video premiere: bounce to soweto-born bonj mpanza & dj maramza’s kick-ass collab
Behold the glittering electro-pop darkness of Soweto-born siren Bonj Mpanza and long-time collaborator DJ Maramza’s newest single and visual ‘UWRONGU’. A club-ready dance track that channels ballroom dance vibes and underground electronica, Bon Mpanza’s audio stylings infuse a silky ribbon of soul with smatterings of jazz and gospel. Pulling these elements tightly together like an unforgiving corset, the unstoppable duo gave birth to this seamless, chic track.
“For me the track started as a kind of soul-trap beat which needed vocals to really be complete and obviously Bonj came to mind because we had worked together and the results were on point, and because she’s a Soul Queen,” says DJ Maramza. “After the track was finished I made a disco-ish remix for my DJ sets, and it was that version that I felt would really work as the main version. So the original version is now called uWrongu (Immunity Mix) and the b-side to the single.”
BONJ – UWRONGU from Inka Kendzia on Vimeo.
Credits:
Directors: Sara Gouveia (Lionfish Productions) & Inka Kendzia
Animation Director & Projection artist: Inka Kendzia
Cinematographers: Sara Gouveia, Anton Scholtz and Lucy Hazard
Camera and Lighting Assistants: Julia Ramsay and Ellena Lourens
Make-up & Wardrobe: Soraya Guedes
Editing: Inka Kendzia & Sara Gouveia
Colour grade : Sara Gouveia
Visual effects: Inka Kendzia
video premiere: congolese electro collective kokoko! changes the game with rebellious “tongos’a”
Gallons of sweat pour out over hypnotic beats, while jagged post-punk guitars cut through the wash of homemade percussion and traditional Mongo patterns. Bursting out of Kinshasa, KOKOKO! take DIY to new heights. Their latest single “Tongos’a” captures the collective’s rebellious sound with visuals that blend a thousand influences into one captivating piece. If you’re not sweating yourself by the end of it, you need to watch it again.
Directed by débruit, Markus Hofko, Renaud Barret
DOP: Renaud Barret
Edit and VFX: Markus Hofko
Stream it on Spotify here:
Photos by Renaud Barret
herbie hancock announces collab with kendrick lamar & thundercat!
Jazz great Herbie Hancock is working on his new album, the first one since 2010. And it’s clear that the artist has been keeping an eye on the new generations of innovative and talented musicians.
The guests on the album will include Kendrick Lamar, Thundercat, Flying Lotus, Kamasi Washington, Wayne Shorter and Snoop Dogg.
Alto saxophonist and keyboardist Terrace Martin is producing. He has previously produced music for Kendrick Lamar, Stevie Wonder and many more.
Hancock told the San Diego Tribune: “I’m learning a lot from the young people I’m working with. Because they built the new structures, social media and that whole arena, and that affects how you get things out in front of the public to let them know you’re working on something. So I’m still learning, which I’m very happy about. I never want to stop learning. (…) These days, you can put out two tracks, then something a little later that’s connected to the other two. So where you draw the line is up to the artist. It’s a new day.”
Get ready for something great!
french disco punk collective 10lec6 takes it to a whole other plane with ‘bone bame’
Calling their style Bulupunk, the French disco punk collective mixes dance beats, experimental electronica, hardcore punk, and Cameroonian music on their debut record. It’s an exhilerating mix that 10LEC6 pulls off like it’s nothing. (Their name is pronounced dix – lec – six in French to sound like “dyslexics” in English, which to a bi-lingual dyslexic like me is just ow my fucking brain… Though bonus points for a good multi-lingual pun.) Singer Nicole sings, raps, and shouts in her native Bulu over rhythms that demand your attention on the dance floor. Highlights like “Ayong Ya Yop” merge the bands billion sonic roots seamlessly, while they find life on the hardcore classic “Augusta.”
Bone Bame drops March 9th on Ed Banger. Meanwhile, check out their debut single “Bejdem Mebok” and their documentary short. If this doesn’t fuck your head up right, you’re not playing it loud enough.
future soul trio ghost & the city get stratospheric on “n.w.t.a.”
Sometimes it seems like the future soul game can be all about texture, and artists forget to hand in a melody. But that’s one problem Oakland’s Ghost & the City are here to solve. On their latest single “N.W.T.A.” the electronic trio enlist Bells Atlas producer Aki Ehara to make sure the texture’s as rich as possible, but singer Kia Fay keeps it rooted with hooks to spare. And just when you think you know where it’s all headed, the trumpet solo starts and it goes stratospheric. The song comes off their forthcoming Time EP which drops March 30th. Check it out and get lost in the sound.
black queerness in the digital age gets a irresistable soundtrack in electronic project by ahomari, ‘cyberbae’
Called arguably “Columbia’s most prolific songwriter” by the Free Times, South Carolina-based Ahomari is changing up the game. Also known as Blackqueermillenial, the artist’s latest project Cyberbae originally began as social commentary on social media’s affects on relationships, but as the singer’s moniker implies, there is hardly anything Ahomari does that is not Black and queer AF.
Cyberbae is an electronic project dedicated to Black queerness and the internet. How do we form and build relationships as Black folk’s harnessing technology that wasn’t built for us, but that we have made our own? The answers come in infectiously deep probings that are as melodic as they are profound.
“This project is very personal one and I’m incredibly proud of all the thought I put into it,” Ahomari says, noting that it was released on the first day of Black History Month.
