Nyege Nyege announce first of four retrospectives of DJ Znobia's music

Nyege Nyege Tapes has announced the first of a four-volume retrospective release series of DJ Znobia's musical output.

'Inventor Vol 1' is set for release on September 22.

Nyege Nyege Tapes went through over 700 tracks in the archive of the pioneer and originator of the kuduro and tarraxinha genres, with double that number of the seminal African musician's works reputed to have been lost.

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After a long period of digging, the four finalised volumes illustrate his musical output from the late 90s to mid 2000s.

"Five years in the making, it's a massive honour for us to finally present to the world this first collection of essential and largely unreleased DJ Znobia tracks digitally and on vinyl to the world," cofounder of Nyege Nyege Arlen Dilsizian tells Mixmag. "A genius of street music, and the pivotal visionary of his country’s electronic music and digital modernism, his story is way too far flung to try and make a simple narrative out of it. Together with DJ Znobia this is our first attempt.”

Born in Angola, in his twenties DJ Znobia embarked on a journey to create a new genre that could capture the spirit of the South West African country. Inspired by a fusion of his home country's rhythms with electronic beats, experimentation resulted in the formation of kuduro - meaning "hard ass" in Portuguese.

Its blend of traditional Angolan music including semba, kilapanga, and kazukuta with modern electronic beats results in a high-energy sound.

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Znobia is also viewed as a pioneer of the tarraxinha genre - a percussive relation to kisomba - with the DJ, MC and producer's influence on Angolan culture clear for the most part of the previous three decades.

'Inventor Vol 1' is available to pre-order now, do so here.

Niamh Ingram is Mixmag's Weekend Editor, follow her on Twitter