After Being Separated From His Homeland By War, Batida Finds His Link Back To Angolan Afrobeat [LONG FORM INTERVIEW]

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In a small restaurant tucked behind République, the Melotron radio is stationed. There are tables, small and square, and the typical chairs that stud brasseries across this country. Colorful macaroons wait atop the bar. The kitchen is still cleaning the remnants from the lunch hour. Team Melotron is setting up the gopro to stream the upcoming set. Featured today: Batida, an Angolan-Portuguese musician whose energy is as apparent in his music as it is in his manner. 

Few interviews flow so naturally. He starts talking, a running stream of autobiographical information, Angolan history, and of course, music: both the music he makes and the music he loves. We start at the very beginning.

Tony Hymes for Whyd in bold, all photos property of Whyd.  

I grew up in Lisbon, but I’m from Angola. Because of the war my family went to Portugal or Brazil. The war was supposed to last a few years, but it started before I was born, and it ended 30 years after. That marks my growth. It’s reflected in how I deal with everything. You are in a different place, but the people around you all came from Angola. You keep listening to all of these stories, the music, the food, it’s all different at home vs. everywhere else. So it’s kind of growing into different realities. When you get to a teenage age you want to be involved in the place you are, you don’t connect with your parents stories anymore, now your friends are from here. Why should you keep listening to their old music when people are listening to new music?

When the war ended I had the chance to go back to Angola, almost in the same year and then I could understand a lot of things that I had in me that I was trying to avoid, or overlook, but it was impossible, certain sounds of guitars melodies, still today if I’m not aware it makes me creep. 

It’s like your mother’s music, something you dont want to listen to it, but after all this time I’m happy to listen to this music. 

Did you recognize a lot of it when you went back? 

Yeah, certain songs are historical, when you are a kid you don’t get the lyrics. A pop record from the 70s I listened to a lot as a kid, the lyrics were about going back, tomorrow we will go back. This is one of the most listened to songs at my house, I thought it was fun, Brazilian style from Angola, and one of the artists was a friend of the family. But now when I listen to the track I can understand what it’s takling about, going back to specific situations that people relate to. It’s very human, talks about very specific things. It has to do with the warmth of people, the look in the eye, the fact that people touch a lot, the hugs, social dancing. 

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Does that warmth get into your latest album?

Definitely I try to get close to the people I work with, I try not to work with people that I don’t know only if I’m as close in other terms like with Fránçois and the Atlas Mountains. I didn’t know them but I got so involved with the record that when I finished the song I felt it was something special, and I met them afterwards, and played with them, and it made sense since they are so sweet, especially Fránçois. 

For the first track I found this old afro beat from Angola. When people think of afro beat they dont think of Angola. They think of Nigeria and I heard this vinyl from the 70s, an afro beat without drums, but it is afro beat. And I felt so happy because its something I’ve been tracing back to the 70s in Luanda, when it was a modern, cosmopolitan city, aiming for social and culture revolution, you can find a lot of modern things that I feel proud of there. 

The image that most people have of African cities is mostly crime, messy, or they aim for the ethnic or exotic look, it’s not something that’s very well promoted: sophistication. A city is a city, new things happen, a new synthesis happens, and in Angola specifically there is a new energy, the fact that the city was more modern, more modern even than Lisbon, makes me inspired. Like pretending to go back before the war started, how would you do it differently? Let’s go back and do it the right way, one people one nation, but there were lots of things that were missed, especially in music.

Instead of embracing the influences, the ruling parties nominated Simba as the national music, and lots of people were killed. I like to go back and find that moment, so I found that record, I played around with some beats, and I got to know the author of the sample. I am very happy when I am able to hug the sample, to play that song for a person, and to see their reaction, if it’s something he can feel passionate about too. 

Mataditi heard the first seconds and he said I thought there is a technical problem, and I said it was like that, and he made a strange face, and the music starts and he starts dancing, and he calls his wife and she comes and starts dancing, and they start laughing with each other, happy that something new was created with his music. 

