologies of the Global South will thrive, multiply, and cross pollinate.  

Now is a time to mourn, to struggle, as well as to celebrate the deep, world historic changes taking place, and what is to come.

We should dance not despite, not in trying to forget, the violence and sadness of current conflicts, but in the realisation that this is the end of the imperialist era; and in solidarity with the rise of multi-polarity, envisioning a bright future for the formerly colonised.

Futurism with African Characteristics ONE

Futurism With African Characteristics TWO

Gqom is South African rhythm tradition shaped by the social reality of neoliberalism under a corrupted ANC, after Mandela having had to make major concessions to foreign pressure, unable to carry out the land and property reforms that were central to his post-independence program --- high crime rates, high levels of social tension and conflict, high levels of discontent and anxiety.

Gqom is ancestral Southern African rhythm heritage refracted through the lens of late capitalism, both expressing how we feel in this chaotic era as shaped by the objective conditions of social conflict, as well as to the deeper, timeless collective culture that is our common inheritance.

GQOM: Class War

The climate in Nairobi is cool and perfect all year round, despite being on the equator, due to its high altitude.  The East African Rumba sound is also often cooler compared to Soukous from the Congo (NGOMA Classic vol. 1).  

I play this music in the seamless style of techno: this is the original minimalist dance music, with a driving, constant 4 on the floor kick, hypnotic motifs, and modular progression. There is a lot more going on here than the predominantly Luo popular style known as Benga, but also golden classics from the Kikuyu, Kamba, Luhya, and other tribes of Kenya. Grooves so sweet they ache the heart as they move the feet... Sounds difficult if not impossible to find outside of East Africa.

"I started playing music in school, and I had a cousin, Aoka Meja, who had a guitar. We copied the style of Adero Onani, who played traditional music on the guitar. In 1958, I got my first acoustic guitar and played Rumba. In 1965, I started to play Benga.

Benga was influenced by the beat of the nyatiti, and we interpreted that on the guitar. We also borrowed from the orutu, which followed the voice of the singer … I formed Sega Sega, and we … did a huge amount of studio work. And as Benga became popular, the three of us played on a lot of other people’s songs. This meant that our Luo sound was getting on a lot of records. The early ‘60’s was mostly about studio work, but by ’70 to ’71, when Benga was really at its peak, the Sega Sega band was very big. We were always performing at events and functions. We did okay, and I made enough to buy my farm and build the house in which I still live . . ."

---- Osumba Rateng, from Benga: The best of cultural integration, by James Allen

"Guitars had started gaining popularity in Kenya in the 1950s and it wasn’t long before Benga started taking form in the Luo speaking areas surrounding Lake Victoria in the early 60s. Misiani (commonly known as the "King of HIstory" and father of Benga, whose band is also on the cover of this mix - Zhao) was actually born across Kenya’s southern border in Tanganyika in 1940 in the Luo community of Shirati. His earliest years as a musician brought him numerous clashes with uthority and several escapes to safer ground to avoid punishment. It seems he and his music were very popular with schoolgirls and young women, but the parents weren’t too keen on his seductive love songs and the authorities didn’t appreciate the fights among the young men over the girls. Misiani recounted several times that his guitars were seized and smashed, and that he had to leave the village quickly. He would disappear for a while, wait for things to settle down and then return.

The songs of the early 70s have a lighter percussion with the beat kept by tapping on the rim of a snare drum. They also mastered a rhythmic clicking sound using the electric guitar pick-up that is heard in a number of pieces. From about 1976 this sound changes with the use of a full drum kit and the deeper sound of the kick drum, with now the high hat receiving most of the attention from the drummer’s sticks. The saxophone heard in some of the earlier songs is gone. By the late 70s, we’re into the mature benga sound exemplified by ‘Wang Ni To Iringo’ that propelled benga through the 80s and into the 90s.

