lilocox: drums (lata)

Serious pressure from Príncipe, featuring Lilocox slickly cramming 43 unreleased cuts spanning over 80 minutes of relentless drums - a masterclass in early batida x house polyrhythms. Ricardo Vieira aka Lilocox is as well known for his percussive solo productions as for his work in the Piquenos DJs do Guetto crew with Firmeza and Maboku. On ‘Drums (Lata)’ he raids his archive for a throwback to the days when Lisbon promoters termed the Afro-Latin sound of the ghettos as “Lata”, a derogatory word used to describe their “tinny” beats, as opposed to more rounded and “well produced” house and club music. In a classic act of defiance, Lilocox and his peers would come to own the term as a self-description in much the same way Jamal Moss flipped accusations of “the worst DJ ever” (rightly so, cos he’s one of the very best), reclaiming their agency and giving a frank f you to dogmatic doyles. Mixing up rough-cut rhythms and sultry ambient pads with velvety weapons, the session is full of the “cargaa”, or charge - or even moxie - that makes batida/kuduro so damn effective in the dance worldwide. Drawing on his Cape Verdean roots, and a life lived in Lisbon’s margins, Lilocox speaks directly to the Black Atlantic dialogue between displaced peoples from West Africa, Brazil, the Caribbean, US, and their European nodes, that has resulted in the best dance music of the past century and longer. Liliocox’s mix situates those vital drum communications in the here-and-now with infectious offbeats splintering into myriad directions from UK Funky to gqom, amapiano, and singeli - all sharing a relentless, undeniable fire.