Category Archives: Mixes

NGOMA Classic 3 – Mega Benga

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KENYA COVER

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, sans the fiery horn sections of Congolese Soukous.  The focus here is on a reduced palette of rhythmic guitar and vocal refrains over driving, insistent 4 on the floor kicks.  The motorik, hypnotic motifs and modular progression of this original minimalist dance music here is mostly from 1950s to 1970s, and i play it in the seamless style of techno.

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MUTANT 4 – Meta House

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METAHOUSE

Evil twin of the last MUTANT mix of brightly hued, sun-kissed club music for endless summer nights, Meta House is heavy, narcotic. Including lots of deep techy tracks, some jacking, bassline, healthy dose of ghetto, a touch of shuffling, and material which may be in the category of “House Not House” — but as abstract or bassy as any part of it may be, i made sure that all selections are primarily, unmistakably House – all steady kicks and offbeat hi-hats.

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MUTANT 2 – D’n’B Legacy

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LEGACY

In the late 1940s and 1950s the first wave of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, many of them ex-servicemen who fought, bled, and watched their friends die during WW2 for the UK, landed with their families in London. During that first winter bricks were thrown into their windows (often in bags containing shit), their homes were attacked, and there were regular assaults on their children. When the situation got really bad, they tore up bed sheets to use as bandages, used kitchen knives and broken furniture as weapons, to defend their homes and loves ones. But when these loyal colonial subjects fought back they became the primary criminals in the eyes of the police: regularly mistreated, unjustly punished, and even framed for crimes they did not commit. This is the kind of injustice and abuse faced by black people in England ever since, all the way to today’s discrimination and structural economic inequality.

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NGOMA 16 – Love and Rebellion

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The only reason that I have stayed away from Reggae so far is because it is one of, if not THE most represented of Afro-Diasporic musical traditions from the Southern Hemisphere (as determined by various historical factors). But time has come for NGOMA series to dive right into the beautiful and intense sounds of Jamaica, time tested and honed to perfection.

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NGOMA Classic 2 – AfroBeat

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_Afrobeat

Since Fela’s voice is much cooler than mine, i have switched out my intro with his, and this mix originally made to promote BlackBox number 1 has grown into a proper NGOMA release – with a few changes and much new goodness including 2 wicked special edits – one of the Ethio classic by Mahmoud Ahmed (following a funktastic 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 Rebootfm – 11-dj-zhao-blackbox-1-ngoma”>here.

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FUSION 7 – A.F.R.O.

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“The drum is closely linked in African philosophy with the word… The original utterance which created life of nothingness and chaos, and then established order in that creation. The drum is therefore a divine tool of the Supreme Being, a womb or beginning of created life.”  – Maureen Warner-Lewis

“The drum encloses a womb of space in which silence and identity will emerge out of the darkness and the void.” – Wilson Harris

“God is dumb, until the drum speaks.” – Ancient African proverb

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Heart of Light

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Congo_new

“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 forces of oppression 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…

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NGOMA 15 – DRUM Amandla

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DRUM_amandla_600 Rougher and tougher twin of the previous DRUM volume, Amandla explores the somber and serious side of contemporary electronic dance music from South Africa and Angola.  In 2013 capitalist brainwashing and new waves of cultural and economic imperialism replaces the overtly oppressive policies of Apartheid and colonialism; inequity, injustice, and corruption still pandemic on the African continent; but the indestructible beat of Soweto, Pretoria and Luanda lives on.  These new urban sounds express the frustration, longing, joy and hope of a new generation, the continuing struggle and POWER of the people.  Rhythm as a weapon, music as a weapon: a real weapon in the concrete sense.  Africa!  Mayibuye!  Amandla!

OR: STREAM: MIXCLOUD //// DOWNLOAD: MEDIAFIRE

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NGOMA 14 – DRUM

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DRUM_600

This edition in the Ngoma Mix Series focuses on new 125 bpm African Electronic Dance Music.  As i have argued in the “Real Roots of Kwaito” piece for This Is Africa, 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.  

OR: STREAM: MIXCLOUD //// DOWNLOAD: ZIPPY OR MEDIAFIRE

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FUSION 5 – الانتفاضة

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01 Amina Alaoui & Jon Balke – Itimad X L-Wiz – Smogged 02 Ora Sittner & Youval Micenmacher – Dror Iqra X Scuba – Sleepa 03 23 Skidoo – G-2 Contemplation X Marc Ashken – Roots Dyed Dark (Skream Remix) 04 Kambarkan Folk Ensemble – Jygach Ooz Komuz X Dj Distance – Nomad 05 Sarah Webster – A Lesson Twice Learned / Drum Talk X Pinch & Loefah – Broken 06 JilJilala – Unknown X JuJu – Iroko 07 Fawzy Al-Aiedy – Milad X Toasty – Like Sun 08 Hossam Ramzy & Phil Thornton – Immortal Egypt X dj quest & eskimo – Speakers Corner (Instrumental Death Edit) 09 Unknown – Arab Flute X Zen Militia – Pull of Guilt (Scuba Remix) 10 Unknown – Morocco Belly Dance X Substep Infrabass Monotonium 11 Guem – Royal Dance X Shed – Panamax Remix 12 Unknown – African Tribal Drums X Unkown – UK Grime 13 Reda Darwish – Raqset El Banat X Headhunter – Drop The Waste 14 Remko Scha – Machine Guitars Slam X Skream – Backwards 15 Andy Moor – Uganda Fly X Loefah – Fire Elements 16 Sir Richard Bishop – Blood Stained Sands X Tunnidge – Face Melt 17 Sijano Vodjani – Dedication X King Midas Sound – Earth a kill ya