The Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection and the Ugandan electronic music festival, label and collective Nyege Nyege are inviting Nakibembe Xylophone Troupe to give their first concert in France, accompanied by electronic music producer Don Zilla.
Nakibembe Xylophone Bio
The Nakibembe Xylophone Troupe hails from Uganda, known for singing and performing on a large ensemble instrument called the embaire, crafting hypnotic and joyful music. Having greatly expanded their audience following an acclaimed performance at Nyege Nyege Festival in 2018, they are one of the few remaining groups playing the embaire.
The embaire is a large wooden xylophone performed by up to eight musicians simultaneously, who weave together polyrhythmic short melodic phrases. Ensemble members may also sing in unison or in call and response, playing with other percussive instruments to keep the tempo. The results are ecstatic compositions that flow endlessly, creating waves of coalescing grooves.
Don Zilla
Solitary, spiritual, and one of the most interesting producers on the scene today, Don Zilla makes haunting, transdimensional club music that encompasses genre limitations and features elements of dub, drum & bass, industrial techno, deconstructed electronics and a barrage of abstract sounds. Groovy and richly textured, his sound feels vast and unique, marked by distortion, heavy-bass lines, tense hard hypertribal drums and futuristic, stripped down beats against ancestral rhythms and raucous synth-lines. Today his music can be heard igniting dancefloors all over the world.
Don Zilla is an integral member of the Nyege Nyege collective. He has been the studio manager of the famed residency since 2016 and has played at the Festival every year since its inception, as well as many parties representing the Nyege Nyege crew around East Africa. Other than producing, Don Zilla offers recording sessions as well as his services as both a curator and an artist manager. His first full-length Hakuna Kulala album was released in June (Ekizikiza Mubwengula, 2021).
Nyege Nyege
Founded in 2013 by Arlen Dilsizian and Derek Debru, Nyege Nyege was initially a nightclub in Kampala that was set up to give DJs, musicians, and artists from across East Africa a space to take risks by playing a wide range of sounds in a safe, welcoming environment, a place to meet up and listen to music, share ideas, and make new friends.
