{"id":40818,"date":"2020-03-13T12:56:58","date_gmt":"2020-03-13T11:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/nazar-postwar-kuduro\/"},"modified":"2020-05-16T14:08:32","modified_gmt":"2020-05-16T13:08:32","slug":"nazar-postwar-kuduro","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/nazar-postwar-kuduro\/","title":{"rendered":"Nazar, postwar kuduro"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The idea for Nazar\u2019s first album <\/b>Guerrilla<\/i><\/b> came during his time in war-torn Angola. PAM reads between the lines of this work of experimental kuduro music, with its creator\u2019s assistance.\u00a0<\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n

\u2018Rough Kuduro\u2019. This is Nazar\u2019s name for his style of music, far removed from what we think of as characteristic of Tony Amado and the style that emerged in 1996. However, our young Belgian-Angolan is not here to jump on the bandwagon of kuduro\u2019s meteoric rise of the 2000s, when it found fame outside lusophone countries. By reworking familiar rhythms in the light of his own inner rage, he presents us with his reflections on a civil war that ravaged his country for 27 years.<\/span><\/p>\n

In 2007, 5 years after the civil war ended, Nazar \u2013 then a young teen \u2013 felt an urgent need to go back to the country of his ancestors. He remembers, \u2018at the time I was in Belgium and I was feeling lost. I wanted to find answers, and that\u2019s when I felt like maybe I would find a better place to feel more comfortable, like in Angola where my dad is.\u2019 Even though he was living with his mother in Brussels, Nazar was looking for a way to be reunited with his family, as well as getting away from incidents of racism and questions about his own identity. \u2018I was feeling less Belgian as I grew up and I wanted to go back to my roots.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>This was when he began to make music, as a way to exorcise new and existing frustrations about integrating into Angolan society. Kuduro was naturally in there somewhere, but what the artist remembers is his passion for Justice and Daft Punk. \u2018While in Angola I was making French-style music just to feel connected to Europe, because I didn\u2019t have anything I could hold onto\u2019. Over time, his immersion in Angolan culture led him to infuse more and more kuduro-specific elements into his tracks, and to become more free with the incisive and industrial electronic sounds that characterise his productions today.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nThe voice of the people<\/b><\/span><\/h6>\n

History shows that, during any confrontation, music plays a vital role as a means of expression. This is why kuduro is inextricably linked to one of the longest civil wars on the continent. The brief cease-fires served as moments of respite where keyboards, rhythm machines, and computers could be brought in to \u2018arm\u2019 the population musically. Despite \u2013 or perhaps because of \u2013 the violence all around, Angolans got extremely creative. \u2018At that time [music] was created to make the dark times feel brighter. Kuduro is the true voice of the people. In the rough kuduro I make, I try to place that true form of expression in the light of the Angolan civil war, because we have to talk about the suffering. It doesn\u2019t have to be taboo.\u2019
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