

This only made Detroit musician Theo Parrish’s Wuddaji all the more welcome. It is a cruel irony that in a year in which opportunities to show defiance and solidarity were most needed, particularly by Black Americans and other oppressed people, dancing was effectively off limits. –Philip Sherburneĭance music-virtually all of it rooted in Black musical traditions-carries the twin promises of resistance and liberation encoded in its very grooves.
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But every now and then, there’s a glimpse of striking beauty-when the nervous arpeggios of the closing “Nunun” give way to a wistful new-wave synth melody, it becomes a patch of calm amidst the chaos.

It’s a tough, concussive sound: Gunshots explode in clouds of reverb, and snares strike like jackhammers. In four explosive tracks, Nídia smashes together staccato horn riffs, martial drums, gruff shouts, and even what sounds like cawing crows with the blaring synths of main-stage EDM. In contrast to the laid-back Badjuda Sukulbembe 7'' and the woozy Não Fales Nela Que a Mentes LP, the unceremoniously titled S/T is a short, sharp shock of a record. Three years after Nídia é Má, Nídia é Fudida provided a platform for the Portuguese producer’s wild gyrations and ultra-saturated tone colors, Nídia followed up in the summer of 2020 with a trilogy of releases, spinning her fiercely original take on Afro-Portuguese batida in three different directions. Tracks like “Arms Deal” and “UN Sanctions” put a grimly literal spin on the percussive shrapnel and gun-cock samples favored by grime and bass music the birdsong and mournful vocal hook of “Retaliation” suggest that even moments of calm are soon ruptured by violence on “Bunker,” throbbing helicopters punctuate Nazar’s murmured refrain of “Gun in my hands/Bullets in my chest.” But there are moments of tenderness, too: “Mother” is an ambient lullaby that cradles echoes of a distant choir-a glimmer of hope amid the wreckage.
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Between 19, the former Portuguese colony endured what has been described as “the worst war in the world” Nazar’s Guerilla, inspired by the wartime journal of his father, a rebel general, doubles as a series of snapshots of the civil conflict. In contrast to the celebratory sound of Angolan kuduro, Manchester-based Nazar’s “rough kuduro” uses fractured rhythms and blasted digital textures to dig into the post-colonial past of the African nation of his family’s heritage. Combined with a string of compilations from MoMA Ready’s Haus of Altr label that showcased the strength and creativity of “ unabashed black electronic expression,” they proved that, despite everything, dance music remains not just alive and kicking, but urgent as ever. And together in the duo AceMoMA, the two zig and zag between sampled soul, cut-up breaks, rave stabs, and radically swung machine grooves, folding disparate influences into an ecstatic shot of energy. On his self-titled album as Gallery S, MoMA Ready balances blissfully deep anthems like “Grace Under Pressure” with hardware-centric forays into jungle and footwork. AceMo’s I Want to Believe and MoMA Ready’s Deep Technik both lean into the lush chords and wistful emotions of classic Detroit techno, and are delivered with a raw, unvarnished immediacy. The result was one of the most remarkable and prolific runs in recent dance music. As rising central figures in the New York underground, the two producers took advantage of their forced sabbatical by immersing themselves in the studio. It would have been easy for DJs to feel dispirited by 2020’s club closures, but not AceMo and MoMA Ready. Haus of Altr AceMo: I Want to Believe / AceMoMA: A New Dawn / Gallery S: Gallery S / MoMA Ready: Deep Technik / Various Artists: HOA011
