An eclectic mix of sounds and genres that defies classification The Line of Best Fit
Wastes no time in kicking into high gear The Fader
African rhythms melding upbeat electronic sounds and Pongo’s lush vocals Indie Shuffle
Angolan-Portuguese artist Pongo today returns with the release of ‘Quem Manda No Mic’, the first single to emerge from a forthcoming new EP soon to be announced for early 2020. Issued via Caroline International, the track arrives ahead of Pongo’s first run of UK headline tour dates – following sets at last year’s The Great Escape – a string of 5 shows including London’s Redon on November 27, 2019. ‘Quem Manda No Mic’ is the follow-up to Pongo’s 6Music-supported debut EP ‘Baia’, which has since been streamed over 5 million times and counting, also spawning remixes from 20syl and Anoraak (issued via Kitsuné). Stream ‘Quem Manda No Mic’ here.
STREAM THE NEW SINGLE ‘QUEM MANDA NO MIC’
Announcing itself with the blistering siren call that trails its breathless 3 minute span, ‘Quem Manda No Mic’ pitches Pongo’s precision flow – by turns both glinting and gutsy – atop swaying, pacey kuduro beats which share as much with hip hop & rave as they do soca & samba. The track teems with the no-nonsense sass of the Lisbon-based singer & rapper – ‘I drag crowds with the power of a Cadillac / Follow my pace, be sensible come by taxi’ – with a looped chorus at its centre as infectiously insistent as ‘Who rules the mic? Pongo!’. Speaking about ‘Quem Manda No Mic’, Pongo says; “This song is part of my life. It tells my story, how everything started in music, what effects early success had on me, all that I understand from this environment. All the good & bad of this period that finally made me stronger, allowing me to continue my journey, the one of a girl who has something to say”.
Originally hailing from Angola’s capital city of Luanda, as a kid Pongo was forced to flee to Europe with her family to escape its lengthy and harrowing civil war. Eventually settling in Portugal in a city just north of Lisbon with a very small African-immigrant population, a young Pongo experienced prolonged racist abuse whilst completing her schooling in the area. Already seeking solace from a disturbing present tense by retreating into the music, dance & slang words of her former life in Luanda, Pongo’s route to becoming one of Kuduro’s fast-rising young stars was completed by the closest of near misses. Falling several storeys out of a window as the result of a prank gone horribly wrong – “I was always doing some kind of stupid acrobatics” – and somehow escaping with only a badly broken ankle, Pongo was forced to catch a train each week to meet with a physiotherapist for treatment. Stopping every week at the city’s Quelez Station, Pongo came into the orbit of the Denon Squad, a group of boys practising kuduro dance on the streets of one of Lisbon’s largest African communities. Soon rapping over their routines – in defiance of her father, himself a kuduro dancer back in Angola – a tape of Pongo’s recordings made its way into the hands of Lisbon-based club night turned kuduro collective Buraka Som Sistema. Pongo (taking her artist name in tribute to feminist Congolese singer, M’Pongo Love) then went on to make her debut on their ‘Black Diamond’ album, alongside the likes of M.I.A. and Kano.
With Pongo now choosing to live in Lisbon’s Quelez neighbourhood, and still sporting the large scar across her calf which remains from her death-defying accident, you sense it’s more than just coincidental that the kuduro movement took its name from an Angolan slang word meaning ‘hard-ass’.
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