DJ, label owner, producer, trend-scout, patron of young musicians – Daniel Haaksman is a busy guy. However, he hasn’t been much of a solo artist, considering that »Rambazamba« has been his only studio record, so far. While his first record’s title suggested partying and mixing all kinds of bass-music genres, his second album, »African Fabrics«, is coming forward with a mission. Instead of linking house music to baile funk or connecting soca with Balkan-brass, he has made his way to Africa in order to search for traces. Of course, Daniel Haaksman is not trying to reproduce clichés of “afrobeat” of drumming groups. Instead, he is trying to draft a modern picture of a continent and its long ignored influences on globalized pop-culture. No matter if it’s Mosambik, Angola or Uganda, Township-Funk, Kuduro or Tarraxo – everywhere he went, Haaksman has found puzzle pieces for his dance music of the future as well as fellow musicians to make his plans come true. On the record, we can find artists like South African Rapper Spoek Mathambo (»Akabongi«) or the kuduro-punk-band Throes + The Shine (»Xinguila«). Despite the danceability of most tracks and the record’s general party mood, Haaksman does not miss to raise uneasy topics like Germany’s colonial history (»Rename The Streets«). The song’s video is demanding that a street in Berlin with questionable originators should be renamed.
Gnonnas Pedro
The Man Who Sings All African Languages
Nanga Boko