Sisso - Singeli Ya Maajabu (2024)

The figurehead of Dar Es Salaam's legendary SISSO RECORDS studio, Mohamed Hamza Ally (aka Sisso) is one of the local scene's most recognizable icons. His groundbreaking productions and tireless engineering work has helped drive the singeli sound far outside the borders of Tanzania, and he reaches even further on 'Singeli Ya Maajubu' (singeli of wonders, in English), collaborating with producer and keyboardist Maiko. Maiko grew up in the Morogoro region in Eastern Tanzania, where he picked up countless local awards for his skills; he relocated to Dar Es Salaam to build his reputation and further his career, and inevitably collided with Sisso.

The duo capture singeli's jerky, breakneck energy on this one by recording together live. Sisso works on laptop, while Maiko plays a Yamaha electric piano and a controller keyboard hooked up to FL Studio on his own laptop, to add extra percussion and bass. If you've heard Sisso's productions before, you'll already be familiar with his hyperactive whirr of ideas and influences. The backbone of singeli is interlocking, trance-inducing 200BPM rhythms, inspired by Zanzibar's Taarab music and local dance forms, but Sisso disrupts his productions with surprising elements, nodding to Afro-house, techno, hip-hop and footwork. He's found the ideal collaborator in Maiko, a producer who shares his willingness to experiment with the formula - and his sense of humor.

All this is pushed to the surface on 'Kazi Ipo', almost six minutes of sinewy lead synths, rave stabs, bizarre sound effects, ringtone blips, screaming feedback and strangled voices set to a relentless thud. The spark of classic singeli is still there, but Sisso and Maiko sound as if they're challenging each other to push even further out into the unknown, capturing the energy of performers like Mali's legendary DJ Diaki. 'Kiboko' meanwhile sounds like a frothy tribute to US superproducers The Neptunes, with electric piano stabs and tight basslines slotted between glassy, syncopated beats, and on 'Jimwage', the duo wrestle zapped EDM arpeggios and hardstyle kicks into their chaotic wall of chopped percussion.

There are even moments where Sisso and Maiko swerve the singeli beat completely. On 'Mizuka' they work with the kind of foley crunches you'd expect to hear on a sci-fi blockbuster, adding watery atmospherics and eccentric drum rolls for tension. And 'Mangwale' is the most unexpected track Sisso has dubbed to date, a beatless, choral abstraction that's unusually tender. 'Singeli Ya Maajubu' is another transformative set from Dar Es Salaam that highlights the creative power of the city right now. Singeli's mutating rapidly, and Sisso, as ever, is right there at the front.