L'Esprit de Nyege: The "Future Is Now" Sound of the African Diaspora

Compilation: The gold inside the 47 tracks by artists who performed at last weekend's virtual Nyege Nyege festival

How should one think about Nyege Nyege? From afar, the Kampala, Uganda-based electronic music festival and label (Nyege Nyege Tapes/NNT - named for the Swahili term meaning “an uncontrollable urge to dance”) elicits a mix of curiosity, queasiness and revolutionary fervor.

The surface contours of its origin story (two Europeans arrive in an East African country and start a party, festival and record company for local artists), as well as some of Nyege Nyege’s marketing pushes (the problematic term “outsider music,” its heavy promotion to predominantly white/Euro avant-garde and electronic dance crowds) can make it feel like cultural colonization redux. It is a dread that, observed from an ocean away, is hard to shake. Yet speaking strictly to the music, Nyege Nyege’s contribution also feels crucial to homogenized global popular music pushing worn-down tropes and traditions of moneyed first world corporate interests. Nyege Nyege constantly introduces a panoply of local artists, rhythmic languages, and sonic ideas into the mix, giving the sounds of the African diaspora not just room to breathe, but also a potential platform for expansion. And locally, Nyege Nyege has been at the center of the fight for the Uganda LGBTQ+ community’s rights, drawing the ire of the conservative government, which tried to shut it down.

Last weekend marked Nyege Nyege’s attempt to hold its annual festival virtually, with mixed results: lots of great content balanced out by a beautiful website that made it impossible to follow the schedule or find the livestream. (Some are archived on their YouTube channel.) On the other hand, L'Esprit de Nyege, the 47-track comp of festival-related artists that NNT dropped on Bandcamp (pay what you wish, 50/50 artist/label split, available only through the end of December), is a remarkable document of NNT’s aesthetic, of contemporary non-mainstream electronic music in Africa (i.e. no afrobeats), and of the dialogue taking place in the space. Making countless stops between the obscenely hyperactive and the beat-wise sublime, the comp is fulsome in every way possible! It works like most Nyege Nyege projects, as context-free musical selections, identified only by time (always NOW!) and the silhouette of liminal space (New Weird Africa, as curated by NNT). The rest is for the listener to either figure out or not care about. (Which is where the cultural tourism problems arise.) Like the best samplers, it is designed to be neither encapsulating nor flawless, only an expert foothold. In this, I think it succeeds wildly. (Meaning about half of it is between listenable and awe-inspiring.)

One of L'Esprit de Nyege’s best qualities—and Nyege Nyege’s in general—is its broad consideration of the continent’s music, an open-armed approach to the sources of the tracks, where the experimental and the traditional meet. Its default aesthetic is highly digital electronic sounds and rhythms, often bordering on noise; but within that parameter, sonic and rhythmic freedoms are limitless. Incessant rat-at-ats of snares and toms, ominous mosquito-frequency synths and sequencers swirling around them. Distorted urban traffic sounds and cut-up saloon pianos egged on by street-whistles, as distorted dog-barks devolve into psychedelic atmospheres. Realism is all around yet at a premium. Between the heartbreaking tempos and the hyper-pop/-trance frenzy (often minus the pop; once appearing as a 160bpm Knightrider theme), there are death metal voices and a chopped’n’screwed Project Pat loops. (Salem could potentially feel right at home here.) When clearly identifiable, the music scenes span the continent: the breadth of South African gqom, Kenyan trap, La Reunion’s maloya, Angolan kuduro, generic tribal techno, echoes of gnawa, soca and Haitian rara, full of fanfares (are they synths or weird local horns?), and doom-laden kick-drums. It is, in a word, A Lot.

Which is why I decided to do a quick rundown of my faves, as a service, as for my own posterity. to remember not to forget. (Forever caveat: subjective taste in electronic and dance music applies.)

Afrorack, “Last Modular”: Kampala’s Bamanya Brian has been billed as “Africa’s first DIY modular synth-maker.” (Bonus points for the name, which in this case refers to both the builder and the modular machine that he built/makes music on.) “Last Modular” is a downtempo chugger, mixing shaker loops and analog percussion textures, before at some point point breaking into a demonstration of modular and 8-bit sound FX. It’s like safely opening the door to the fun-house, before the heart-stopping shit starts jumping out of walls.

3xOJ, “Stasix”: Moroccan producer/DJ who’s definitely making music for the more mainstream corner of global club culture, yet utilizing not only the expected sonic architecture, but the compositional elements, tonalities, and in the case of “Stasix”, the sounds of North Africa. The squeal of a ghaita (a double reed instrument popular in rai’i and gnawa, and maybe best known from the recordings of the Master Musicians of Jajouka) is chopped up, and then integrated into a melodic emo trance track that mutates in’n’out of a classic post-dubstep bass wobble. Heavy “If you like Four Tet…” vibes. (Lots more music on Bandcamp. 2019 EP, sneper​.​exe, also sounded lovely.)

