Mais Mozambique

Yara Da Silva: Se Kero Kantar

Ziqo: Cerveja

Dj Africano: ???

Unknown Artist: ???

All tracks taken from streetside bootlegs, Maputo, Mozambique (2007)

As promised, a few more Mozambican club jams gleaned from my travels. These selections span everything from Ms. Da Silva (who strikes me as Mozambique’s answer to Missy Eliot), American-style radio R&B and house-y type ish, to the contemporary flavors of marabenta, where, if you can avoid cringing at the floating synths utilized on “Cerveja”, I think you’ll be gratified with some pretty sweet crooning.

Mind you, Mozambique has an incredibly rich and variegated musical history and these selections only hint at the contemporary musical climate there. But if M.I.A. is any indication of taste-making, her use of Mozambican rapper African Boy on Kala, should intimate what I’m getting at here: clubs in Maputo are going off.

I wish I had more of the older stuff to sink my teeth into (in particular, I heard some tracks on the radio by a guy named David Abilio that were off the chains, but I couldn’t find anything else by or about him), but we’ll just have to live with what we’ve got.

PS. How about that flag? She’s the only one in the world with an AK featured on it… Not a bad piece of flag trivia.