New EP out on Enchufada!

Enchufada Records is the brainchild of the founders of Lisbon's legendary band Buraka Som Sistema. The label emerged during the late-2000s “blog-era,” when music discovery was driven by blogs and record stores were vanishing. This era brought renewed attention to “peripheral” music scenes, where pockets of creativity thrived far from the industry's traditional centers. Among these influential movements and rhythms were Baile Funk in Rio de Janeiro, Electronic Cumbia in Buenos Aires, and Kuduro in Luanda.

Enchufada became a central hub for these subcultures, and Buraka Som Sistema rose to international acclaim. Around that same time, artists like M.I.A. and Diplo also gained momentum on the same fertile cultural ground.

I started DJing and producing just as these scenes were emerging. That era of music, and those subcultures, profoundly shaped my DJ sets and my overall musical vision. Enchufada's influence in particular grew even stronger for me when I moved to Lisbon in 2012.

In 2016, the Enchufada team invited me to play at their monthly Hard Ass Session series in Lux (Lisbon) and Maus Hábitos (Porto). I've performed at a few more label events in both cities since then, and that connection led to Enchufada releasing some of my own music. I put together an EP for them, finishing a few percussive tracks I'd been working on for years. One of my favorites—and the oldest on the EP—is “Major Stef,” built around numerous jazz drumming samples. I'm also really proud of “Shebeen Chic,” which uses a sample from Daniel Haaksman's “Who's Afraid of Rio,” another nod to those golden days of the blog era.