What is 'Macho'?
'Macho' is the new single from South African producer DESIREE and South Sudanese-Canadian artist Emmanuel Jal, out now on Ninja Tune. It is an Afro-house record with Jal singing across four languages, Kiswahili, Nuer, Arabic and English, over a groove that is rooted in the call-and-response patterns of African music rather than dropped on top of them.
"It's a love song inspired by the way we used to express love in the village through call and response, how we would traditionally woo women." Emmanuel Jal
Who are DESIREE and Emmanuel Jal?
DESIREE is one of the South African producers and DJs carrying the current Afro-house wave, the sound that has moved from Johannesburg terraces to the biggest rooms in the world over the last few years. Emmanuel Jal is a globally recognised South Sudanese-Canadian artist and activist whose story, from war-child to musician, has long reached well beyond dance music. Putting an underground house producer next to that voice is the kind of pairing that gets a track played in places neither would reach alone. DESIREE says they first performed it live together in London and Nairobi.
"This song was born between journeys, stages, and conversations that brought different worlds together," DESIREE said.
Why does it matter on the floor?
Afro house is the dominant current in the global underground right now, and the credible end of it keeps coming from artists who treat African musical language as the source material, not a log-drum preset bolted onto a four-on-the-floor. A multilingual call-and-response love song on a label with Ninja Tune's reach is exactly that: a record built to travel from a Cape Town rooftop to a Berlin afters without losing what it is.
