Few artists possess the rare ability to transform their primary instrument, bending it entirely to their will and pushing it beyond its natural limits. The pedal steel guitarist […]
Ale Hop and Titi Bakorta’s ‘Mapambazuko’: From Lima to Berlin to Kinshasa to Kampala (and Beyond)

A burning new record by the great Ugandan label Ngeye Ngeya Tapes.
Last year, Ale Hop and Titi Bakorta convened in Kampala, a city near the northern edges of Lake Victoria in landlocked Uganda. Their first collaborative album, Mapambazuko, is the product of that meeting. It arrived last week on Nyege Nyege Tapes. Brimiming with taut genius and experimentation, it features Bakorta’s fluid, hypnotic soukous guitar lines complimenting Ale Hop’s sharp synthetic accents — the occasional shotgun bang, cosmic pew-pew laser blasts, etc. — and fractured soundscapes. The result is music that feels as restless as the paths that brought them together — Bakorta from Kinshasa through the Middle East, Ale Hop from Lima, Peru to Berlin.
Ale Hop, born Alejandra Cárdenas, has been messing with Peruvian sounds and rhythms since she first started drawing attention in the early ‘10s, and can wring unearthly sounds from whatever instrument she’s playing. Live, she performs with an all-consuming intensity, looping and layering textures that morph and collapse unpredictably. From Lima’s underground to Berlin’s experimental scenes, she has pushed at the edges with an unwavering focus.
Bakorta anchors his playing in the rhythms of Kinshasa, his clean guitar sound spiraling with delicate grace. Soukous, a buoyant dance music that began in the Congo, evolved from rumba in the mid-20th century. It’s driven by quick, intricate guitar melodies and rhythms that demand movement. Bakorta’s 2023 debut for Ngeye Ngeye Tapes, Molende, stripped soukous to its essence and rebuilt it with modern immediacy.
That Ngeye Ngeye Tapes brought it to market shouldn’t be surprising. The Ugandan label amplifies artists who dismantle and recast familiar genres. Some of their most successful projects include the brilliant Sounds of Sisso compilation, which introduced Tanzania’s high-speed, mind-bending singeli genre to global audiences, and Otim Alpha’s Gulu City Anthems, where traditional Acholi wedding songs were reimagined with glistening production.
Below, an early set from Ale Hop, who gained her first Stateside exposure in 2012 when she introduced New York crowds to her mesmerizing solo work via an open-air set for Boiler Room and Red Bull Music Academy.
Ngeye Ngeye Tapes has pressed vinyl on Mapambasuko, but this first pressing is limited to 220.