Jako Maron, “Mde Prototrash Bobr”: Entering L’Espirit, the Reunion Island-born Maron was one of the musicians whose work I knew and loved. His NNT comp, 2018’s The electro Maloya experiments of Jako Maron, is prolly my favorite release on the label, and a primary entry-point into La Reunion’s incredible maloya, a local music featuring percussion and a droning bow. (It scared the French so much, they banned it.) The contemporary version, electro maloya, is among the dance cultures Nyege Nyege has integrated into its idea of electronic pan-Africanism. “Prototrash” is a great example of Maron’s productions: a dub strategy, attacking rolling beats, with percussive drone textures and overlapping rhythmic elements (a bass synth and shaker) fading in and out of time, while a buzz of mosquito-like feedback noises swirls. Trance-inducing in the best possible way.

MC Kadilida, “Amsha Dude”: L’Espirit contains a bunch of rap and instrumental tracks in conversation with Atlanta, and takes on hip-hop that seem quaint for ugly American ears. Far more interesting are the MCs who deliver over beats that fit local vernacular, and serve their own cultural purposes. Rapping in Swahili, Kadilida (aka MC Card Reader) represents the sound of Tanzania’s Dar es-Salaam and the hyperactive beats of singeli, an electronic deconstruction of the many musics native to the melting pot of East Africa’s biggest city. Vanga polyrhththms, mchiriku, taarab and soukous, are mashed-up as Casio interpretations, and then sped-up with cheap software. Singeli dances are full body-on-the-ground twerks. And just like the gluteus muscles of those dancers, Kadilida’s flow on “Amsha Dude” is a majestic surfing of a crude 190bpm wave. Her delivery seems almost relaxed by the second time you hear the track, and its wonderful vocal chorus hook. Singeli is a trip—and Kadilida is a wonder. Watch her space.

Blacksea Não Maya, “Reborda”: Another of the comp’s artist I was previously familiar with. BNM are three friends of Angolan parentage—the brothers DJ Kolt and DJ Noronha, as well as DJ Perigoso—who live in Lisbon, Portugal, and release music via that city’s celebrated Principe Discos label. What was once a sound of oddball syncopation, and of rethinking kuduro via the global bass phenomenon, has now become much darker, rougher, and less dancefloor-oriented. The rhythm on “Reborda” tells a story that’s less joyful movement, more creeping shadows, aching machinery, horror-scene strings and broken glass. 2020 instrumental grime realism vibes.

Sekelembele, “Simbisa”: The Kampala MC’s only other recorded appearance was a b-side of a single (see NNT’s sister label, Hakuna Kulala) on which he sounded roughneck and ready for action over visceral hardcore beats, that were part bruk part flex. But “Simbisa” is a completely different animal, an extended instrumental in full trance mode. It’s built on an interaction of a whistle and a percussive tone (synth? electronic tom? marimba?) that unfolds for eight minutes, under a 303-like acid figure, an irregular timed low-end kick, various percussion cameos, and so on. The layers of rhythm interlock, continuously switching the primary time signature, shifting, pushing, pulling. Like Congotronics gone modern “classical” in techno-land, this is gorgeous, unclassifiable music anyone who loves Detroit or minimalist composition would plotz over.

Authentically Plastic, “Anti-Fun”: Another of L’Espirit’s rhythmic techno-not-techno stand-outs comes from a queer Kampala artist, who founded Anti-Mass, a series of roving art and music happenings, sustained by a collective of “subversive artists and DJs, [and which] reclaims space for queers, femmes, artists and other minorities, while exploring new potentials for sound and artistic expression in an increasingly regressive social climate.” BAM! “Anti-Fun” feels like it was created especially for this party, the sound of a “statement,” from its title on down. Built on a dubbed-out variation of a 16-bar drum figure, it is an industrial techno scorcher, thoroughly African in its use of the drum, but also “Exhibit A” of how the continent’s sound has taken over the world. A German like Harmonious Thelonious could conceivably make a track like this; but would likely feel the need to change-up its motion. Whereas Authentically Plastic just grinds it down. Absolutely brilliant—watch their space.

DJ Diaki, “Calaman Diena Cheick”: Diaki is an originator of Balani Shows, a kind of famed street party soundsystem sound that developed across southern Mali in the late ‘90s. DJs playing against distorted balafons and kalimbas, drum machines and snares, synths and samples, occasional singers and MCs, hints of Senegalese rumba, and West African afropop’s autotune making an appearance; basically a high-tempo good times mixing with street sounds and crowd participation. In typical Nyege Nyege fashion, Diaki, who throws Balani shows in the small town of Sanakoroba, has a style that cranks up the tempos and the rhythmic power. “Calaman” speeds along at 174bpms, the martial drums keeping a steady flow while the cross rhythms and occasional whistles explode. And when it ends, it just stops!

OTHER NOTABLE TRAXX by Chrisman, RS Produções, Bamba Pana, Boogzbrown, HHY & The Kampala Unit, Nilotika Cultural Ensemble, Nsasi, Oyisse, Yunis, Slammy Karugu.