The week’s best new tracks and the act you need to know: acrobatic Lagos producer Azzi on the Beat

By Hannah Uguru, Ben Beaumont-Thomas and Laura Snapes•The Guardian Music

An innovator in mara, the fast, sample-heavy dance music of neighbourhood parties, the Nigerian has made a debut album that will be relentlessly energisingFrom Lagos, Nigeria Recommended if you like Rema, Blnde, Zinoleesky Up next Debut album Mara Gram, released 12 November; plays Nyege Nyege festival, Uganda, 19–22 NovemberAzzi on the Beat doesn’t exactly ease listeners into Mara Gram. On its opening track Police Way, sirens blare, drums clatter and another rhythm seems to barge in before the first has finished. This is mara, the fast, sample-heavy dance music that grew out of carnivals and neighbourhood parties in working-class Lagos, with tempos reaching 160 beats per minute. Continue reading...

An innovator in mara, the fast, sample-heavy dance music of neighbourhood parties, the Nigerian has made a debut album that will be relentlessly energising

From Lagos, Nigeria
Recommended if you like Rema, Blnde, Zinoleesky
Up next Debut album Mara Gram, released 12 November; plays Nyege Nyege festival, Uganda, 19–22 November

Azzi on the Beat doesn’t exactly ease listeners into Mara Gram. On its opening track Police Way, sirens blare, drums clatter and another rhythm seems to barge in before the first has finished. This is mara, the fast, sample-heavy dance music that grew out of carnivals and neighbourhood parties in working-class Lagos, with tempos reaching 160 beats per minute.

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