AVANT-GARDE AFRICA
To listen to a Spotify playlist, go to Spotify and search for “AvantGarde Africa”
evolve, so it’ll be interesting to see how that happens. Quite a few of them are now based in Berlin, so that might have an influence how things develop.”
Here are some of the African acts worth checking out. All are available on music streaming platforms.
KMRU Country:
Kenya
KMRU — who claims influences from American experimental musician Katie Gately to English sound recordist Chris Watson — is not particularly interested in pop songs. His sound sculptures (he also does sound installations and field recordings) are ambient and abstract, floating like clouds across the landscape. He’s especially inspired by broken instruments and using their sounds in his work. “In undergrad studies, there were these old pianos from the ’60s and they were just banged by children on their way home,” he says. “For me, I was more interested in their stories and the sounds they could still make, to inspire me to create new works and share the stories of these abandoned instruments.”
Sun-El Musician
Country: South Africa Sun-El Musician (real name Sanele Sithole) is a producer/DJ whose lush and soulful take on deep house music — blending South African vocals into a swirl of strings, keyboards and melody — reaches a blissful high point on “To the World & Beyond.” On the song “Ngiwelele,” he manages to combine lyrics about talking to one’s ancestors with a musical tip of the hat to Nat King Cole’s 1948 hit “Nature Boy.”
Ethiopian Records
Country: Ethiopia Endeguena Mulu records under the name of Ethiopian Records, and his often clattering, broken sound — such as the tracks “All the Things” and the head-spinning “This Was Made Here” — is like falling down a flight of stairs. It’s bruising and you’re not sure where you’ll end up. He has called his style “Ethiopiyawi Electronic,” with “Ethiopiyawi” meaning Ethiopian in Amharic.
EA Wave
Country: Kenya
This Nairobi collective makes low-key, chilled-out beats that are rich with hints of hip-hop, trap, ambient and jazz, undergirded by whispers of African instrumentation. Last year’s EP, “EA Wave Reimagines Ami Faku,” a five-track selection of reworkings of songs from South African singer Ami Faku, whets the appetite for a full-length album.
Hibotep
Country: Uganda/Somalia Somali-born, Uganda-based Hibo Elmi, aka Hibotep, has made a name for herself as a DJ, designer, rapper and producer in a maledominated culture. Her sound, on such tracks as “Ancestry,” is low, like a rumble.
Sleeping Buddha
Country: South Africa Durban’s gqom style of electronic music is stark, minimalist and pounding. Sleeping Buddha, on such tracks as “Goro” and “Onimusha,” injects an added sense of urgency. The DJ, who recently released the lockdown EP “Area 51,” told Bandcamp, “I always used to imagine that if aliens were listening to music, it’d be this.” But he can also be wonderfully melodic, as on “Galaxies in Your Forehead.”
Nyege Nyege
Country: Uganda/Tanzania Not a performer but a record label and promoter overseeing Nyege Nyege Tapes and the Nyege Nyege Festival, East Africa’s biggest electronic music fest, which attracted around 9000 people in the pre-COVID era. This has caught the attention of some of Uganda’s more conservative elements, who’ve tried to shut down the festival. Nyege Nyege is also the home to the Tanzanian team of Sisso, Jay Mitta and Bamba Pana, leaders in the fast-paced singeli style.
Hama
Country: Niger
The computer-inspired pop of Germany’s Kraftwerk, the DIY ethic of Detroit techno, the computergame sounds of the ’80s and sci-fi soundtracks intersect with the melodies of the Touareg people of Africa’s Sahel region in the music of Hama. He’s a reclusive one-man synth operation, also known as Hama Techno, working, according to his bio, “on the spotty electric grid … with earbuds and a hacked copy of FruityLoops,” referring to
the music-production software. According to the site Okay Africa, Hama “became an underground star on the underground mp3 networks (of Niger), unattributed compositions traded by Bluetooth on Saharan cellphones.”
Faizall Mostrixx
Country: Uganda
The Kampala musician/producer/dancer declares on his Bandcamp page, “My music production focus and interest is to give African Ugandan traditional instruments and organic rhythms a poetic electronic instrumentalism.” He has done that strikingly over the course of the last couple of years, releasing a string of singles and EPs that are representative of the new East African scene but also distinctive from what his peers are doing.
Nihiloxica
Country: Uganda/UK
This project represents the marriage of the Kampala percussion outfit the Nilotika Cultural Ensemble with English musicians Spooky-J and pq. The result is a boom-tastic smashing together of drums and electronics, Ugandan old world and British new. Last year, the group released its debut full-length album, “Kaloli.”
Kokoko!
Country: Democratic Republic of the Congo
This band, who started out making instruments from scrap, calls its music “tekno kintueni” based around traditional Congo rhythms.
Cachupa Psicadelica
Country: Cape Verde/Portugal Born and raised in the island nation of Cape Verde and now based in Lisbon, the man who goes by the name inspired by a Cape Verdean stew, toys with art-rock, psychedelica, folk and electronics on his two albums, “Último Caboverdiano Triste” and “Pomba Pardal.” What he does is a far cry from the lilting style of Cape Verde’s most famous musical export, the late Cesaria Evora.
Petite Noir
Country: South Africa Congolese-born/South Africanbased Yannick Ilunga goes by the name of Petite Noir for this moody art-rock project that bears similarities to the likes of New York’s TV on the Radio or Montreal’s The Dears. He has said his last album, “La Maison Noir,” was the third of his “noirwave” projects, meant to reflect Africa’s current cultural moment.
DJ Rachael
Country: Uganda
With a style that’s all over the musical map, Rachael is one of her country’s best-known DJs. She founded Femme Electronic, a space for female DJs and producers.
Spoek Mathambo
Country: South Africa
In 2010, Spoek Mathambo released a memorably tense take on Joy Division’s “She Lost Control” — accompanied by a brilliant black and white video — but he’s much more than one cover song. Last year, he released the brash conceptual album, “Tales From the Lost Cities,” a look at life on the hard streets of contemporary Johannesburg, with such tracks as “Anatomy of a Campus Rape Riot” and “Jimmy Comes to Jozi.”
Blinky Bill
Country: Kenya
Blinky Bill, aka Bill Selanga, pioneered the Kenyan alternative-music scene a decade ago with his group Just A Band, an outfit whose blend of dance music, old-school soul, rock, electronics and hip-hop reverberates through the current African scene like a stone skipping across a lake. Unfortunately, that group is on hiatus, but Bill is active with a solo career and has released the 2018 album “Everyone’s Just Winging It and Other Fly Tales” and last year’s single, “Bado Mapema (Simama).”
Muthoni Drummer Queen
Country: Kenya
The socially conscious Nairobi alt-hip-hop rapper — who has a similar style to Zambian-Australian Sampa The Great — turned in a 2018 take on Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” (dubbed “Kenyan Message”). She updates the angry “don’t push me ’cuz I’m close to the edge” sentiments and even seems prescient with the ending of “We can’t breathe.”
Slikback
Country: Kenya/Uganda Kenyan-born and later based in Kampala, Freddy Njau — now known as Slikback — broke out at the Nyege Nyege Festival. He now has gained a following in Europe for his stark style that includes fusions of grime, trap and African influences.
Disco Vumbi
Country: Kenya Musician Alai K., who performs under the name Disco Vumbi, refashions traditional East African rhythms into something for the modern age.