By Luke Lawrence
In 2011, cultural critic and music writer Simon Reynolds published his treatise on music (and society’s) fetishism of nostalgia; Retromania. In the book, he laments what he sees as a lost decade (2000-2010) that (according to him) saw no new innovations in music. His central thesis is that after the whirlwind of the “new” that was the 1960s, Bowie’s upending of social mores and musical barriers alongside punk’s year zero approach in the 1970s, the shiny pop music and experimentation of post-punk in the 1980s, and the proliferation of innovative dance music in the 1990s, the first decade of the new century had nowhere to go and no appetite to even attempt to develop new forms of music and culture. Although he bemoans the fact that much of the music of previous eras consisted of recycled forms of previous innovations, until the new millennium there were always new ideas and unique contexts that allowed for innovation and progress. In short, there is nothing new under the sun.
It’s a few years now since I first published an article in Tidings of Magpies on my love for the cutting-edge Ugandan electronica/hip-hop label Nyege Nyege Tapes and its sister label Hakuna Kulala. I finished that article on a portentous note, wondering how long it would be before the record company vultures swooped down and co-opted and commercialized what was a vibrant and beautiful underground community.
Fast forward two and half years and thanks to that article, Nyege Nyege’s press team got in touch with TOM and asked if we would be interested in reviewing the new record by Sisso & Maiko (out May 10). Seeing as it was buying the compilation of fresh and frantic Tanzanian Singeli sounds put together by Sisso back in 2017 that acted as my introduction to Nyege Nyege Tapes (current total number of NN/HK records on shelf: 46), I thought it would be the ideal time to take stock and see how the world’s most forward-thinking label has fared over the last two and a half years.
The good news is that Nyege Nyege Tapes/Hakuna Kulala are as underground and authentic as ever and have spent the last couple of years expanding their remit beyond East Africa to encompass the US (a cool C.V.E retrospective), Europe (Judgitzu, Normal Nada, De Schuuuman) and South America (DJ K, Clube Tormenta). Many of these artists showcase the beautifully fragmented diaspora of what Blommaert calls “superdiversity” in our (post)modern, late-capitalist societies wonderfully, representing as they do the explosive creativity that displaced peoples can add to the vibrant cultural life of their adopted homes. The two labels have also continued to kick against the conservative Ugandan authorities, releasing a record by queer Ugandan artist Authentically Plastic (as well as a just-announced new record by Nsisi from the same outsider queer collective, ANTI-MASS), and ensuring that the annual Nyege Nyege festival is as full of wild abandon as ever.
In the early days of the labels there appeared to be a throw-everything-at-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks approach to their devastatingly experimental sounds. This worked (and to a certain extent still does work) well and gave us some of the most incredible sonic clusterfucks (in a good way) ever committed to wax (see Kenyan industrialtechnogrindcore duo Duma, for instance). However, as the label has established itself as the byword for cutting-edge, experimental, global dance music, and as more and more DJs, rappers and producers from around the world fall over themselves to be associated with the labels, they have continued to up their game. This has been achieved by respecting and retaining the pioneering artists who helped build NN/HK into what they are today, combined with maintaining that ferocious energy for finding and nurturing the rawest talent on the planet. It doesn’t matter who you are, where you’re from, or where you’re at – if you have a passion for fucking with the artificial and arbitrary boundaries of dance/hip-hop/traditional/whatever music and the skills to make that passion a reality, then you’re in.
With this in mind, I’ll run through a few personal highlights from the NN/HK catalogues over the past couple of years and finish with the promised review of Sisso & Maiko:
Lady Aicha & Pisko Crane’s Original Fulu Miziki Of Kinshasa – N’Djila Wa Mudujimu
(Nyege Nyege Tapes, 2022)
This is one Nyege Nyege Tapes record that very nearly went mainstream, as the video of the band, all dressed in wildly out-there masks and playing unidentifiable instruments, went mini-viral (if that’s not an oxymoron!). Pisko Crane’s Fulu Miziki and their homemade instruments, forged from the discarded detritus of the city, emerged from the slums of Kinshasa, building a sound that wasn’t a million miles away from some of the more commercially successful acts like Konono No. 1. However, when they teamed up with designer and performance artist Lady Aicha at Nyege Nyege studios in Kampala they forged a whole new aesthetic and sound. To be honest, I was listening to this album for months thinking that the band were some kind of cool underground African new wave band with, like, you know, normal guitars and stuff! It wasn’t until I saw the video that it all clicked into place, and I saw the innovation and the energy. A truly incredible album that is a straight-up party. It might just be the best thing that Nyege Nyege have put out so far.