Misiani was a composer without fear in an environment that threatened free speech and critical thought. In his early years, it was his love songs in his home village that had got him in trouble, and in the Shirati Jazz years (essentially the rest of his life after leaving the village), he was known for biting commentary on Kenya’s political, social, and economic institutions. However such criticism was never direct. His songs convey meaning at a deeper level. He would use a theme such as a verse or parable in the Bible, a piece of African history, a prophecy, or an animal fable that would allow listeners to draw a meaning relevant to the current events of the day. Periodically, when one of his songs could be interpreted as presenting the government or a politician in an unflattering way, the authorities would pick up Misiani and take him off to jail. At one point he was deported to Tanzania. Another time he was arrested – though not convicted – of being an illegal Tanzanian immigrant. Nairobi’s Nation newspaper quotes him in 2006 as saying: “Tell me, is there anything wrong with singing about what’s going wrong in our society? I just sing about what is happening and if some people are not happy, I can do little about it.” It is in this arena, I think, where Misiani really merits his King of History title. With its multiple layers of meaning, it accurately portrays both the status and the mechanism by which he achieved that status: keep it sweet, keep it entertaining but, at all times, keep it relevant.

---- from liner notes of "D.O. MISIANI and SHIRATI JAZZ, THE KING OF HISTORY, CLASSIC 1970S BENGA BEATS FROM KENYA" (Sterns Music)

Tracklisting:  http://ngomasound.com/2014/11/28/ngoma-classic-3-mega-benga/

NGOMA Classic 3 - Mega Benga

21st Century African Futurism, steeped in tradition and cross pollinated with many other strands of global dance music.

GQOM: UNITY

Predominantly Muslim music from Palestinians, Algerians, Moroccans, Syrians, Pakistani, Egyptians, Indians, Hausa, and Mongolians seamlessly mixed and juxtaposed as not only a tapestry of cultural cross pollination but a vision of future regional and cultural integration and unity.

1 of 3 in a series of hypnotic and ecstatic Rhythms and melodies in anticipation of increased West Asian, South Asian, South East Asian, East Asian, and African cooperation in matters of culture as well as economy, diplomacy, security.  A sonic vision of a potential Asian Union as part of BRICS and rising multipolarity.

قطة

Predominantly Muslim music from Palestinians, Algerians, Moroccans, Syrians, Pakistani, Egyptians, Indians, Hausa, and Mongolians seamlessly mixed and juxtaposed as not only a tapestry of cultural cross pollination but a vision of future regional and cultural integration and unity.

2 of 3 in a series of hypnotic and ecstatic Rhythms and melodies in anticipation of increased West Asian, South Asian, South East Asian, East Asian, and African cooperation in matters of culture as well as economy, diplomacy, security. A sonic vision of a potential Asian Union as part of BRICS and rising multipolarity.

الشجرة

Predominantly Muslim music from Palestinians, Algerians, Moroccans, Syrians, Pakistani, Egyptians, Indians, and Hausa seamlessly woven and juxtaposed as not only a tapestry of cultural cross pollination but a vision of future regional, cultural integration and unity.

3 of 3 in a series of hypnotic and ecstatic Rhythms and melodies in anticipation of increased West Asian, South Asian, South East Asian, East Asian, and African cooperation in matters of rhythmelody as well as economy, diplomacy, security. A sonic vision of a potential Asian Union as part of BRICS and rising multipolarity.

قمر

In Lagos slang, "mara" means "crazy, wild", and "cruise" means "fun, a good time".  

The loosely defined but at the same time distinct fresh style of music known as “Cruise Beat” or “Free Beat” began to spread from Lagos on TikTok and other social media in Nigeria around 3 or 4 years ago.  

A kind of “Anti-Afrobeats”, Cruisebeat is largely a reaction against the by now ubiquitous and internationally popularised sound of Naija Pop with its slower tempos and languid, introspective, romantic themes reminiscent of Zouk/Kizomba.  In sharp contrast, the younger generation is making music at much higher tempos, with cocophonous use of samples and an irreverent, rebellious, riotous modus operandi.  

Cruisebeat is the new Punk. 


Continue reading:  https://ngomasound.com/2025/05/13/mara-cruise

Mara Cruise

21st Century urban electronic music of Africa, Asia, and South America:  Nigerian Cruisebeat, Saudi Arabian Samri, Hausa Jams, New school Brazillian Funk, Dominican Dembow, Lebanese Dabke, South African Amapiano, Jamaican Dancehall...

During all of human history, cultures have always traded goods, recipes, rhythms, ideas, and different peoples have always intermingled and intermarried. For millennia Africans, Arabs, Persians, Indians, Chinese, and Europeans did business and partied in metropolitan centers like Zanzibar, one of many such hotspots across the most vibrant exchange routes in the Indian Ocean. Until the 1600s, when the Portugese and later French and English, etc., choked off free trade by controlling all the major pots, and spread an ideology of cultural purity and ethnic essentialism, separating people into boxes — a process which has only intensified in our neo-liberal times.

