Nyege Nyege Tapes

Western Front is pleased to present a showcase of music from the internationally celebrated Nyege Nyege Tapes label, as part of a cross-Canada tour. The evening will feature electrifying live performances by Tanzanian Singeli pioneers Sisso & Maiko alongside genre-defying French-Cameroonian artist Violence Gratuite.

Founded as a club night in Kampala, Uganda, Nyege Nyege began with a mission to create a safe, supportive space where East African DJs, musicians, and artists could take creative risks, share ideas, and build community. This foundation grew into a dynamic cultural platform that includes a festival, a professional recording studio and residency program, and two record labels—Nyege Nyege Tapes and Hakuna Kulala—dedicated to nurturing the underground music scene. With its own booking agency and relentless innovation, Nyege Nyege continues to champion a new generation of boundary-pushing creatives.

On the night, audiences will be immersed in the headlong rush of Sisso & Maiko’s Singeli—Tanzania’s breakneck dance music that layers frenetic loops with influences from Zanzibar’s taarab to South African afro-house, propelled by razor-sharp MCing that reflects the joys and struggles of urban life in Dar es Salaam. Alongside this, Violence Gratuite (aka Violaine Morgan Le Fur) will perform selections from her debut album Baleine à Boss (2024), a suite of pulsing techno and fractured trap infused with echoes of French pop. Rooted in imagery from the forests of western Cameroon and shaped by a restless, exploratory spirit, the record conjures a sonic world equally at home in the club or at a Breton fest noz.

Curated by Aki Onda.

Sisso & Maiko embody Singeli’s hyperlocal scene, distilling the vitality and struggles of life on the edges of Dar es Salaam into a sound that remains cool amid chaos. Their ratchet rhythms and pitched-up melodies create an unresolved tension, accelerating so fast dancers appear to glide—drawing echoes from UK happy hardcore, Chicago footwork, Caribbean soca, and Shangaan disco, yet with a uniquely psychotomimetic pull. Born in Tandale and Manzese, Singeli blends frantic loops, taarab, and afro-house with MCs’ satirical lyrics that address the realities facing Tanzanian youth. Central to this is SISSO RECORDS, home to pioneering producers and MCs who helped define the genre’s style.

Violaine Morgan Le Fur (aka Violence Gratuite) is a multidisciplinary artist and curator whose work spans film, performance, and music, weaving personal mythologies with collective histories. Rooted between France and Cameroon, her practice explores healing, memory, and ancestral connection through experimental approaches to sound and image. She moves fluidly across media—directing autobiographical and documentary films, creating immersive performances, and producing music that drifts between chanson, rap, no wave, and experimental electronic rhythms. As Violence Gratuite, her debut album Baleine à Boss (Hakuna Kulala, 2024) emerged from a rapid, intuitive dive into music production, blending raw vocals and textured beats into a hypnotic, genre-defying whole.

The Grand Luxe Hall is located on the second floor of Western Front, which is accessed by a flight of 26 stairs. While plans for a full building upgrade to facilitate access for wheelchair and scooter users are still underway, events in the Grand Luxe Hall are made available virtually via high-quality livestream here. Further details about accessibility at Western Front can be found here.

Presented in partnership with Nyege Nyege Tapes; Arts in the Margins, Montréal; Debaser, Ottawa; The Music Gallery, Toronto; Strangewaves, Hamilton; Send + Receive Festival, Winnipeg; and Western Front, Vancouver, with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, the Government of Canada and SOCAN Foundation.

Host or Publisher Western Front