Camouflage in the concrete
2025 Mix 47: B-b-b-b-bonus mix! With budots, Brazilian funk, "Big Daddy," beats, beeps, bleats, and Beaker meeps.
Surprise! I did in fact have enough songs for another mix. So Happy Thanksgiving if you’re in the US—this playlist will likely not be the consensus soundtrack to your meal. (Maybe a few things in the back half?) But it is a pretty good cross-section of music I’m interested in: budots, 3-step, Brazilian funk, dembow, international indie, and any version of the song “Nature Boy” ever recorded.
This also gives me a good opportunity to issue a formal correction, or at least acknowledge a blindspot—last week I did not catch the many very obvious allusions to Tupac’s “Hit ‘Em Up” in NLE the Great (Choppa)’s “KO,” including using the same sample and quoting from the video. Tupac might be the biggest artist from my childhood that I just never explored at all. Perhaps addressing this gap will be a resolution for the new year.
As for this year, this is the final mix. Next week I’ll start my best-of material (writing, mixes, and maybe an album review or three). First week of January will be a collection of 2025 songs I found in year-end lists, and then it will be on to the next year. So it goes.
1. VVINK, DJ Love f. Pio Balbuena: Baduy
Philippines
I find it incredible that the week after I published my first writing on budots, I found a Philippines pop crossover produced by genre pioneer DJ Love, working with girl group VVINK. VVINK’s style is solidly Southeast Asian girl group (Thai/T- and other P-pop) but layering in the bounce and whoops of budots introduces fun and friction, like someone trying to split the difference between the high-pitched tuin of baile funk with the kid-pop catnip of Crazy Frog. (Someone has already literally done this, but it needed more Crazy Frog.)
2. Tems: Big Daddy
Nigeria
Another Joshua Minsoo Kim Pitchfork spotlight on a global development that doesn’t get enough coverage there, a pop-oriented blend of Afrobeats with a South African 3-step rhythm. This is much more formally than vibeologically 3-step—for vibes, I’ve started listening to more 3-step remixes of Afrobeats songs. This remix of Davido’s “Be There Still” is great, though I think only available in its DJ set.
This song set me off on a long theory of “pulse” versus “flow” that I decided is an interesting idea but doesn’t really work. The basic thought is that the past decade’s rise of African and Latin American rhythmic styles has emphasized flow (formally: a soft emphasis on the one, with a sense of circularity and expansiveness) over pulse (formally: a hard emphasis on the two and four, like four-on-the-floor house or a strong backbeat). South African amapiano and 3-step are both flow-oriented, but 3-step provides some structure to the flow without formally reintroducing the four-on-the-floor pulse. It helped me understand what I mean by Afrobeats’ consistently glassy feel, a sense of not getting traction and just sort of floating in the beat.
Again, I don’t think this dichotomy really works, or at least it doesn’t actually represent a “dichotomy,” just describes two elements that can be in some formal tension, though not always. I do think there has been a global reaction against the dominance of EDM and related forms in the last five to ten years, but it doesn’t necessarily reduce to these variables.
What was my point here? Oh yeah—here’s some flow with a pulse!
3. Tallrickyworldwide: Ye Driver
South Africa
Happy to find another hard to categorize South African rap song. This is one of those scenes that I remain totally ignorant about even though when things do break through they tend to pique my interest.
4. Seyi Vibez f. NLE Choppa: Macho
Nigeria/US
This was a lead single from a few months ago on the new Seyi Vibez album out last week. NLE Choppa reminds me of his versatility—he matches the mood by pirouetting into falsetto.
5. VULKA: Dónde?
Argentina
Argentine electropop that happened to be the last song standing from a whole block of samey electro stuff that did not make the final cut. A lot of good music this week!
6. Akbar Chalay, Zynakal, ciloqciliq: Ngga Dulu
Indonesia
Sweet Indonesian ballad with a few elements that put me vaguely in mind of some of the budots production I’ve been listening to this week, perhaps in a Boss Baby Tweet sort of way. There are, after all, plenty of ways to go sproing.
7. Joefes, Fathermoh, Vic West: Gaggle
Kenya/Nairobi
One of two songs this week that got on the mix by confounding my expectations—Kenyan pop with a reggaeton rhythm. The other was Portuguese amapiano (track 19).
8. Dj Bodysoul, SALIMA CHICA, Dj Elvito: Última Vez
Portugal/Angola/DRC
Drawn to the vocal from Congolese-Angolan kizomba star based in Paris, Salima Chica, that captured my attention; I like how she’s coaxed to the upper reaches of soprano. Led me to her great hit song of the year, “Songi Songi,” which I might feature on my catch-up mix in January.
