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A genre-defying Afrofuturist manifesto from Uganda.

Producer, dancer and choreographer Faizal Mostrixx’s singular vision of East African electronic music is a lush sonic tapestry of polyrhythms, modern dancefloor styles, amapiano, Nile basin ceremonial chants and Pan-African field recordings.

A stalwart of the explosive Kampala electronic music scene Mostrixx has collaborated with the Nyege Nyege collective appearing at both the African and European editions of their festival.

Mutations is Faizal’s second full length album, following close on the heels of his acclaimed EP Transitions (May 2022 / Glitterbeat). In their review of Transitions, The WIRE noted: “If today’s currents in East African electronic music have a more mainstream destiny, this might be how it starts.”

‘Afrofuturism is a way to describe the meeting of the electronic and the tribal. It’s about bringing the past into the now and then imagining how it could be expressed in the future’
— Faizal Mostrixx

From a Western perspective, Afrofuturism is having a moment¬ ― but that’s what it is, a Western perspective that grants a certain neat status to what it sees on the concert stages of its own continents. Afrofuturism has always been there, driven by the encounter between traditional roots sounds and the possibilities afforded by each new generation of technology. A style, yes, but more than that an imperative, a state of mind, perhaps even a state of emergency.

The title of the record, Faizal Mostrixx’s first full-length release for Glitterbeat, is a good place to start, as it was with his debut release for the label, last year’s Transitions EP: the state of becoming, of ‘being between’ that is key to the Afrofuturist project. There’s always convergence too, which in his case is between music and the performin.......
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