{"id":41963,"date":"2019-02-21T13:34:27","date_gmt":"2019-02-21T12:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/angel-ho-sex-pop-and-fairy-tales\/"},"modified":"2020-05-07T10:01:33","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T09:01:33","slug":"angel-ho-sex-pop-and-fairy-tales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pan-african-music.com\/en\/angel-ho-sex-pop-and-fairy-tales\/","title":{"rendered":"Angel-Ho: Sex, pop and fairy tales"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/b><\/span><\/h4>\n

South African Angel-Ho joins the UK\u2019s Hyperdub label for her debut album of post-modern aphrodisiac pop music.<\/span><\/h4>\n

Cover\u00a0\u00a9 Jody Brand<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

As an already established DJ and producer, Angel-Ho began to tease the internet towards the end of 2018, revealing in succession three brilliant and surgically precise instrumentals. From there, she has elevated her music to a new level, bringing out her pop diva outfit, to release her debut album <\/span>Death Becomes Her<\/span><\/i>. She enters the fold of the rigorously curated Hyperdub camp, whilst also at the same time running her own label, NON Worldwide.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve been collaborating and talking with Hyperdub for a while. My latest music developments led me to go with a bigger label. I didn\u2019t release the album on NON Worldwide because my label is focused on promoting artists other than myself, and I\u2019m not dealing with that anymore,\u201d<\/span><\/i> she explained to us on the phone, with a calm and androgynous tone. In the company of Burial, Ikonika and Jessy Lanza, Hyperdub is certainly a fitting home to allow such incisive and delightedly disturbing pop music to reach a large and receptive audience.<\/span><\/p>\n


\nA pop diva of the future
\n<\/b><\/span><\/h5>\n

What makes this album unique is that Angel-Ho sings and she does it well. Her voice, both sensual and domineering, defies the acid electro arrangements, with a musical avant-garde theatre, like a rendering of a hardcore version of the blue diva in the cult scene in <\/span>The Fifth Element<\/span><\/i>. <\/span>\u201cSinging was a necessity for me<\/span><\/i>, she says<\/span>. I felt like I needed to express so many things. It is in my DNA to express myself in my music.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The vocal presence was necessary to tell stories focused on the emancipation of her new transsexual identity, through metaphorical fantasies and acid poetry. Without storing her former body away in the cupboard, she fully embraces her new persona which forms a part of the central theme in her lyrics \u2013\u00a0in a dreamlike way: <\/span>\u201cI write about love, breakups, being a pop diva, and the fantasy of obtaining the ultimate sense of luxury for my own self-love. It\u2019s about a personal desire to exist in the world. I wanted to express everything about myself, what I\u2019m seeing in my journey and everything I\u2019m experiencing currently. There\u2019s also a type of sexuality that comes out when I perform my music. I always express sexuality from the way I dress or carry myself. Queer love and romance are a big part of my identity, and the album expresses this, in a fantasy.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Drawing inspiration from badass women like Lady Gaga or Missy Elliott, she manages to avoid the easy neo-pop labelling and tells us specifically the dimension she wants to share with her album: <\/span>\u201cI would define my sound as \u2018a gigantic pop musical, both cinematic and narrative\u2019. My songwriting skills have been pushed to the forefront of this record.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0<\/span><\/i>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n