9. MC Xuxú, MAPOUA, Renata Carvalho: Um Beijo
Brazil
10. MC Marcelly, DJ Ruan da VK f. D’BEATS, DJ NZR: Joga Nele (Remix)
Brazil
11. DJ KLP OFC, MToquerido, DJ Menezes, DJ DAY DO CARMO: No Baile da Submundo
Brazil
Three funk tracks, all of which diverge a bit from the median funk track that I tend to shove into my holdover list. That list is now finished, with the final tally at 554 songs if you were hoping to nurture a migraine today. The first song is a magpie mash-up rework of the original “Um Beijo” from 2016, updated with yet another source of sproings (from Beyoncé’s “Formation”). The second has a rushed urgency without pushing the sonic envelope too far. And finally, my favorite of the bunch has a high honking vocal hook that sounds like Beaker from the Muppets having a panic attack.
12. Mami CEE, SUPAVIZOR: Sürtüğe dedim taylandlıyım
Turkey
Another Muppet panic attack from Turkey—what were the odds? (Not of a Muppet having a panic attack, those odds are pretty high, but of finding two of them this week.)
13. Masha: Papi Tu Ta Loco
Dominican Republic
For some reason I got a full year’s worth of dembow in this week’s crop. Sometimes one of my regular playlists will update its entire contents with lots of duplicates. Most of these were politely shunted to the Latin America holdover list (final count is 336 songs, mostly reggaeton and dembow) but Masha stood out for charm, force, and brevity.
14. Ara Kekedjian: Ay Dghakner [c. 1975]
Armenia/Lebanon
The curators at Habibi Funk have put out a compilation of songs from Armenian psych artist Ara Kekedjian. I particularly liked this one, which gives plenty of its real estate over to a keyboard solo that I could imagine Ray Manzarek envying.
15. Gilberto Gil, Ana Frango Elétrico: Extra II (Rock do segurança)
Brazil
A fun cosmo-pop remake of a 1984 song I’d never heard from Gil—I haven’t really followed his career into the ‘80s. Features Ana Frango Elétrico, whose “Electric Fish” I just tossed a few points to in the 2020s Bluesky challenge.
16. Atk Epop, Amaia Pop, Mara Vélez: Vete
Spain
A song from Spanish label Flor y Nata Records. It’s nice!
17. waterbaby, ttoh: Beck n Call
Sweden
Swedish artist on Sub Pop with a staccato piano-driven indie-pop number that’s for some reason reminding me of Swiss group Sirens of Lesbos, who hew a little closer to ABBA as chunky piano riffs go.
18. Birthh: Little Rat
Italy
More indie-pop, this one an Italian song about how moving to New York didn’t seem to help much and might have hurt a little. But at least in New York City, no one cares if you just want to blend in with the rats.
19. Os Intocáveis: Não Vai Prestar
Portugal
South Africa’s global takeover continues in Portugal for a fairly straightforward take on amapiano from a group whose members are of Angolan and Mozambique descent.
20. keiyaA: Stupid Prizes
US
I have perhaps unfairly lumped keiyaA in with the art-damaged pop posers that hipper people than me (most people?) seem to like but who bore me to tears, like [redacted] and [redacted]. Oh, and [redacted]. But as swirly and stop-start as the backdrop gets, the song itself is plain and pretty.
21. Barış Demirel & Can Kazaz: Söz Etsem İsmine Yazık
Turkey
Warbly Turkish lite psych jam. During the verses in the video, these two sit and have a chat over a cup of tea, and it sounds like it, too.
22. Ny Oh: Conduit
UK/New Zealand
UK born, Aotearoa raised, L.A. based, but the cosmo doesn’t really come through in the music: sumptuous indie folk-pop with a hint of Tori Amos to it. Whole album’s pretty good.
23. Mali Waleed, Zeid Hamdan: Fashi
Egypt
The artier reaches of my Egyptian playlists are usually good for a nod. This is no exception.
24. Shai Maestro: Nature Boy
Israel
25. Sarathy Korwar: Beauty Doesn’t Know What It Looks Like
UK
Ending with some jazzy noise and noisy jazz, the first a maybe-too-busy arrangement of one of my favorite standards (sounds like it is set in the Wizard of Oz twister, but could use more of the Technicolor reveal) that just proves that there’s really no way to screw up “Nature Boy,” so you might as well go nuts. Then, from the NPR weekly playlist, a glitchy clap-along from a UK composer and percussionist.
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That’s it! Until next time, enjoy the occasional off-season dayenu.
—Dave Moore (the other one)
Title translated from Birthh: Little Rat (“Mimetica nel cemento”)