Angola has long been a hot bed for musical innovation. Of couse, immediately kuduro comes to mind when there´s talk about electronic dance music from Angola and the South Western part of the giant continent. But besides kuduro, Angola also birthed a bastard child of kuduro and afro house, called ku house, which was especially popular in the early 2010´s. This relatively obscure term describes tracks that have house tempo, yet the triplety, off-beatish percussion groove of kuduro.
One of the biggest ku house anthems is DJ Havaiana´s “Cazukuta”, originally released in 2012. It immediately became a staple in the Angolan club scene. Soon picked up by Angolan Kuduro MC Francis Boy, the catchy synth line and the irrestible beat morphed into the backing track for the song “Itocota” which became a major success in Portuguese speaking Africa, as well as Portugal.
When DJing in Angola in 2013, Daniel Haaksman randomly picked up the DJ Havaiana instrumental version of “Itocota” and began to play it out in his DJ mixes, always gathering enthusastic responses about the track. Produced on very basic home studio equipment with a modes sound, the original instrumental was confined to mixtape use only. Only 2019 Daniel found out that DJ Havaiana… more
credits
released February 19, 2020
Written by Mauro Sebastião Tandala. Additional production and edit by Daniel Haaksman. Published by Highscore Publishing. ISRC DECT11900036. (p) 2020 Man Recordings UG. All rights reserved. LC 14973. www.manrecordings.com