(Hakuna Kulala, 2023)
The second album from MC Yallah (the first one got a shout-out in my previous article) is an incredible step forward for the Kenyan-born, Uganda-based MC that I just played over and over when it came out, leading to it topping my Album of the Year list for 2023. Yallah’s rapid-fire raps seamlessly and smoothly merge four languages (Luganda, Luo, Kishwali, and English) into short, sharp bursts of hip-hop perfection. The flawless flow is backed up by a global talent of beatmakers and producers (Debmaster – Germany, Scotch Rolex – Japan, Chrisman – Democratic Republic of Congo) to make an album of forward-thinking, innovative and simply cool-as-fuck 21st Century global hip-hop.
Nakibembe Embaire Group – Nakibembe Embaire Group
(Nyege Nyege Tapes, 2023)
This album is about as close as Nyege Nyege get to “traditional” African music (except perhaps for the excellent Buganda Royal Music Revival comp that they put out in 2021), featuring as it does, the players of a giant communal ‘embaire’ xylophone located in the Ugandan kingdom of Busoga. But, even then, they can’t help fucking with the formula by pairing the traditional players with Indonesian electro-noise freaks Gabber Modus Operandi and Uwalmassa member Harsya Wahono for three of the eight tracks on the album. For me, the tracks with the Embaire group playing by themselves work best, with their repetitive percussion building up a hypnotic, almost trance-inducing sonic tapestry, augmented by shouts, jeers and additional drums. The collaborative tracks kind of take you out of that headspace slightly, but as with everything Nyege Nyege, this album pushes the envelope of what sounds can be possible when put together and the world is a better place for it.
Judgitzu – Sator Arepo
(Nyege Nyege Tapes, 2023)
Judgitzu (French producer and “punk ethnomusicologist” Julien Hairon) is a perfect example of what I love about how the label has developed over the last couple of years. Julien was born in Brittany but has spent the past decade travelling the world, observing rituals, capturing sounds, and putting them out on his own label, Les Cartes Postales Sonores. This album is his attempt to explore the Celtic heritage of his birthplace through complex drones, spacey sci-fi synths and textured layers of sounds. But just as the listener is settling into the erm…unsettling looped rhythms, the influence from the hyperspeed Singeli music that he encountered in Tanzania (see below) rubs off and it all goes a bit gabber techno, before drawing you back in with more synth-led drones. Another NN classic, that is my current favourite listen.
Sisso & Maiko – Singeli Ya Maajubu
(Nyege Nyege Tapes, 2024)
And so to the latest release (at the time of writing, anyway, they have a dauntingly prolific release rate over the two labels) by Sisso & Maiko. Sisso is veteran Tanzanian producer Mohamed Hamza Ally who introduced the world (and me!) to the breakneck Singeli sound several years ago. Maiko is a keyboardist from East Tanzania who was drawn to the capital by Sisso’s unique beats. On first listen this sounds to my ears like the perfect update to the Singeli sound that caught me off-guard all those years ago. The peripatetic, jerky sound is still there, but it is augmented with haunting shrieks of sound, jaunty keyboard stabs and some nods to the kind of experimental hip-hop and footwork that you might expect to find on Orange Milk records. With so much going on, and as with all the best Nyege Nyege releases, repeated listens reveal something new each time. The downbeat brief relief of “Mangwale”, the primal-chopped-percussion-futuristic- bleep-attack of “Jimwage”, and the water-being-poured-in-space sci-fi electronics of “Mizuka” to name a few highlights. As with most NN records, it’s not perfect, but it relentlessly pushes the envelope of what music can do, be and mean in the 21st Century, and doing it on its own terms.
Singeli Ya Maajubu will be released on May 10
Reynolds’ book ends on a reluctantly optimistic note, a vague hope that “the future is out there”, but the previous doom-laden 428 pages indicate that, for him at least, this seems highly unlikely. I have no idea if Simon has heard the furiously experimental and forward-thinking music that has been emanating out of East Africa for close to a decade now (he has just this week published a new book subtitled “Tomorrow’s Music Today”, so I guess we’ll find out pretty soon), but I’d like to think that the extraordinary sounds of Nyege Nyege Tapes and Hakuna Kulala are exactly the future he was hoping for: pan-global, genre-defying, forward-thinking, innovative, diverse, staunchly experimental and not beholden to the whims of an increasingly corporatised music industry hooked on yesterday’s money-spinning sounds and artists. For me, at least, they are demonstrable proof that the future has not given up yet and that under the relentless East African sun, EVERYTHING is new. The future’s bright, the future’s (still!) Nyege Nyege!
Luke Lawrence lives in Tokyo with his ever-expanding record collection and is a co-host of the 90s guitar music podcast Stupid and Contagious. Find it on YouTube or on Apple podcasts.
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