Nazar unleashes confrontational kuduro on debut EP for Hyperdub, Enclave

The Angolan producer weaves the sounds of war into his “rough kuduro” sound.

Angolan producer Nazar will debut on Hyperdub Records with Enclave, a six-track EP featuring the producer’s confrontational take on Angola’s kuduro music.

Terming his sound “rough kuduro”, Nazar blends uptempo kuduro beats with aggressive, militaristic sound design and lyrics reflecting on the violence and disorder of the Angolan civil war.

After spending the early part of his life in Belgium, the producer returned to his native Angola where he put his own unique spin on the genre as a means of addressing the catastrophic effects of the conflict and the routine injustices of a repressive state.

“Since people can’t really criticise on the streets, they do it on the internet and through their art”, he says in a press release, “I couldn’t express my frustrations with what I was seeing on a daily basis and translate that uglier side, the existing kuduro was too upbeat.”

The producer includes highly personal accounts of the conflict throughout the record. According to a press release, ‘Airstrike’ features the producer “recounting the stories of numerous airstrikes endured by his mother, aunties and older sisters”, whilst EP closer ‘Ceasefire’ includes a vocal sample of his father reading from a journal he kept during his time as an army general.

Enclave arrives on November 16 via Hyperdub and is available to pre-order now. Check out the cover art and tracklist below.