Ndola, Zambia’s third largest city, is best known internationally for copper mining and the imposing Levy Mwanawasa stadium. On the evidence of , a new compilation from East African DJ , the city should also be celebrated for its joyful party vibes and cosmopolitan dancefloors, whose music is so riotously funky it threatens to shake the Levy Mwanawasa to its foundations. Kampire, born in Kenya to Ugandan parents, lived in Ndola from the ages of two to 18.
is inspired by the songs she absorbed during this period—in particular, via her father’s record collection—including a range of music from Eastern and Southern Africa, from soukous to township bubblegum, drawn largely from the 1980s and early ’90s. There is a heavy emphasis on women singers, including Congolese heroes Pembey Sheiro and Feza Shamamba and South Africa’s V-Mash and Di Groovy Girls. The album isn’t mixed but it’s admirably constructed.
Kampire, like any DJ worth their salt, is skilled at teasing out connections between disparate sounds. shows the art of the DJ as selector, joining the dots between musical trends in a way that flows effortlessly onto the dancefloor. Several years and thousands of miles lie between Princess Aya Sarah’s “O Wina Tienge” and the African House Party Project ft.
Splash, Patricia Majalisa, and Dalom Kids’ “P-Coq,” the first and third songs on this compilation. But Kampire’s clever selection highlights the similarities between the florid, funky soukous of th.