Order link: https://hakunakulala.bandcamp.com/album/juicy-juicy

Erupting in a high-pressure spray of pummeling kicks, metallic industrial percussion and disorienting alien vocals, Makossiri’s debut EP is a fearless introduction to her unrestrained DIY narrative. Born in Kenya, the Kampala based producer and DJ draws on a wide range of musical and cultural interests, from hard techno and extreme noise to folk-punk and traditional African sounds, spiking these raw ingredients with radical politics, Egyptian mythology and Afrofuturism.

“Juicy Juicy” is her first attempt at production, and documents her uncynical excitement and ambition. An accomplished and intrepid DJ, she produces with a similarly borderless mindset, curling eccentric club rhythms and foundation-rattling rap with sheet noise, anxious drone and a widescreen sense of storytelling. Fractured East African experimental club cuts like ‘Lifeline’ and ‘Moving On’ are as propulsive and futuristic as her Hakuna Kulala labelmate Slikback, with seismic, dancefloor-demolishing bass and awkward, robotic synths meeting in almost ceremonial grandeur.

On ‘AEIOU’ however, she strips her sound back to the bare essentials, allowing Ugandan rapper BLAQ BANDANA to take the spotlight. He shifts rhymes between Makossiri’s fuzzed woodblock bumps and eerie synth drones, impressing again after an electrifying appearance on STILL’s “KIKOMMANDO”. Most surprising is the EP’s closing track ‘Ossiris Drums’ that looks to Cairo with its rousing mahraganat-inspired beat that slides it alongside music from Egyptian innovators like 3Phaz and Dijit.

Video Shot & Directed by Arno Mery