Kenya is known for its wildlife and flora, which the privileged few can admire on luxury safaris. Much less known for its electronic music scene, of which Fredrick M Njau, aka Slikback, is one of the most illustrious figures, Kenya is now making its mark on the global electronic music scene. Since 2018, the artist has been making waves far beyond Nairobi; his EP, Lasakaneku, launched him onto the international electronic music circuit, a far cry from the world music festivals where African artists typically perform.
Seven years later, Attrition marks Slikback’s first album for the renowned Planet Mu label, which signed him after an initial period of self-released material. This is the result of a European gestation, as the Kenyan artist is currently based in Poland, where he creates and raises his children – married there, he is the father of a newborn.
Synthetic percussion is fundamental to Attrition, but one should not expect a reproduction of heavy trends in African music, but rather an electronic Africanness, expressed with the same tools that Westerners use in the most cutting-edge electronic events. At first glance, it is much closer to the subgenres of breakcore, gabber, hardcore IDM, and noise techno than to electronic styles associated with Africa—amapanio, gqom, afro house/tech, electro shangaan, kuduro, coupé-décalé, and other afrobeats.
More abstract, intended more for attentive listening than dancing, the technological dimension of Attrition is more than prominent in this work, whose bursts of sound, stutters, drones, harmonic textures, keyboard riffs, and filtered human voices express a feeling of implacable violence, reminiscent of the human conflicts at the heart of the African continent. This is nonetheless a compelling illustration of the universal electronic music of which Africa is no exception, and which it interprets in its own way.
