Euphoric and organic fusion of African, Afro-American, and Afro-European rhythmic sensibilities and production styles... Africa is the Future.

AFROTEK 1

AFROTEK 2

Amapiano connected to many other styles and forms at around 114 bpm

3 AmaRainbow

2 AmaStorm

1 AmaSunshine

A booming trip around the world in beats, verses, and bass, at around 100BPM, the tempo faster than Hip Hop, slower than House, and which is much neglected on Western club dance floors.  

There is probably much new territory for listeners to explore, but also a few G.O.A.T. numbers which literally everyone will recognise, but unlike how you have ever heard them before.

100 BPM side D

Another booming trip around the world in beats, verses, and bass, at around 100BPM, the tempo faster than Hip Hop (80), slower than House (120), and which is much neglected on Western club dance floors.

100 BPM side C

100 BPM side B

A booming trip around the world in beats, verses, and bass, at around 100BPM, the tempo faster than Hip Hop, slower than House, and which is much neglected on Western club dance floors.

There is probably much new territory for listeners to explore, but also a few G.O.A.T. numbers which literally everyone will recognise, but unlike how you have ever heard them before.

100 BPM side A

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.

As manic, brooding, and heavy as the best doom metal, but you know, FUNKY.   Some real scrunch-face type stuff with relentless energy; most definitely not for the faint of heart.

The structure and form is drastically different from "conventional" dance music of the Afro-American tradition:  almost no straight 4/4 patterns, instead, all triplets like house-tempo Juke/Footwork; sometimes there are major sound events that happen only once in a track; the drum rolls are often placed at the BEGINNING of bars rather than the end; the highs most often keep a rigid repeating pattern, while the drums and bass do variation underneath (flips the scrip completely).  

🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘🤘

GQOM: Class War

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 is a rhythm ambassador and musicologist bringing a poly-cultural understanding of rhythm to his deeply percussive cross-genre sets, and applying historical materialist analysis to the study of social music and its evolution through the ages.  Not restricted by style and convention, Dj Zhao draws from wildly different times and places, connecting the global North with the South, acoustic and electronic, traditional and hyper-modern.

16.02.24 - Social Muscle Club, Berlin

NGOMA 08 - Saudade

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