Modern Qualifier 50 – Lady Aicha, Suntou Susso, Hesa, DJ Kleytinha & MC Pipokinho

From the Ugandan collective’s (amazing) 2022 LP N’Djila Wa Mudujimu. Nominated by Arron W.
From the Gambian kora player’s 2022 debut Kanefonyo. Nominated by Isabel E.
This one is impressively Google-proof to the non-Arabic reader – it’s a 2023 single and I think it’s from Egypt! Nominated by Job De W.
Also a 2023 single from the prolific brega funk MC. Nominated by Frank K.

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Arron Wright

25 May 2023 12:51

We met Lady Aicha et al in the 2022 poll. This one is a bit longer than ‘Kraut’.

I’m going against my usual polling practice here, but YOU ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO WATCH THIS VIDEO, which isn’t the one linked above (glad I checked!).

I believe it’s the same song and the same artists under a slightly different name, and it seems to have been a viral hit as early as 2020 (220,000 views!).

Please, just this once, take my word for it and click.

Thanks.

Tom

25 May 2023 13:26

Reply to Arron Wright

Oh I can swap it in if you like!

Arron Wright

25 May 2023 13:30

Reply to Tom

It’s definitely more entertaining!

I confess I’m making an educated guess about the artists though. Discogs doesn’t even have a record for them other than the 2022 album, not does it give the alternative name shown on my linked video.

But this is clearly the same song, clearly came from the same place, and it’s by a collective with a very very similar name.

Tom

25 May 2023 13:38

Reply to Arron Wright

Ohhh this reminds me that I meant to look into the mystery of the two Fulu Mizikis. (This group are on Spotify with the same icon as your YT upload and also put out a record last year!) Are they the same band rebranded, has there been some kind of split, is it just that the tracks with Lady A got siphoned off for the Nyege Nyege Tapes release? No idea!

From memory the NNT write-up suggested they’re kind of a shifting collective and more of a workshop – both in the “creative space” and a more literal “welding bits of kit together” sense – than a ‘band’ per se.

rabbitfun

25 May 2023 14:22

Reply to Tom

It’s very much the same group (of people). This is from the description of the 2020 video Aaron posted:

Fulu Miziki is a collective of artists who comes straight from a future where humans have reconciled with mother earth and with themselves. This multidisciplinary collective of artists is based in the heart of the Congolese capital city Kinshasa and was founded by Pisko Crane. For several years now, it’s founder Pisko has spent an amount of time conceptualizing an orchestra made from objects found in the trash, constantly changing instruments, always in search of new sounds. Couples of years ago, Pisko Crane joined efforts with performing artist Aicha Mena Kanieba who, with Le Meilleur, DeBoul, La Roche, Padou, Sekelembele, and Tche Tche formed the Eco-Afro-Futuristic punk ensemble Fulu Miziki. Making our own performance costumes, masks and instruments is essential to their approach of Fulu Miziki’s musical ideology. Their unique sound supports a pan-African message of artistic liberation, peace and a severe look at the ecological situation of the Democratic Republic of Congo and the whole world. For Fulu everything can be recovered and re-enchanted.

The Nyege Nyege Tapes account posted a video from the same session a year earlier, with the following description:

Since 1999 Pisco Crane has worked tirelessly to develop a musical genre that is build on the sound of found items and the recycling of anything that is trashed. In 2019 Fulu Miziki headlines Nyege Nyege Festival with their first show outside of DRC as the complete Fulu Miziki Orchestra, featuring the amazing Lady Aicha as the lead voice of the ensemble. With a forthcoming album on Nyege Nyege Tapes they are currently in residency in Kampala developing a futuristic audio-visual narrative that inspires eco-consciousness as much as resilience, creativity and heavy dancefloor shake up. First tour dates announced soon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ri2oK4gApMU

rabbitfun

25 May 2023 14:30

Reply to rabbitfun

Sorry, Arron, not Aaron!

Tom

25 May 2023 13:40

This is a great group – love to hear a bit of Arabic pop, Frank’s brega-funk selections have been a joy and Lady Aicha’s LP was probably my favourite of 2022 and this captures a lot of the appeal (it’s the metallic creaking which makes it).

However I voted for the very chill and more traditional kora sounds of Suntou Susso, partly cos my wife nominated it but also cos we had tickets to go and see him play outdoors last summer and couldn’t make it cos of illness. On this evidence we missed a lovely evening so he can have a vote instead!

thee temple ov platonick youth

30 May 2023 19:17

Reply to Tom

i had never heard of a kora before, and honestly he’s probably going to get my vote simply on the strength of introducing me to the instrument, because it’s amazing. i usually don’t actually watch the videos, but i happened to tab over to it and was just like “WHAT is that incredible thing he is playing??? i must know more!”

actualee simpson

25 May 2023 14:45

Wow, tough group. Only two are new to me, though — I’ve been tracking MC Pipokinha pretty closely this year and converged on “Bota Na Pipoka” with Frank a couple months ago (my Spotify lists of Pipokinha “features” is at about 100 and counting, though I think a lot are remixes using her vocals without her involvement). Liked the Lady Aicha album a lot last year. Hope Job De W can share more Arabic pop — I pull a lot of stuff from Egypt, which seems a little better represented on Spotify, but little of it goes quite this hard.

Jeff Worrell

28 May 2023 14:26

Reply to actualee simpson

My curated group in Ancient includes something from Egypt – that song is a lot older than this one though obv. Solidarity was the thing that broke the tie here; otherwise this would have been an impossible choice.

katstevens

26 May 2023 15:18

Bota Na Pipoka = new to me and a 100% banger

vinnycrackers

26 May 2023 21:29

Reply to katstevens

GAH I still have that one to listen to and I’m already having a tough time!

koganbot

26 May 2023 23:22

“Pipoka” means “popcorn,” according to Google Translate. “Pipokinha” is Little Popcorn, a comic character that (real name) Doroth Helena de Sousa Alves created for a YT channel specializing in “fictional stories on the favelas of São Paulo” (Wikip); “Pipokinha soon stood out in the videos through the figure of a seductive girl who resembles those in popular humor shows.” “Bota na” probably means “put it in”; “bota” can also mean “boot,” which can result in interesting plays on words, but someone who knows Portuguese and the ways of São Paulo should correct me if necessary. I have no idea if this is an authorized mashup, an unauthorized mashup, a new song, or what. This monster would be an obvious candidate for half the mash, assuming very precise scissors work from DJ Kleytinho, but listening to it I just don’t think so. In any event, “Bota na Pipoka” seems too vigorous for gentle cuddling or for a romantic candlelight dinner (or for sex at all, imo). A steamroller.

koganbot

31 May 2023 05:05

Btw, I doubt that “Bota na Pipoka” would be considered brega funk, though I’m hardly knowledgeable enough to have a handle on what is or isn’t what type of Brazilian funk. Maybe the track is “rave funk”? I’d say the dif is that brega funk has parts that are variants on what tubas and accordions used to play but done on cheap electronic keyboards and then funked-up and sliced up w/ stuttering beat machines; whereas rave funk, if that’s what it’s called, is the stuff that’s trying to sear your ears off w/ beeping, screaming laser-driven carbon monoxide alarms.

wpDiscuz

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Modern Qualifier 50 – Lady Aicha, Suntou Susso, Hesa, DJ Kleytinha & MC Pipokinho

TODAY’S PLAYLISTS (Modern Day 10)

Modern Qualifier 49 – Maximum Balloon, Doug Hream Blunt, Tyler Childers, Joshua Ray Walker

The Discourse