When I was a kid and my family would get together, I would get all the kids and put on shows with choreography and I’ve done that for 20 years, it was something passionate about that. When I see a small child I pay a lot of attention because I think that most of our personality and character are already there, your ambition, the most important things are there. Then sometimes life pulls you in different ways. It happened like that for me, I was not growing up in my context, I was a bit mixed. But I’m happy it happened that way because I can relate to people in Lisbon, in Luanda, in Paris. So it’s great. Sometimes I feel like I have the ability to translate everyone to everyone. That’s what I try to do naturally. 

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I think your music appeals more widely than music that’s more focused on a specific genre. You have this big world sound, to take the “batida,” which is Brazilian Portuguse for the drink meaning “shake,” it’s a big world sound, does that come from the name batida?

The name has to do with this imaginary growing up, hearing about adults talking about something else, that you don’t connect to, you can’t know what they are talking about so you imagine. It’s like when it’s winter and rains, but in a place where when it rains it’s fantastic, and people don’t know what that means. There is a dark side of that too before the independence. 

The planet is not on the same level around the world, but you have a lot of apartheids still going, and people just over look it. It’s related to those memories, but it’s also that batida is the name that everyone gives to a compilation. People’s favorite mixes that are sold on the street. You would put your own track on the batidas to get to the masses. Musicians going to curators and saying, “put me on the next pirate tape!” 

I said if I did something it would be to showcase others, and also if no label appears I will do it anyway. That was the main inspiration for the beginning of the project. It started as a radio show, let’s make a track, let’s promote artists. But then it evolved to music. I used the same software, Ableton Live, to make the radio show and I make music with it. 

I used to make radio shows since I was 16 and that was what has occupied my life. My stepfather was a jazz musician. I listened to music everyday, people playing bass in the living room. But since my relationship wtih him was not positive I stayed away from music, but eventually I couldn’t stay away. 

I started experimenting mixing things, sounds, then mixing tracks, and eventually there was a track Bazooka that came out of those experiments and the feedback was so great that maybe the way would be showcasing music of others or provoking producers with my other attempts to do things in a different way. 

I relate a lot to that more organic approach. Organic is a very strange word, but people said organic is like, an egg. When I say organic it’s more about looking for the life inside of that record or person. I could trace that in some productions but the majority was going after the world to conquer it, something that will never happen. 

Has the reception been notably different in Angola than Europe? How do Angolans view you? As a native son or foreign? 

I was worried about that actually, I show these tracks to friends and the biggest compliments I have were from the people where this music was produced and they didn’t believe me that I made the track, and I had to show them, and in the end they say “wow this guy actually did it!” And I feel organically related with everyone, to the place I was born, it’s not an album I made, this is something that only an Angolan could have made. Angolans pick out these little moments and it’s a bit sad because it sounds nationalistic but I like that I can push some of their buttons and relate personally to them. I like to do that in Angola, but I like to do that in Paris too, it’s about bringing people together, not separating people. 

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What are your expectations from your latest album? Is this a step in the process of making more albums? 

I have a couple of other things I’m working on. I never thought to make just one album. I thought about doing two albums then do radio or documentaries, but the way that I’m able to do everything, docs, dances, radio, producing videos, I’m not just making records I’m doing everything.

I’m not subtracting but I’m adding forms of expression, so for me that’s fine, if I could keep doing everything that’s fine. For me everything is related, communicated, and in terms of music its about the rhythm and bringing people together to dance. 

And developing as a person, I’m not focused on commercial success, but the focus is to keep it going naturally, and in a way that’s possible, real, heartfelt. 

Do you have other hobbies? 

Helping other artists, helping on video shoots, photo shoots, to be involved but not on a professional level.

And the sea, I need to be near the sea.  

Buy Batida’s latest album on iTunes!

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