Today vast stretches of a New Silk Road has already been built, once again connecting economies of Africa, Asia, and South America, and is rapidly expanding. 

And today we see amazing new ideas and methods rapidly developing and hybridizing in the Global South --- a process that will surely proliferate and accelerate in the coming years and decades.

TRI-CONTINENTAL

Vocals come from a very early recording of the "grand mother of Rai", exact year unknown (earlier than 1970s which a youtube clip claims)

This edit is from:
https://soundcloud.com/djzhao/fusion-4-djinn-bass

www.ngomasound.wordpress.com/2012/02/19/fusion-4-djinn-bass

https://www.facebook.com/zhao.ngoma

www.ngomasound.com/

شيخة ريميتي (Cheikha Rimitti) - أبو عبد الله محمد ابن تومرت (Mohammed Ay Sidi) + Roska-Squark

Eyin Anobi Ayonfe Oluwa - Allahu Allahu X Sigha - Where I Come To Forget

A 4 hour dj mix of leftist revolutionary dance music spanning many continents and decades, with an accompanying essay on the insurrectionary aspects of dancing. 

medium.com/leohezhao/dance-dance-revolution-the-insurrectionary-politics-of-shaking-it-8730c888749f#.xzogo6vg7

01 [SA] Intro - The Road to Freedom
02 [US X NA] NA - Freedom X NA - Peitsche
03 [Angola] Pedrito- Angola Mártir
04 [Haiti] SantiAgo Posada -El Mango 
05 [Angola X Portugal] Comandante Gika X Dj Anderson & Dj NinOo - Corno 
06 [DDR] Unsere Heimat
07 [US X FR] The Revolution Will Not be Televised X Romare - Roots
08 [SA X US] Remember Who We Are X Rick Wilhite - Cosmic Jungle
09 [Biafra X Colombia] The Canaan Brothers - Ukaridem X Bigote - A la Colombiana
10 [UK X DE] UK Riots X Daren Seymour & Mark Van Hoen - Supermind's Light Becomes Part of the Earth X Felix K - Escapism Part 2 
11 [Zimbabwe] Revolution
12 [UK] Duurty Goods - Freedom Fighter 
13 [US X Portugal] - Clara Ward - Dead End Street X Social Disco Club - Downtown
14 [SA] Heavy Dee crew - Happy Days  
15 [US] Model 500 - Electric Night 
16 [US] Bohannon - Happiness
17 [ES] Negghead - Build It Up (Break It Down Mix)
18 [USSR X SA] The Internationale X Heavy Dee crew - Magnificent
19 [Sweden X US] Knutna Nävar - Hallå Där Bonde X NA - Deadbeat
20 [Brazil] Os Mutantes - Panis Et Circenses
21 [Cuba X UK] Hasta Siempre Comandante X Kalidasa - Induction
22 [Italy] Bella Ciao
23 [Ivory Coast] Tiken Jah Fakoly - African Revolution
24 [UK/Ghana] African Head Charge - More Peace 
25 [UK/Ghana] African Head Charge - World Peace
26 [JA] Dennis Brown - Revolution
27 [US] Galactic - There's Something's Wrong With This Picture
28 [US] Sly Johnson - I'm Talking'Bout Freedom X Coppa - Society Ho's
29 [Egypt] Mohamed Mounir - Ezzai
30 [Rojava] Koma Zerdeste Kal-Rojava û Şengal
31 [Trinidad X SA] Small Island Pride - Federation X Dj Mujava - Township Funk  (Moombah Edit)
32 [UK/Jamaica] The Heatwave feat. Warrior Queen - Things Change
33 [US] Dj Comrade - Fuck Da Police (Moombahton Edit)
34 [Mexico X Italy] NA - EZLN Music X José Manuel - Samsara
35 [US X DE] Baobab - N.O. J.O.B. X Redshape - Goom
36 [Jamaica] Michael Rose - Dub Freedom 
37 [Jamaica X Germany] Peter Tosh - Speech X Rhythm & Sound - Mango Drive
38 [US] Atelewo - Chimes of Freedom
39 [US] Omar S - Ah' Revolution (Poli Grip For Partials Nik Mix)
40 [US] Omar S - Dancing
41 [SA] Irfan Rany & Baba Israel - Freedom Music (Black Motion Mix)
42 [SA] Revolution ft. Ruby Gold - Teka Munike (Maphorisa n Clap Remix)
43 [US X Mexico] Underground Resistance - Kill My Radio Station X KWR - Recit d 45 Hiver
44 [US] Moodymann - Det.Riot X Dj Spaz - Riot
45 [SA X US] Dj Dorivaldo Mix - Mamaru X Steve Reich - Come Out
46 [UK] Dreadzone - Fight the Power
47 [US] Underground Resistance - Riot
48 [SA X NL] Keith Le Blanc & The News Dissector - Revolutionary Situation X Delta Funktionen - Pusher 
49 [CH X Ireland] Socialism is Good (社会主义好) X Detboi - Step Back
50 [Rojava X SA] NA - Bejî Bejî YPG X Dj Clock - D n B Beat (Point 5 Remix)
51 [Canada X Angola] SoulJazz Orch - Freedom No Go Die X Dj Eddy Favelado - NA
52 [UK X Angola] Spacemen 3 - Revolution X Dj Satellite - Avacaiho
53 [US / UK] Pailhead - I Will Refuse
54 [FR] Bérurier Noir - Fils De (Dj Arbraz ReMix)
55 [UK] Rossi B and Luca - E10
56 [UK] LKD - Ceefax Riddim X Untold - Kingdom
57 [UK] Test Dept & the South Wales Striking Miners - Strike 
58 [DE] Atari Teenage Riot - Revolution Action (DHC Meinhof Remix)
59 [DE] Atari Teenage Riot - Black Flags (Nom De Strip Remix)
60 [SA X UK] Powerage - Freedom X Filthy Beats - Bounced 
61 [JA] Congo Natty - Revolution 
62 [JA X UK] Max Romeo - Socialism Is Love X Skream - Memories of 3rd Base
63 [JA X DE] Nora Dean - Love and Power to the People X Sven Weisemann - Caprice
64 [Guinea Bissau X DE] Tony Lima - Amílcar Cabral (Bu Morri 65 Cedo) X Shed - The Bot
65 [US X UK X DE] Outro featuring the voices of David Graeber, Murray Bookchin, Emma Goldman, etc.

