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Diamond life

Linking Lisbon, Luanda and London, Buraka
Som Sistema polish the punchy Angolan
party sound kuduro to a bright shine and ship
it out across the globe

MULTIFACETED: Buraka Som Sistema

by ERIN MACLEOD

From the first few seconds of “Wegue Wegue,” it’s tough not to be hooked. By the time a minute’s gone by, it’s actually impossible to not want to get up and move. This is Buraka Som Sistema’s special brand of what’s called kuduro, and their tunes are simply relentless.

João Barbosa (aka Li’l John), who started the group only three years ago alongside Rui Pité (DJ Riot), Kalaf Ângelo and Andro Carvalho (Conductor), is clear about Buraka’s music. “It is like one of those extreme sports. This is extreme music. It is definitely made not to create an emotion but to make you dance or to make you do something crazy. It is based around an Angolan dance-music genre that developed over the last 10 years called kuduro. We ended up doing our own version of that, based in Lisbon.”

Kuduro from Angola sounds like it could have been influenced by a whole mixture of stuff, from soca to techno to baile funk and everything in between. Barbosa describes it as “crazy Angolan kids trying to do their own version of techno and house music and by doing that, they ended up creating something new and something different. And something that mixes in their references from the past and from the future.”

Suburban revolution

What in fact seems to connect this music to genres like Trinidad’s soca and Brazil’s baile funk is its incredible energy. Barbosa explains, “it’s like all of those little genres that are blossoming away in strange and hidden corners of the world, and it’s the social background that has an influence on the kind of energy that the song ends up transmitting.”

But what Buraka, whose four founding members include two Angolans and two Lisbonites, have done has not been to try and take kuduro to the world. An attempt to make a “pure” kuduro album would be, in Barbosa’s words, “lying.”

“It would be very dishonest of us! I would have to neglect all of my background and all the music I grew up with. We are part of something bigger than kuduro and something bigger than baile funk. It’s just the suburban revolution of people being able to show the songs that have been really big in local terms in small places in all the corners of the world. I think when we are doing an album and we feel that we share the same kinds of energy as all sorts of kind of music, we want to get that into our music as well and try to embrace the whole concept.”

The concept of Buraka’s album, Black Diamond, is to track the revolution. “We were trying to do something that is a document of this era that we’re living in. Everything is really quick and fast, and you get music on the Internet, and in 15 minutes, you’re already tired of the song. But nowadays it is also possible to get to the actual root of the music. You might know kuduro from us, but if you go on Google and search, you will see all the original kuduro stuff, the stuff that is being made in Angola. You actually have access to those songs. It’s an era when music is opening up and searching for different things because everyone is really tired of the same formula.

“What we wanted to do is define all of this, that’s why you have a song with Deize Tigrona, a baile funk singer, Kano is there, M.I.A. is there, that’s why all of the Angolan stuff is there. We just tried to make the whole thing a trip around the world with a big presence of three cities: Lisbon, Luanda and London. These cities got mixed up in our trip. It was important for us to relate all this with Angola and what goes on there with diamonds, oil—people who have multi-billions and other people who are just surviving.”

Refining the rock

The title of the album references the diamonds and the oil, among other things. “We chose the name and everyone has been telling us about different meanings that the expression has. The whole idea in the beginning was obvious—we knew there was going to be some sort of relationship with oil and diamonds. Our idea was, we liked the process of a rock that is ugly and dirty in the beginning and you might not even recognize it as a diamond. It goes through a whole process and ends up being a little shiny, perfect rock that can cost millions of dollars.

“We like to think of our music related to that process, going from rough points, rough moments on the album into very worked-on moments of the songs. After, we heard that black people in South Africa use the term for a self-made man. We also found out that there is a chocolate called Black diamond and a coffee called Black Diamond. We are always figuring more out as we go along.”

WITH DJ SEGA AND DJ KHIASMA AT
ZOOBIZARRE, THURSDAY,
APRIL 30, 9 P.M. $15

Kuduro bureau

Montreal’s Masala team put their fingers
on the finest of the genre

CHRONIC LUSOPHONICS: Le Jeune Premier and Khiasma

by ERIN MACLEOD

In 2006, DJ Khiasma, who organizes and promotes Boomboxx at Zoobizarre, and DJ Jeune Premier, the fellows behind CISM’s globetrotting Masala radio show and the matching blog, took a look at kuduro. Khiasma’s series of posts drew the attention of not only the globalista listening public, but also folks in Angola. As Jeune Premier describes, “I guess we contributed a lot to make this sound emerge in the north and we brought an Angolan perspective about kuduro’s growing popularity in the west’s ‘cool kidz’ clubs.” Get a sense of what kuduro’s all about with the following picks—to listen to any (or all!), visit masalacism.com.

DJ Znobia/Costuleta/Magnesio, “Dança do Tchiriri ”: “The biggest track of the genre. It has been an earworm success all around the planet for almost three years. It’s pretty unclear who originally created it, but apparently it’s Znobia. It got released by Costuleta under his name.”

Noite e Dia, “Tira Makossa”: “From one of the best female kuduro MCs, this track is also important as it was one of the first songs to be spread around the blogosphere in 2006.”

Puto Prata, “Zuata Zuata”: “Puto Prata is definitely Masala’s favourite kuduro artist. Incredible energy in the flow, supported by always-great production. The kid is a genius!”

Dog Murras, “Midexa”: “One of the biggest music stars in Angola performs a range of music, but his voice makes his kuduro tracks automatic bombs!”

Helder Rei Do Kuduro, “Festa de Paz”: “Helder is a very famous Portuguese pop star. Though not appreciated by everyone, this kuduro track is a classic.”

Buraka Som Sistema, “Yah!”: “This track put Buraka on the map. It sets the tone of their personal and more Western-audience-friendly approach to kuduro with a tempo at house music’s 130 bpm against kuduro’s usual 140 bpm. Go check out Sinden’s remix as well.”

Frederic Galliano feat. Pai Diesel, “Até Quando”: “France’s Galliano is the other very important figure in terms of popularization of kuduro. His excellent CD Kuduro Sound System is the first kuduro compilation to be easily accessible to Westerners.”

Izé, “Tronku Di Mundo”: “The Cap Verdien community has been making their own version of kuduro, bringing it closer to their carnival music called funana. It’s been made mainly in Paris and it’s a very interesting appropriation process where two Portuguese-speaking communities now debate about what the real thing is.”

Familia Agre, “Sai De Caminho”: “This is a pretty special track Khiasma got off a kuduro compilation bought in France. It bridges kuduro with more traditional chants.”

Os Denon Squad, “Oba”: “Very fast and violent kuduro! Based in Lisbon, Os Denon Squad is the first band of Engrácia Silva, aka Pongo Love, featured on Buraka’s ‘Wegue Wegue.’”