Soma Magazine from San Francisco did a nice piece on Akwaaba this month. Check out the digital version of the magazine and head to page 28, or read it directly here. Thanks to Amity Bacon for her time and interest in Akwaaba!
Just saw this movie. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in Youssou N’Dour’s music, Senegal, Africa, their culture(s), religions and relationship with the West.
Derek Rath, host of Cosmic Barrio every Sunday on KPFK, invites Akwaaba founder Benjamin Lebrave to talk about his recent trip to Angola, Angolan music, African music, Akwaaba, and more of that good stuff. Tune in at 6pm this Sunday July 12, KPFK 90.7fm in LA, online at www.kpfk.org, download here or just listen, right here:
[audio:https://www.akwaabamusic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/07/akwaaba_kpfk_071209.mp3]
Puto Mira (Vagabanda) at DJ Kobe’s studio in Marçal
Heroy (Vagabanda) at DJ Kobe’s studio in Marçal
DJ Stan & DJ Fofo’s studio in Marçal
DJ Fofo in the studio
On our travels throughout Africa, we’ve seen plenty of home studios where coupé décalé, hiplife and now kuduro hits are made. The studios are usually tiny, the PCs tend to crash a lot (what else is new), the speakers scream and the saturated bass rumbles. And singers, rappers flock to these studios to record songs, usually for $100 or so per track depending on the DJ and the country.
In Luanda, there are plenty of kuduro DJs, but many of them, and many of the more successful ones, live in Rangel and Marçal: DJ Fofu (DJ Fofeira) & DJ Stan, Dj Kobe & DJ Hernany, DJ Prole, DJ Bobo G, DJ Buda, Killamu… the list could go on. In the photos above, you can see the largest kuduro studio we saw, DJ Kobe’s spot, which he built inside a metal shipping container. It comes equipped with AC and… a bed, for happy ending studio sessions!
DJ Fofu’s setup is more typical: blue neon light, a large mirror to give the impression that 6 people are not crammed in 2 square meters… Every single time we went to the studio, there were a handful of kudurists waiting to record. Like a doctor’s office. Doors open at 8am, and Fofu and Stan keep at it until about 10pm every day. Plus DJ gigs on the week end, which rarely end before dawn… so it’s a busy schedule for these cats. And you’ll take notice when you listen to recent kuduro tracks, a “DJ Stan” vocoder or “DJ FOFEIRA” shout is almost mandatory for any respectable kuduro album!
Heroy and Puto Mira form Vagabanda, a duo on top of kuduro in Angola. They’ve traveled all over the country, and are now looking at trips to Brazil and Portugal. You can find some of their videos online, but their actual music is still not very accessible – at least not legally. But it’s coming very soon here on Akwaaba. Heroy has been doing kuduro for about 8 years now, but success really came when he met Puto Mira and formed Vagabanda. Suga, Vou le Dar, M Yoyo… were all hymns in their own time here in Luanda. Especially in the barrios of Rangel and in Mira’s home, Marçal. We spent a lot of time there with the band, also meeting some of the DJs they collaborate with, DJ Fofu, DJ Kobe, DJ Lango, Bobo-G… cool cats with lots and lots and lots of kuduro beats.
The video to Suga has such poor sound, it makes me sick… so here’s proper audio:
Suga – Vagabanda & Agre-G
We met Beto AC (left) and Bebo Clone (right) a couple weeks ago through Telmo, we mentioned their song Vem Ca, which has been blasting through Luanda for the past few months, and Telmo made it happen, getting us a meeting with them the next day. These kids are super chill, very enthusiastic about their music, relatively new to the game (3 years), but rising quickly. They come from the Cassenda barrio, which is not a traditional stronghold for kuduro, but now with help from these cats it’s definitely on the map. Among others, they work with Dred Man-Gi, a lesser known yet quite talented DJ and producer, who took us to his studio and shared a few beats with us.
