Just in time for Youth Day, the June 16 holiday commemorating Soweto uprising against the apartheid regime, DJ Zhao has compiled an incredible mixtape of African and African-inspired dance music (including some of the self-same tracks we played on East Village Radio last week). "Ukulwa" translates to "war" in Zulu, and rather than divorcing diverse sounds such as kwaito and kuduro from their political context, he weaves the tape together with samples of people praising Mandela and giving empowering paeans to freedom, ensuring that even as we dance, we remember what we're celebrating. In Zhao's own words: "South Africa is surely rising as a proud modern nation, even as we rejoice in these blissful rhythms, we must remember this war, and both continue, and continue to be inspired by, this struggle against domination, against injustice."
Download: DJ Zhao, Ngoma 6: Ukulwa Mixtape
(via Generation Bass)
