Hakuna Kulala

Bamanya is responsible for building Africa's first DIY modular synthesizer, a huge wall of home-made modules and FX units that he dubbed, fittingly, The Afrorack. His reason for embarking on this difficult project was simple: as he began to investigate the world of modular synthesizers, he realized it would be difficult to acquire the technology in Uganda. Not only were there relatively few retailers across the whole of Africa, but the modules were often prohibitively expensive. After quick search online, Bamanya realized he could easily download circuit diagrams and buy the required parts locally, so he taught himself electronics and constructed a CV-controlled system that's been evolving ever since. "The Afrorack" is Bamanya's debut album and displays the producer's untethered creativity and restless energy. He's all too aware that these modules were developed with European and American musical styles in mind, so developed his own musical methodology and language to coax the system into suiting his needs. His starting points are often abstractions of acid and techno, but Bamanya curves East African rhythms and different scales into these familiar structures, splintering them into fractal shards. "I believe Africa is at that point where people are getting new tools which were not available to them, and then experimenting with them in a different context, because Africa has its own traditional music," he told Pan African Music back in 2019. This attitude is most evident on 'African Drum Machine', where Bamanya uses a Euclidean rhythm sequencer to divide his CV signals into complex algorithmic patterns that mimic the polyrhythmic structures that exist in many East African musical forms. If you're not listening closely it might sound like 4/4 techno, but focus your attention and you'll hear different layers of drums and jagged oscillators bouncing between each other creating hypnotic new rhythms. Bamanya takes a similar approach on 'Why Serious', fuzzing dubby basslines and plasticky percussive sounds into a frenetic hybrid of abstract electronics and fwd-thinking East African club sounds. At times, Bamanya's meditative, bass-heavy compositions echo the psychedelic sounds of Shackleton or Adrian Sherwood's African Head Charge, particularly on tracks like 'Inspired' and 'Last Modular'. With lysergic tonal shifts and precision-engineered drums, both tracks sound defiantly metallic, but sculpted by a producer who's always completely in control as he introduces risky eccentricities like feline groans and videogame blips. And on less beat-heavy tracks like 'Osc' and 'Rev', Bamanya makes a conscious nod to the history of modular music, approaching the kosmische universe of Popol Vuh, Klaus Schulze and Emeralds, augmenting it with East Africa's idiosyncratic rhythmic intensity. "The Afrorack" is the beginning of a conversation that's been long overdue.

Bisola Olungbenga was just nine years old when she started writing music. Encouraged by her piano playing mom, she would come home from school and compete with her sister, dreaming up verses and choruses for rewards of candy. Since then, Olungbenga has evolved into Aunty Razyor, one of Nigeria's most vibrant emerging artists - a cross-genre innovator who blends hip-hop, Afrobeat, R&B and experimental sounds into an energetic portrait of contemporary Lagos. "Viral Wreckage" is Olungbenga's debut album, and follows the breakout success of her viral 2021 street anthem 'Kuku Corona'. This time she's assembled a lineup of some of the world's most exciting producers to help realize her vision: Congolese singer, guitarist and producer Titi Bakorta, young Ugandan producer Ill Gee, veteran Japanese innovator Scotch Rolex, São Paulo-based baile funk producer DJ Cris Fontedofunk, French beatmaker Debmaster, Nigerian singer and producer Slimcase, and Kenyan avant pop futurist Kabeaushé. 'Stuttrap' is the first blast of sound we hear, and Olungbenga quickly pilots us into her sonic universe, rapping assertively in Yoruba and English over Scotch Rolex's chrome-plated trap backdrop. It's not far removed from the producer's work with Kenyan/Ugandan underground star MC Yallah, but Aunty Rayzor's incendiary, tongue-twisting raps coax listeners into a musical expression that's hard to define and only gets more expansive when we hit 'Doko'. Featuring Slimcase, who's collaborated with Nigerian superstars like Wizkid and Mr Eazi, this track melts together swinging West African rhythms with complex poetics from both Slimcase and Rayzor. Olungbenga slips into a different mode again on 'Bounce' - one of the album's most dancefloor-ready cuts - almost whispering over a corrosive neo-baile shuffle from DJ Cris Fontedofunk. São Paulo is responsible for some of the world's most effervescent dance music right now, and with Rayzor on vocals the result is predictably explosive, making connections between vital street music from two separate continents. Recent Nyege Nyege signing Titi Bakorta brings Olungbenga into another different zone on 'Fall Back', linking to vintage Afrobeat with low-slung guitar riffs that perfectly compliment Rayzor's soaring vocals. Bakorta's voice is the perfect foil, centering the track in traditions that stretch back through Nigerian history without sounding nostalgic. Kabeaushé hits a similarly complimentary note on 'You not worthy of my love', twisting Rayzor's AutoTune-mangled rhymes into fresh-faced avant R&B that sits a few paces from the mainstream without losing its infectious sing-along quality. And that's the key to unravelling "Viral Wreckage" - Olungbenga is able to be eclectic but sharply focused, bringing in sounds from across a wide world of musical innovation without sacrificing her Nigerian identity. It's an album that's almost effortlessly creative, and one that comes straight from the heart of an artist who's deserves a way larger platform.

RAW SPACE" is rooted in chaos and chance, sensuality and intensity - it's an album that's able to sound alarmingly freeform and tightly controlled simultaneously. Already established as a genre-disrupting DJ, and even dubbed "demon of the Nile" by Ugandan politicians after an exuberant performance at Nyege Nyege festival in September 2019, Kampala-based sonic hypnotist Authentically Plastic brings a digger's literacy, an activist's intent, and an artist's playfulness to their jagged debut album. As both a DJ and a producer, Authentically Plastic is drawn to the idea of chance as a creative tool - to push against the idea of the all-knowing genius, and approach artistry instead as a facilitator, unraveling parallel mismatched rhythmic events. Their musical process is to start with chaos, then attempt to mold those fleshy structures into polyrhythmic mutations, pulling influence from East Africa's innovative musical landscape and augmenting it with an exploratory sense of surrealism. On opening track 'Aesthetic Terrorism', rough-hewn industrial rhythms chug mechanically against course, dissonant synth blasts and acidic arpeggios. There's a faint sparkle of Detroit's chrome-plated Afro-futurism, but bathed in neon light, reflecting Africa's contemporary electronic revolution. Authentically Plastic's productions have a sense of thematic coherence, but their myriad influences are torched into cinders, leaving inverse impressions and ghost rhythms: the tuned overdriven clatter of 'Anti-Fun' echoes Ugandan kadodi modes, yet simultaneously mirrors the rugged out-zone grit of Container or Speaker Music; standout centerpiece 'Buul Okyelo' meanwhile is as rhythmically cross-eyed as Slikback or Nazar, but juxtaposes kinetic dancefloor thumps with chaotic microtonal ritual cycles. Writing "RAW SPACE", Authentically Plastic found themselves fascinated by sonic flatness. They realized that in Western art, there's an obsession with depth of field that carries into music, robbing it of intensity. The album is an example of the power that can be reclaimed when you let go of depth, letting sounds rub together carnally and spawn something fresh and unexpected

While Chrisman's "Ku Mwezi" ep mostly explored gqom and trap influenced Afrohouse mutations, his debut album heads in a different direction. On "Makila", Chrisman provides an experimental vision of the taraxina sound: a molasses-slow fusion of the Angolan kuduro and kizobma dance templates that dips in-and-out of fuzzy drones and syrupy gqom. On 'Angels of Kivu', he pushes the clicking skeletal rhythm into the background, allowing electrified likembé melodies to take pride of place. It sounds like Congolese legends Konono No.1 shocked into a psychedelic electronic future by way of Durban. 'Fatiliya' pushes more solidly into taraxina territory, with familiar saw synths accenting low 'n slow kicks and air blast leads. The backbone is Angolan, but Chrisman approaches his music with a full awareness of Atlanta trap and gqom, never ignoring the gut-rattling pressure of sub bass. That's never more evident than on the title track, where he constructs a haunted atmosphere of bells and drones to sit beneath staccato percussive hits and and winding drill slaps. "Makila" is challenging music that takes divergent African forms and melts them together with next level skill and sleight of hand. It's another bold step for East African electronic music that underscores the wild creativity and talent emerging from the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Since the appearance of his cult breakthrough debut Tuli Banyo released on Hakuna Kulala in 2018, Ugandan conscious rapper and MC, Ecko Bazz has challenged perceptions of East Africa's burgeoning rap scene. His style is hard to categorize blending elements of grime, dancehall and US hip-hop and twisting politicized lyrics in Luganda that explore violence, religion, drug abuse or the poverty in the Ugandan slums. This personality anchors his debut album Mmaso, an explosive call to action that balances his manic presence with production from MC Yallah collaborator Debmaster, Kenyan club futurist Slikback, Berlin-based Japanese beatmaker DJ Die Soon and the inimitable DJ Scotch Rolex. Mmaso is driven by Ecko Bazz's kinetic performance on the mic. Anyone that's had the privilege of seeing him live will know what to expect, and his unadulterated flow is immediately focused on the grinding title track. The rapper alternates freely between sober truths and hyperactive screams, flipping between intensity from verse to verse. On Lwaky?, an anxious Debmaster beat underpins Bazz's visceral hedonism bending his rhymes in double and half-time and wrenching his voice gymnastically over 808 booms and claps. There's a pause for breath on the more intimate Mugulu e'yo or the relatively restrained Empungo Mubanga where Slikback provides a breathy and minimal midnight trap rumble to couch the rapper's surreal exuberance. With DJ Die Soon's Bikuba, Bazz mimics the bouncy lead synth to command a presence that refuses to let you forget that, even at his most claustrophobic, he makes music that lives at the club. That's never more evident than on Nkoowola, a standout that made it to Nyege Nyege - Soundcloud Music for the Eagles compilation. Bright, powerful and charged with rebellious energy that resonates through East Africa and beyond.

Since they connected in Kampala back in 2019, Elvin Brandhi and Lord Spikeheart have been recording restlessly, developing a shared musical language that compliments their individual expressions. Both innovative improvisors motivated by the extreme potential of performance, they manufacture a synergistic shriek on their debut set, fluxing between jagged DIY noise, chilly sacred ambience, ratcheting hard dance and quirky leftfield pop. And despite their backgrounds, neither Brandhi nor Spikeheart have approached anything quite so piercing and direct. It's music that sits a few paces from the established timeline, doggedly avoiding contemporary trends and screaming hoarsely at passers by.Born and raised in Bridgend, Wales, Elvin Brandhi has built a reputation for her virtuosic collision of rubberized freeform vocalizing and skillful, irreverent production. Since breaking out as half of father-daughter improv duo Yeah You when she was just a teenager, she's released a slew of acclaimed solo projects including 2019's 'Headroof' recorded in Uganda with a host of Nyege collaborators. She has also collaborated with artists like Drew McDowall from Coil, Pat Thomas and Ziúr. Nairobi-based rapper-producer Lord Spikeheart meanwhile is best known for lending his unmistakable growl to Sub Pop-signed noise-metal duo Duma. Anyone who's seen their live shows will be acutely aware of Spikeheart's power on the mic, and he brings that same energy to this project, trading snarls and syllables with Brandhi over rasping industrialized detritus.The duo's fierce vocal interplay is the heart of their collaboration. On 'Cruxify all the prophets', Brandhi's guttural croaks appear to dematerialize into granulated electronics, transforming into emotional wails before Spikeheart's unmistakable death metal shouts writhe into the sunlight. Intermittently piped through electronics, the voices alternate between chilly cybernetic wails and sickly human spits and coughs, finding an unsteady balance between grindcore gutter punk and Atlanta street rap. Songs spark into life and then flicker into nothingness, switching momentum seemingly randomly before taking unexpected turns; 'DEATH CODE E666' is a terrifying noise lullaby that pivots into classical abstraction, 'whiom8warwomb666' is a long-form rhythmic tongue-twister that oscillates through pneumatic dizziness into grotesque sound art expressionism, and 'do you like feeling awakeee33' reforms squelchy hyperpop into cogwheel whirrs and disquieting cackles.Truly labyrinthine and never predictable, this partnership is a reminder that experimental music can be crucial and progressive without losing its vitality, or its wit.

Born Yallah Gaudencia Mbidde in Kenya and raised in Uganda, MC Yallah has been involved in East Africa's rap scene since 1999. Alternating rhymes in Luganda, Luo, Kiswahili and English, her conscious, poetic and experimental style was slow to creep into Uganda's mainstream. Following a brief but necessary hiatus, she returned to the stage in 2018 with a new lease of life accepting her role as a central component of the Nyege Nyege/Hakuna Kulala family. "Yallah Beibe" is the fiery follow-up to Yallah and Berlin-based producer Debmaster's acclaimed 2019 debut "Kubali". After her tour plans were cut short as COVID-19 broke out in 2020, Yallah returned to Kampala and started work on her sophomore album at Nyege Nyege's villa. The process was more complicated this time around, developing pointedly from an initial back-and-forth with Debmaster and flourishing as beats appeared from Japanese producer Scotch Rolex and Congolese club maestro Chrisman. The finished album is an international patchwork of futuristic cyber-rap experiments fastened together by Yallah's unforgettable personality and elastic flow. More charged than its predecessor, "Yallah Beibe" is an apt soundtrack to a challenging era. Yallah is an experienced and versatile MC and channels her layered understanding of the complicated global cultural landscape into 12 stories that skate through trap, dancehall, club and industrial styles. Her authoritative guiding force is never more evident than on 'No One Seems To Bother', a collaboration with Duma's gravel-voiced singer Lord Spikeheart. Trading bars over Debmaster's slippery, bass-heavy rhythm, Yallah and Spikeheart ink an alternative East African sonic landscape, with activated lyrics ("the world is going under, no-one seems to bother") and rasping, death metal-inspired groans. "Yallah Beibe" is a call to action, a loud siren that's intended to educate the wider world of East Africa's shrouded history and bright future. Yallah's collaboration with rising star Rati Gan 'Bigbung Song' is the best evidence of this, looping Rati's Afro-Caribbean dancefloor flex and Yallah's politicized flow around a twisted bass-heavy beat from Chrisman, joining hands between the DRC, Uganda and the wider diaspora. Tracks like 'Baliwa' and the anthemic 'HERA' meanwhile completely center Yallah's signature lyrical dexterity, playing her tongue twisting raps against Scotch Rolex's pan-global foley-trap splatter. At times, the sounds feel as if they're from their own planet entirely - a fourth world that's rooted in collaboration rather than appropriation. If "Kubali" re-established Yallah as a force to be reckoned with, "Yallah Beibe" cements her status as one of the world's most exciting MCs, both on record and on the stage. There's nobody doing it quite like her.

If you like DJ Lag, Nazar and Slikback, you'll love this one! Hailing from Umlazi Township in Durban, South Africa, 27-year-old trackmaker Menzi was one of the early pioneers of the GQOM scene, which has now become a worldwide movement. This is the debut album from the man who has been producing for some of South Africa's biggest artists such as Babes Wodumo, Mahotella Queens and Zolani Mahola for the past few years, as well as organizing Festive Road Block Umlazi, the biggest GQOM block party held annually in Durban for the past few years. The album is made up of tracks recorded at Umlazi Durban and Boutiq Studios Kampala (Uganda) in '19 and '20, and includes "GQOM Tera," a collaboration with Ugandan MC Ecko Bazz.

Young Congolese DJ/producer Oyisse, based in Kampala, makes his debut on the white label series of Hakuna Kulala, a subsidiary of Nyege Nyege Tapes, the African version of PAN, a stronghold of experimental music from Uganda. It's an avant-garde fusion of abstract electronics, South African dark house (GQOM), trap, Central African music, and Congolese songs, all fused together in a futuristic imagination. Four tracks of experimental electronic sounds.

Dancehall might have emerged in Jamaica, but over the last few decades the popular genre's tendrils have stretched out across the globe. In Kampala, Ratigan Era is adding a distinct Ugandan twist to dancehall, fusing it with East African humor and hyper-melodic afrobeats elements imported from Ghana and Nigeria. The versatile MC grew up listening to Jamaican music like Vybz Kartel, Busy Signal and Mavado - in his hometown of Kawempe there was almost no way to avoid it - and it blurred into the background, blending with local church music, US hip-hop and radio pop. He developed this diverse range of influences into a completely unique Afro-dancehall flow that simmers between Luganda, patois, Spanish and English, reflecting the melting pot of cultures and dialects that characterizes contemporary Africa.Ratigan broke out with a memorable feature on Pallaso's Ugandan hit 'Nsaba', a track that echoed throughout the country booming from nightclubs, motorcycle loudspeakers or from convenience stores. Now he's assembled his first album "Era", a furiously inventive interweaving of rubbery vocals and memorable chants backed by futuristic beats from Hakuna Kulala's most boundary-pushing producers. Congolese producer Chrisman takes the reins on 'Gorilla Attack', providing a downtempo groove that echoes recent Jamaican chop deployments from breakthrough artists like Skillibeng and Skeng. For his part, Ratigan ducks and dives between Chrisman's gqom-inspired low end womps and corrosive synths, commanding attention with his smart, dextrous flow and tongue-twisting lyrics.The Modern Institute and Golden Teacher's Richard McMaster handles 'Top Strike Force' leaving space in his wiry, minimal beats for Ratigan to flit between anthemic repetitions and ice-cold AutoTuned wails. On stand-out track 'Badman Style', Ratigan's guttural patois is measured against a dizzy trap-dancehall hybrid beat from HHY & The Kampala Unit's Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, aka Lithium Beats, while on the surreal 'Drop it Down', Japanese mad scientist Scotch Rolex brings out Ratigan's cheeky sense of humor with toytown bleeps and laser zaps. MC Yallah collaborator Debmaster appears on 'Gan Dem', meeting Ratigan's double-time raps with soundsystem destroying rolling subs, and veteran US noisemaker Kush Aurora sprinkles magic dust on 'Cool and Deadly', galvanizing the link between global bass mutations, Jamaica and East Africa.And despite the grab-bag of producers and inspirations, "Ratigan" is a strikingly coherent listening experience that accurately snapshots Kampala's colorful froth of sounds and phrases. Ratigan's outsized personality is welcoming and captivating, providing the sights, sounds and smells of the city with a frenetic rhythm that's as intimate and local as it is far-reaching. It might just be the future we so desperately need.

As a Londoner, Scratchclart has always embraced the city's melting pot of influences that seep into the city from around the globe. And just as Detroit techno and Chicago house fused with Jamaican dancehall to splinter rave into a spectrum of microgenres in the 1980s and '90s, African sounds - from Afrobeats to gqom - are currently reprogramming the DNA of British dance music, whether it's drill, grime or breakbeat. This conversation is evident on Scratchclart's visionary "DRMTRK" series of EPs, and solidified more readily on last year's "Afrotek", where he collaborated with South African producer Mxshi Mo and Baltimore beatmaker :3LON. On "Scratchclart & Menzi", he progresses further, linking with one of Durban's most celebrated, and most outward looking dance music pioneers - Menzi Shabane. Cutting his teeth as part of early gqom duo Infamous Boiz, Menzi has produced for some of South Africa's most prominent stars, including Babes Wodumo, Moonchild Sanelly, Mahotella Queens, Zolani Mahola and Zakes Bantwini. His sound has always been hard to pinpoint, simmering between kinetic taxi techno and expertly engineered cinematic club music without pausing for breath. "Scratchclart & Menzi" is a fluid back-and-forth between these two musical vanguards that excavates commonalities in their approaches and exploits sonic loopholes, reworking their respective sounds into an energetic fusion of android diasporic bass pressure. First, Scratchclart strips Menzi's 'Shandis' down to its bare bones, channeling the spirit of RnG into a syrupy and soulful cybergqom shiver of elegiac pads and rattling Durban toms. Menzi's deconstruction of "DRMTRK EP III" banger 'Drm Walk' is equally as mindbending, swinging Scratchclart's rhythm and submerging it in rainfall and siren blares, slowly reassembling it into a downtempo sub-heavy groan. The duo's head-to-head 'Q' is even more impressive, opening in a fanfare of cinematic strings before dissolving into a tweaky froth of clicking drums, square wave synths, vocal cuts and woozy atmospheres; it's pure tension, never offering us the conclusion it threatens, but keeping us on our toes. Menzi's delirious remix of 'IC3' (the "DRMTRK EP VII" track that evolved into Lady Lykez' anthemic 'Muhammad Ali') might be the EP's most upfront floor-filler, repositioning the original's pneumatic bump on a warehouse floor of chants, cybernetic squelches and echoing fx. But the most unexpected turn is a fresh version of Scratchclart's grimey 'Nasty Nasty Nasty', that interrupts the cheeky bassline with amapiano-influenced machine-gun toms, and rocked-powered zero-g sound design. "Scratchclart & Menzi" is futuristic music from beginning to end that rips through established genre logic, emerging with concepts that lodge themselves not in South Africa or London, but somewhere beyond the solar system. We're not worthy.

Sea of Trees from Japanese producer T5UMUT5UMU. "T5UMUT5UMU has built up a reputation in the last few years for his ability not just to recreate club styles but to flip them into almost unrecognizable dancefloor hybrids, he has melted together gqom and techno, deconstructed grime and welded dubstep to traditional music from Japan and India. Here, he's operating completely off the grid, pulling raw materials from across the globe and hammering them into confounding shapes and patterns. On its surface, 'Fireball' sounds like a liquid metal approximation of South African gqom, but move in closer and you can make out dubstep bass squelches, trap hats, and industrial techno jet propulsion filling in the gaps with rubberized mortar. 'Desert' is the EP's most lightheaded cut, a psychedelic percussive spiral that curves micro-tuned mbira clangs around bee sting bass, aerated noise blasts and sub-aqueous kicks. It's a hard track to place, but fits in somewhere between Donato Dozzy, Menzi and 33EMYBW, all shifting rhythms and precision-edited sound design. 'Sea of Trees' retains this momentum, pushing the tempo and interspersing woodblock vibrations with syncopated bass drums and goosebump-inducing synths, while closer 'Bottomless Valley' shifts back into a gqom framework, shuffling the expected pulse with a powerful dembow swing, half step subs and Indian-inspired rattles."

One of the first artists from outside of Africa to sign to Hakuna Kulala, WULFFLUW XCIV brings his borderless productions to the label's ongoing Whitelabel series following a slew of dancefloor agitations from T5UMT5UMU, Menzi & Scratchclart, and others. "Toxica EP" builds on the mutant fusion of 2020's acclaimed "Ngoma Injection", stripping back the woozy psychedelia and chromium ambience and replacing it with pure soundsystem pressure. 'Take a Ride' bends acid techno machinery around rubbery East African rhythms, anchoring block party hedonism with a 4/4 bump that wouldn't be out of place in Kreuzberg and vocal shakes straight from São Paulo. But this isn't a mindless mashup of aesthetics, its a conversation with the world's fringe agitators, using stylistic and rhythmic strokes to highlight commonality, not exclusivity.Hakuna Kulala's own Chrisman appears on 'Tetemeka', and the two producers adapt the syrupy tarraxinha inversions the Congolese engineer perfected on last year's "Makila" full-length. Low, resonant gqom atmospheres underpin the entire track, but WULFFLUW XCIV's squeaky toy synths prevent it from slipping into darkness. Elsewhere 'Kluck' distorts the timeline completely, wedging flute-led Latin American tribal sounds into a riddim vs. trap superstructure, and 'Exp' sublimes speed dembow into delirious trance and minimal techno vapors. The boundaries between dance subgenres are slowly dissolving, and WULFFLUW XCIV's digital-era intermixture sounds like the cyberpunk carnival we're all desperately in need of.