Dance Dance Revolution

Slow Rave

Afro Cosmic Slow Rave

Original Wobble: The Yoruba people of West Africa have been dropping the sickness for... only a few thousand years before Rusko.

www.mixcloud.com/djzhao/
www.ngomasound.com/

Ayinla Omowura & his Apala Group + J Kenzo - Fuji Dub

www.ngomasound.com/
www.mixcloud.com/djzhao/

Babatunde Olatunji -  JinGoLoBa + Tarek - Desabafo

Digital Africa 5

the FUSION series are mash-up and re-edit albums fusing global traditional music and modern bass/beats.  This volume fuses sound heritage from every continent with Dubstep and Grime.   if you’ve ever wondered what Digital Gamelan is like, or what Capetown gospel singers sound like in London Ghettos, or how Robots would play Ethiopian Jazz…

erasing lines, fusing edges, reconnecting all mutations, permutations, lost strains, divided strands, and myriad variations of the deeper-than-we-remember roots from which we all come. limits are arbitrary, borders are lies, separation is illusion.

Tracklist:  http://ngomasound.com/2011/08/04/fusion-1/

FUSION 1 - Afro/Asian Dubstation

“Heart of Light” – the last words uttered publicly by democratically elected first president of newly independent Congo Patrice Lumumba at his inauguration address, 3 months before his murder by Belgium and CIA, because he dared to oppose the western economic powers and planned to keep the wealth of the Congo for the Congo.  Freedom and hope was killed in 1961, with disastrous consequences that last until today, but The Heart of Light can never die…

Rumba traveled back to Africa via Cuba and Haiti in the 40s and 50s, later developing into Soukous, arguably peaking in the 60s and 70s, and lived on well into the 90s with a more streamlined and modern sound. This mix is only a tiny slice of this glorious sound from the later periods: 4 on the floor, with enough bass for modern dance floors.  Excluded are examples from the ocean of older, incredibly varied recordings, of supreme beauty and artistic merit but many of which sadly have poor sound quality, as the best musicians in the world were, and are, often recording under the worst conditions and with the worst equipment.

