Dance, Music, Life. This is Kuduro

Not too long ago I found myself wedged in a cabana in a tiny VIP section in a nightclub in my hometown, Harare, Zimbabwe. My companions were the daughter of a top local politician, the multi-millionaire owner of the biggest mall in the country, a club ‘promoter’ (read: hustler) who had risen up from the streets, and an expat mother-of-two from Angola. At our table glistening with chill, was an enabling bottle of Grey Goose vodka, and below us a pulsating dance floor packed with the after-work Friday club crew. We could have been anywhere in the world that understands the universal language of sweaty bodies, flashing lights and deep bass. I turned to top up the glass of the Angolan, but instead she grabbed the bottle, took a long sip and sighed, “You need to come to my country.” Her eyes showed her boredom, her body barely moving, “Come hear the music in Angola. We have a real party in Luanda. This isn’t a real party. Kuduro? Now, that’s a party, man”. What was this Kuduro that she spoke of, what was I missing about Angola? Later that night, I dug into the internet and let me just say, I wasn’t prepared.

The origin story of Kuduro is rooted in that complex nexus of social and cultural forces common in post-colonial African countries. Take indigenous Angolan root sources like Kizomba and Semba, borrow the steel drum snare kick beat from Trinidadian Soca and layer in a healthy dose of electronic synth music, hip hop and American rap, the resulting musical spawn is the hypnotic hybrid Kuduro. Manuel Kanza is a choreographer for the Kuduro performance crew Os Kuduristas. He believes Kuduro is all about the dance. “It’s inspired by so many things around our environment, our world,” Kanza says. “Anything can make a kuduro move. For example, we also imitate the movement of a frog, the movement of animals, the marching of soldiers. Everything can make a movement.” Indeed. One bittersweet observation: some of the most impressive herky-jerk dance moves are a straight-up imitation of the halting gait of a cripple — an homage to the numerous amputees of the decades long Angolan civil war.

Originally popularized in the streets of urban Luanda in the late 1980’s, the exact origins are unknown. It is, however, widely accepted that some of the originators of Kuduro were Tony Amado a prominent performer and dancer, and the gregarious Sebem a local DJ with a popular radio show showcasing the latest songs and production coming out of Lisbon and the musseques around Luanda. (An aside: musseque is a Kimbundu word that translates loosely as ‘sandy area’ and refers to the slums that surround the city center of Luanda. It literally refers to the lack of paved road infrastructure in these poorer communities). The sound quickly spread to the immigrant communities in Brazil and Portugal through cassette tapes and CD’s and those communities then contributed their own influences right back into the Luanda scene rapidly innovating the new sound form.

Kuduro means “hard ass” and true to its moniker, this pulsating electronic music form, coupled with unique and distinctive dance steps has created a stubbornly original Angolan genre that speaks to the cultural statement and social force that is referred to by Angolans as Angolanidade — in essence, “Angolan-ness”. It is a sound popularized in the streets via commuter buses blaring the latest hits from each neighborhood, as well as top dance clubs across Europe. It is both a statement that acknowledges Africans’ role in and contribution to the cosmopolitan global and cultural milieu, and a progressive social movement squarely placing Kuduro alongside its sister genres in what I would coin the modern “Afro-futurist” camp of African music — Kwaito, Bongo music and Afro-House. These days you can hear Kuduro and its afro-house derivatives shaking the dance floors in virtually any EDM club in Europe. It is a mainstay for global EDM icons like Major Lazer’s Diplo and has inspired one of the most overplayed club songs of the last few years with Don Omar’s Danza Kuduro.

Buraka Som Sistema by La Polla

Out of Lisbon, one of the flag bearers of progressive Kuduro is the Portuguese collective Buraka Som Sistema. Formed in Lisbon by Branko and Riot two native Portuguese performers and producers who teaming with Angolan producer, Conducto and Angolan MC Kalaf, created a sound that was slickly produced, finished and more accessible to the western audiences they were attempting to turn on. This team had a break out hit in 2007 with Black Diamond and were able to corral controversial singer M.I.A. into a chart topping duet.

The societal flux wrought by Angola’s collective journey from the end of colonialism and a decades long civil war, into becoming Africa’s second largest oil producer and THE booming regional economy provides rich material for Angolan artists. Music has long been a uniting nationalist influence for a country that has often needed uplifting symbolism to rally around. Unfortunately this music has also been seen as an instrument for political propaganda. A prominent Kudurista of the early 2000’s Dog Murras was allegedly being sponsored by a controversial army general to take his message to the musseques.

Angola’s nascent digitally connected population, the vast majority of whom are under the age of 18, embody the energy of the Kuduro lifestyle. Kuduro is a true reflection of the flattening global borders, enabling youth culture to co-opt sounds from anywhere, as they search for identity in the social age.