Mozambique is actually not much on the musical map of the world despite it’s original music styles such as Pandza, Marrabenta and the sound of the Mbila (kind of xylophone). Regarding Hip Hop and electronic music the national artists focus more on copying the western style or those of the big brother South Africa.
But there is a group that makes a difference: Three young talented rappers (Rainha Da Sucata, Eddie Angel e Neovaldo Paulo) from Maputo present a crazy fusion of Hip Hop, Trap, Kwaito and traditional elements of Mozambican music on their mixtape FRELIMU.
The name of the mixtape is not just a phonetic imitation of the party FRELIMO that is ruling Mozambique now, as Neovaldo Paulo explains: “The use of the name is as well a reference to the fact that we are trying the same as FRELIMO did in the socio-political field which was freeing the country from colonization, but we want to liberate it in a musical and cultural way to the world. In the track FRE-LI-MU we aproach the current situation in the country that suffers a ‘cultural semi-colonization’.” And it has to do as well with another current situation in Mozambique: The return of the civil war. “The problems of the country make the people look for refuge in everything that comes from outside as a form of ‘relaxing’. And we want to show that this is possible with what is ours mixing the music of the ‘good cultural era’ with new music, more globalized, creating the fusion of the mixtape”, explains Neovaldo.
Get the whole thing here or from Soundcloud and check the video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlRglrBxKRU
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