DJ Dadaman & Moscow Dollar - Ka Gaza

The Slow Music Movement
May 3
2 min read

*** This review first appeared in TSMM's April 28th, Newsletter where you can get all the tips (and more) first ***

Alright let’s get this party started, with a rare look back in time from the normally brain twisting Afrofuturistic Nyege Nyege Tapes crew out of Kampala, Uganda, who are taking a break from blowing up people’s expectations of African music to head over to the most exciting place in the dance music for the last twenty years, South Africa, for a trip down memory lane.

Ever since Kwaito in the late 80s, South Africa has been twisting the house template into fresh new shapes and with Gqom and Amapiano this century, been responsible for the most exciting mutations in the house continuum, just at a time when the West is stuck in a retromaniacal dance music death cycle that is still spinning out of control.

Well, in the middle of all this innovation around 2000, there was bacardi music and if you need to get down and dirty sometime soon then let it all hang out to this raw, bouncing, somehow unreleased snapshot of the genre from Pretoria’s DJ Dadaman and vocalist Moscow Dollar, who tells no doubt colourful tales of township life in Bantu language Xitsonga, simultaneously giving the beats an ancestral soul meets urban grind vibe.

Like a lot of township studios the equipment was basic, but like those early Afro-American house pioneers Dadaman, with his innate Afro-funkiness and vision, squeezes every ounce out of his gear to turn up the bounce, swing and party potential to eleven. This is music to sweat not sip to, and I hope you respect that when you crank it up. Hell even your neighbours will be wining rather than whining.