Despite being the biggest African music export in history, African Rumba, just like all African music, is criminally under exposed in the Northern Hemisphere.  Yet this music should be crucial, of a central importance, to anyone interested in dance music, in Pop, in Rock, in Soul,  in Jazz, in Funk, etc.  Objectively speaking, in terms of raw musicianship, in terms of composition and arrangement, and if we break the rhythms and melodies down to mathematical patterns and study them, the highly evolved structures of this music are perfectly designed and executed in every way.

I grew up with Industrial Noise, Punk, and Metal, and it wasn’t until my late 20s/early 30s until i was emotionally mature enough to appreciate amazing sounds like this. Please leave your cynicism at the door and embrace this music, for the truth is, something Africans have known all along, that ultimately the most powerful revolutionary force, of which the powers are afraid, is not anger — it is love. 

Full Tracklist:  http://ngomasound.com/2013/04/10/heart-of-light/

NGOMA Classic 1 - Heart of Light

Traditional and contemporary music from 5 continents, 25 countries, mashed up, refixed, and dubbed out.

Whereas the first Fusion volume was global traditional music fused with Dubstep and Grime, this second one clocks in at 105 BPM and explores the marriage of ancestral sounds and mid-tempo dancehall/moonbahton/hiphop derived beats.  Some of the juxtapositions include Mongolian Throat Singing with screwed Techno, Uzbek vocal pop with Norwegian Skweee, Tribal African chanting over Hiphop, and Brazillian tinged percussion with Angolan Urban Beats.  The mood is often overcast and cloudy with occasional bursts of heavy thunderstorms.

The FUSION series is decidedly more for listening compared to the dancefloor oriented NGOMA series, but there are certainly some bangers in here for you to  scrunch up your face and head bang to, alongside more tripped out and lyrical numbers.

TRACKLIST:  http://ngomasound.com/2011/08/04/fusion2/


FUSION 2 - Ancestral Dubient

TRACKLIST:  http://ngomasound.com/2012/11/21/fusion-5-%D9%87%D9%84%D8%A7%D9%83-apocalypse/

FUSION 5 - الانتفاضة

This edition in the Ngoma Mix Series focuses on new 125 bpm African Electronic Dance Music.  As i have argued in the article “Real Roots of Kwaito” (http://ngomasound.com/2012/10/30/perspectives-of-sa-house/), American and European Disco, House, and Hiphop were crucially influential in the beginning stages of development of post-Apartheid South African urban music, but since then SA House and Kwaito have matured and grown into its own skin, much more an extension of indigenous rhythm cultures than related to “Western” dance music.  For example the beat patterns in these tracks are distinctly different: the constant off-beat high hats found in the US and Europe are almsot entirely absent; and with much more rich and developed rhythm elements and very different emphasis, this music should probably be thought of as simply new African dance music, with not much to do with what is traditionally known as “House” or “Techno” at all.  

Selections come mainly from South Africa and Angola, with lots of percussion, many balafons, a touch of jazz, some diasporic elements from Cuba and Colombia, couple tunes made in Spain, and a  shot of Nigerian Pop at the peak.  

FULL TRACKLIST: http://ngomasound.com/2012/11/28/ngoma-14-drum/

NGOMA 14 - DRUM

Since Zouk arrived (back) in Africa from the Guadeloupe and Martinique islands, where rhythms and melodies of the African “expats” mixed with Rumba, Calypso, Gwo Ka, Compas, Reggae, and even Salsa (and where they must have looked across the ocean with infinite longing for home), it has since been influenced by another deeply emotional music: Portugese Fado. Long story short, during the last few decades Zouk, Kizomba, and related styles have become IMMENSELY popular and ubiquitous in many parts of Africa.

But, we all know what this kind of huge commercial success does to a genre: it becomes cheap and watered down, and quantity replaces quality. Thus 99% of the modern Zouk and Kizomba we encounter today is tacky and paltry rubbish of incredibly bad taste, garishly saccharine instead of deeply moving like the Zouk of bygone years. Yet in this sordid state of affairs there are artists who are producing music which retain more than a touch of the golden years, making songs that are soul stirring as they are irresistible on the modern dance floor. So if one digs deeper, there IS such a thing as good contemporary Zouk and Kizomba: this is what i hope to convince people of, especially long time lovers of African music who have given up on these genres.