Check out Cyberbae below!
industrial meets trap in an explosive new sound out of durban, south africa created by dj lag
He’s been proclaimed the King of Gqom, a percussion-heavy kind of house that’s exploding out of Durban, South Africa. A pioneer of the Dark Techno movement, DJ Lag’s music rides a drone bass, building up sharp percussion lines, hearkening back the old school house build it up / tear it down. On his breakthrough single “Ice Drop,” DJ Lag demonstrated himself as a master of stretching a beat to its breaking point, teasing a drop that never comes. The tension at the heart of his music is on fullest display on his new EP Trip To New York, which mixes traces of industrial and trap in with the gqom beats. This music is meant for parties, so plug in your PA cab and play it loud.
harlem rapper azealia banks releases new disco track from her upcoming sophomore album
The very wacky, but very talented Azealia Banks recently released two versions of her club banger, “Escapades” and, now, a radio edit version! The controversial Harlem artist explains that the record “was supposed to come” with her 2014 collaboration with Disclosure for her debut album “Broke With Expensive Tastes”, but it was scrapped when the singer heard and interview with the duo where they were “really rude in an interview, so I canned it.” So, this is the song she hoped to make! (I guess.)
Anyway, the upbeat, very glam “Escapades” is refreshingly original and oh-so Banks in its unique mix of disco and funk. I feel like I’m in an 80s shopping spree montage every time I listen to it (in a good way)!
“Escapades” is apparently a work-in-progress track to be featured on Azealia’s sophomore album, ‘Fantasea II: The Second Wave’
interview: electronic music producer suzi analogue arouses the senses with her electrifying new project
By Ayara Pommells*, AFROPUNK Contributor
New York native and experimental artist Suzi Analogue has been a cornerstone in the electronic scene now for close to a decade. Recently, she released her latest offering, an audiovisual project titled ZONEZ V.3. From the project, Suzi has released the vibrant visuals to “Wildflwrr” and the Pulp-Fiction themed “Numba 1”, where she takes on the role of the light-footed, fearless character Mia Wallace.
Despite the rising popularity of Electronic music globally, female producers are still few and far between. AFROPUNK spoke to Suzi Analogue about her new ZONEZ V.3 and on her thoughts about being a female producer in the dance world.
Is it daunting being an electronic producer in such a male dominated environment?
It’s not daunting, it is just different. In mainstream music history, the black woman has traditionally been one of a few understood archetypes: “the singer”, sometimes “the rapper”, and rarely ever celebrated as the overall composer, but for me and what I do, this is uncharted territory that I meet with excitement. I have been listening to rare electronic and hip-hop records since I was about 14 years old, and making beats since 15, and I feel really strongly about my musical choices as a producer. My male allies in the music game respect my mind, and as long as we have that, we can make change together. I see more women identifying as producers every day, and that is empowering because it makes me feel that we are waking up and owning something more traditionally denied to us.
Do you ever feel as though you have to work harder than you male counterparts?
In general I have to work very hard because I am trying to create a better path for something that has not had the space to exist before, so naturally it leads to me working very hard versus just sliding into a network that is already set up for me like some of my male allies. For me, there is no pre-existing ‘set up’ for me to follow, it’s not like “hey just release a track like this, play for this person and BOOM you’ve made it”, it’s like…. put the work in now so that the reason you do this grows legs for a generation of women after you to run with.
Do you feel your feminine energy gives you any advantage in the way that you approach making music? If so, how?
I feel that the feminine energy passed down to me via my ancestors like grandmother and mother helped me appreciate concepts in life like the beauty in utter chaos. I think that ability, that energy, the nuance of femininity, inspires my music to create beautiful moments using raw elements and sounds – I do with music what women have done with life for decades, transform it into something beautiful with raw instincts.
Where do you find the inspiration for your instrumentals?
The instrumentals on ZONEZ are inspired by my real-life moments. So, a part of the process of creating these tracks is for me to go out into the world, live and experience and take notes on my highest highs and lowest lows. I take all of that in, I keep a notepad with me, I come back to the lab and I say, “what would this moment sound like if I turned it into music”? That is how ZONEZ comes to be, it is scored on my real life. Composition-wise, I am inspired by many sounds of me growing up: club music, bass music, hip-hop, gospel, soul, jazz – and I tap into all of that using electronic instruments and try to make it sound like my own world.
What made you decide to make Tape ZONEZ V. 3 a visual album versus just an audio release?
I am working to create new audio/visual collections that score and display expansion from the feminine perspective. It’s important that creative women create more space to be visualized through our art and break the boundaries of being marginalized. This is important for people to see us, hear us, and become amplified through doing this, so that’s why ZONEZ is an audiovisual series. It’s time to record the new vision of freedom that women want the future to look and sound like, and the time is definitely now.
ZONES V.3 is out now and boasts features from JAX, DJ Earl, DJ Taye, Nappy Nappa and Opal Hoyt. You can stream it in full below.
*Ayara Pommells is Owner of UK website Rawroots.com and freelance writer for several outlets. She is also a member of Rapstation’s SheMovement and of Rap’s first Performing Arts Group, The Black Opera. Follow @YahYahNah.
You can follow Suzi Analogue on all social media sites @SuziAnalogue.
philadelphia-based hip-hop artist ankh fyre takes us on a surreal chase in trippy video for ‘gabriel’s revenge’
Poet Ankh Fyre Black (AKA Poet AF) is a multi-disciplinary artist exploring identity, relationships, sex, sexuality, spirituality and culture. Born and raised in West Philadelphia, the rapper also boasts credits as a spoken word performer, playwright, television and film producer. In his approach to music, these many artistic influences blend into a distinctive New Age Contemporary Hip-hop and Funk/Soul sound. The video for his latest track “Gabriel’s Revenge,” is a trippy tale about escaping the “village clown” exemplifying his compellingly surreal style. Check it out below!: