‘Bad’ Sounds From Lisbon’s Ghettos
QUINTA DO ANJO, Portugal — Across the River Tagus from central Lisbon, at a venue surrounded by fruit warehouses and storage units, one of Portugal’s most exciting dance music producers was deep in concentration behind the decks. A crowd jostled around a buffet table. In the corner stood a tiered cake.
It was unusual to see the music producer, Nídia Borges, 21, in this setting, playing wedding D. J. for a cousin, but this afternoon was the only time she had to meet before setting off on tour across the United States. Ms. Borges is known onstage as “Nídia,” though she used to call herself “Nídia Minaj” in tribute to her favorite rapper, Nicki Minaj. She dropped the last name because, she said, “Today I have my own identity.”
Indeed, Ms. Borges’s uniquely hectic music has caught on globally. Her debut album, “Nídia é Má, Nídia é Fudida” (“Nídia Is Bad, Nídia Is Dope”), was named in Rolling Stone’s 20 best electronic albums of 2017. Nowadays, it’s easier to catch Ms. Borges at a European music festival than on her home turf.
Ms. Borges’s music brings together genres from across Portuguese- speaking Africa, including kizomba, funaná, tarraxinha and kuduro. Ms. Borges mixes these childhood i nfluences with polyrhythms, frantic beats, air horns and elements of genres like trance, Euro- pean techno, Afro-house and American R&B. The result is as dizzying as it is danceable.
“Calm music is for couples,” said Ms. Borges, whose mother is from Guinea- Bissau and whose father comes from Cape Verde. “Here, it has to be like an explosion in your face.” She said this confrontational sound was partly a result of a Portuguese music industry that had ignored the African diaspora.
“When something comes out of the ghetto, it can’t come softly,” she added. “It has to have strength.”
There are hundreds of producers making experimental dance music of this kind. Many, with family backgrounds in former Portuguese colonies like Angola, Mozambique and São Tomé and Príncipe, can be found in the housing projects around Lisbon. Each producer has a distinct take on the African-Portuguese sound, and it is constantly mutating from neighborhood to neighborhood. As a result, it doesn’t have a fixed name, but it is often referred to in Portuguese simply as “batida,” or “beats.”
The undisputed guiding force behind the sound and the scene is the Lisbon record label Príncipe. Since 2013, through its releases and a monthly club night in the city, Príncipe has provided a platform for African-Portuguese artists and taken them to the world stage. Rita Maia, a Portuguese D. J. and broadcaster, said Lisbon’s African diaspora is cul- turally and geographically segregated, and the Principe label acts as “the bridge.”
Ms. Borges is the label’s first breakout star — and its only female artist. She started posting tracks on SoundCloud at age 15 after learning music production software by watching YouTube tutorials. Marlon Silva, considered one of the founding fathers of batida ( he performs as D. J. Marfox and was Príncipe’s first talent scout), found Ms. Borges on Facebook and signed her to the label in 2015. People “think I’m going to sing, they never think that I’m a D. J.,” Ms. Borges said, but, she added, “I don’t have to prove anything to anyone.”
Becoming a D. J. changed her life, she said, because she was able to buy music equipment and a car, things that were out of reach to most young people in the neighborhood.
João Branko, of the Portuguese band Buraka Som Sistema, said in an email that Ms. Borges’s breakthrough was just the start of wider recognition for batida. “It feels like the beginning,” he said. “Lisbon’s club culture has hacked the music industry, and there’s no turning back.”
But Ms. Borges was reluctant about leading the charge. She “doesn’t want to be an example,” she said.
“Marfox was the one who started it all, and he opened doors,” Ms. Borges said. “Maybe we will open doors for others to come after us, too.”