Historically, the Afro-Caribbean connection has produced very much amazing music about romantic love. But Angola and Cape Verde has developed specific strands of musical expression which focus on a special feeling: that of loss and longing, of desire and nostalgia, of love mixed with sadness. (an example most are familiar with would be the Cape Verdean Morna artist Cesaria Evora).  I believe that the best love songs in the world are actually about its absence or loss, and this mix focuses on music both sexy and infused with a deeper sense of burning emotional urgency.

NGOMA 08 - Saudade

Born in Beijing and based in Berlin, Dj Zhao brings a poly-cultural understanding of polyrhythm to dance floors all over the world, and applies historical materialist analysis to the study of social music.  Not restricted by style and convention, Dj Zhao's deeply percussive sets span across genres and draws from wildly different times and places, connecting Africa, Asia, and South America, acoustic and electronic, traditional and hyper-modern.

Select Past Performances:
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FESTIVALS

Nyege Nyege (Uganda) 
Fusion Festival (Germany) 
Incubate (Holland) 
Odunde (USA)
EXIT Festival (Serbia) 
Sondeka (Kenya) 
Club Trans Mediale (Germany) 
Sziget Festival (Hungary)
Tribal Gathering (Panama) 
Ethnoport (Poland) 
Worldtronics (Germany) 
Fest de Bestuiving (Holland) 
Sineztezija (Montenegro) 
Sonar Festival (Germany) 
MišMaš (Czech Republic) 
Solar Weekend (Holland) 
Mikser (Serbia) 
Treffpunkt Afrika (Austria) 
Decoloniale (Germany)
At.Tension (Germany) 
Hakuna Matata (Germany) 
Art Lake (Germany) 

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CLUBS

Berghain (Berlin, DE)
Golden Pudel (Hamburg, DE)
Ponyaza (Johannesburg, SA)
Ritter Butzke (Berlin, DE)
La Riviera (Madrid, SP)
About://Blank (Berlin, DE)
Nuba (Paris, FR)
Palác Akropolis (Prague, CZ)
Watergate (Berlin, DE)
Radialsystem (Berlin, DE)
Danse Danse! (Amsterdam, NL)
Andel music Club (Prague, CZ)
Rich Mix (London, UK)
HKW (Berlin, DE)
UT Connewitz (Leipzig, DE)
Opium (Vilnius, LT)
The Shrine (NYC, US)
Gretchen (Berlin, DE)
Klub Fabryka (Krakow, PL)
Leopold Museum (Vienna, AT)
Floripa (London, UK)
Treehouse (Nairobi, KE)
YAAM (Berlin, DE)
Red Cat (Mainz, DE)
Coup D'Etat, Chicago (US)
Capital Pub (Kampala, UG)
Vacca Matta (Johannesburg, SA)
Occii (Amsterdam, NL)
Club 414 (London, UK)
WonderBar (Boston, US)
Noize Fabrik (Berlin, DE)
Lipsiusbau (Dresden, DE)
La Dame De Canton (Paris, FR)
Karlstorbahnhof (Heidelberg, DE)
Zeba Washington (Washington DC, US)
Guanabara (London, UK)
Shikisha (Johannesburg, SA)
Passing Clouds (London, UK)
Urban Spree (Berlin, DE)
ACUD Macht Neu (Berlin, DE)
Panke (Berlin, DE)
Take Five (Bristol, UK)
Badehaus (Berlin, DE)
Bi Nuu (Berlin, DE)
Cookies (Berlin, DE)
Confessions (Prague, CZ)
Bohannon (Berlin, DE)
Tausend (Berlin, DE)

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TALKS

“Forbidden Drums: The Secret History of Modern Social Music”
Untitled Gallery, Berlin, DE 

“Altered Beats: Transatlantic Rhythmic Cross-Pollination” 
Festival de Bestuiving / Utrecht, NL 

“Forged in Pain: The Colonial Process of Musical Development”
Sound System Culture, Berlin, DE

“Legacy of Rhythm: From Biology to Culture” 
Mutant Rhythms Conference, Berlin, DE 

“Reconstructed Cultures and Music from Memory” 
Voneinander Lernen- interkulturelle, Gaziantep, Turkiye 

“Ancient Futurism: Racing The Rhythm Lineage of Modernity” 
Centrum Sonic Lecture Series / Berlin, DE 

“Deep Roots: African Sonic Heritage Today” 
THE SPACE BETWEEN US Music Convention / Berlin, DE

djzhao

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