OBG by Branko

Buraka Som Sistema co-founder and Enchufada label-head Branko presents OBG, his third album. The artist’s most personal and reflective work to date, it’s a letter of love and thanks to the community around him, to Portugal’s breathtaking landscapes, and to the syncopated, window-rattling rhythms that emanate from the clubs and car stereos of Portuguese cities.

As a musician, DJ, label curator and promoter, few have been as pivotal as Branko (aka João Barbosa) in bringing the sound of underground Portuguese electronic music to a global audience. Since his formative years growing up in the city of Amadora on the fringes of Lisbon, Barbosa dedicated his career to elevating the unique club music hybrids–mutations of kuduro, kizomba, zouk, baile funk and more–that were spreading in the communities around him.

Branko initially achieved success as part of the collective Buraka Som Sistema, before beginning a career as a solo artist and releasing two LP’s, Atlas (2015) and Nossos (2019). But Barbosa’s creative output is just one side of his work. As a curator Branko launched the Lisbon festival Enchufada Na Zona in 2019 and in 2022 will curate a stage at the first Sonar Lisboa. Through his label, Enchufada, he works tirelessly to raise the profile of up and comers from Lisbon and the global Lusophone (Portuguese-speaking) diaspora.

OBG is an album of organic textures and inviting rhythms, created in Branko’s signature style, and inspired in part by a series of outdoor DJ-sets performed and streamed from beautiful locations across his native country. Opener ‘SRA’ starts with a beckoning vocal, wasting little time setting the tone with warm piano chords and a low-slung, kizomba-esque beat. On the brooding ‘ETA’, written with Portuguese beatmaker Fumaxa, subtle sliding bass tones underpin a brooding, colourful arrangement.

As always, Branko’s choice of collaborators reflects a desire to highlight his favourite up and coming artists, like Cameroonian-Guadeloupean producer Ms Mavy who features on ‘AUX’, and Ellah Barbosa who lends her voice to the album’s only vocal track NAFÉ. Percussionist Iúri Oliveira features on ‘CTG’–the title a common text message abbreviation of ‘Contigo’, meaning ‘with you’–a pandemic-era tribute to human connection, written in a time without dancefloors. Slowly rising in pace over the course of its 11-tracks, OBG closes with the colourful and densely textured ‘OOO’, a climactic and pulse-quickening percussive display.

Like most of the track names on the album, the album’s title is borrowed from Portuguese SMS language, and means ‘Obrigado’–thank you. OBG sees Barbosa travel back in time to give thanks to the formative years of his creative journey–a period when there were no tours and no audience, just the motivation to hear, interpret and disseminate the sounds of the city around him.

released April 8, 2022

All songs mixed by Tom Leach at Snap Studios
All songs mastered by Sam John at Precise Mastering
Cover art by Raquel Belli
Design by Daniel Neves