There’s something about the old streets of Lisbon: you might be walking past a door and hear a bit of marrabenta and then, further down the street, hints of semba or funaná coming from the open window of a passing car. Lisbon is full of these sounds. And smells, and colours.

D-Mars, a producer who also goes by the name of Rocky Marsiano, grew up as an artist among these Lisbon streets, where he formed a hip hop group with direct ties to Cape Verde and Angola.

Africa was always close, always present. And hip hop taught him that vinyl records are pathways into the past and future, when put to good use in the hands of a DJ or in the inner circuits of an MPC sampler. D-Mars, now residing in Amsterdam, challenged Rui Miguel Abreu, a friend, an ally, a co-conspirator on many past adventures, to select some records from his personal collection.

The result is a batch of vinyl from Cape Verde and Angola, from Mozambique and São Tomé. D-Mars dove in, extracted the deepest grooves from the significant slabs of black plastic, and reimagined Africa with the help of his MPC. Meu Kamba  is the result: re-edits with the soul of classic African vinyl, beats that try to answer the wildest of questions – what if b-boys danced to semba instead of funk?​