The week’s best new tracks and the act you need to know: acrobatic Lagos producer Azzi on the Beat

From Lagos, Nigeria
Recommended if you like Rema, Blnde, Zinoleesky
Up next Debut album Mara Gram, released 12 November; plays Nyege Nyege festival, Uganda, 19–22 November

Azzi on the Beat doesn’t exactly ease listeners into Mara Gram. On its opening track Police Way, sirens blare, drums clatter and another rhythm seems to barge in before the first has finished. This is mara, the fast, sample-heavy dance music that grew out of carnivals and neighbourhood parties in working-class Lagos, with tempos reaching 160 beats per minute.

Born Waris Rasheed, Azzi on the Beat grew up in the Lagos neighbourhood of Bariga, where he joined a free after-school arts academy at five and trained as a traditional dancer before becoming a producer. Now aged 22, he makes beats live on stage, often dancing and performing acrobatics as he goes. His breakout track Mr Barry has racked up millions of streams, while his debut album Mara Gram makes an intriguing case for the sound’s possibilities.

On Baggy Dance Shoot Sound, bright synths evoke a 90s Euro-rave, while a booming male voiceover roots the commotion firmly in Lagos. On Allah Create, south Asian-style chants weave through the racing percussion. The sounds shift, but the momentum barely changes, giving the music a hypnotic quality. The self-titled Azzi on the Beat, which echoes his earlier single Africa, best captures his approach: playful vocal samples, insistent loops and beats that leave little room to catch your breath. Seventeen tracks of this can be overwhelming, but there’s something strangely absorbing about the relentless energy. Hannah Uguru

This week’s best new tracks

Dawn Richard – On a Night Like This
As Wham! and Mariah return zombie-like to our lives, bless Richard for giving us a genuinely excellent new Christmas song, as part of a festive Merge Records comp: over pared-back blues-soul, she pleads to a lover lingering in the snow. BBT

Quiet Light – Forever
Sick at the thought of those Taylor Swift x 1975 tracks we’ll never get to hear? Texas songwriter (and medical student by day) Riya Mahesh has you covered with this wistful, twinkling soft-rock yearner. LS

​Armand Hammer – Gravity
Culminating in a stunning soliloquy by Billy Woods and gorgeously produced by Child Actor, bluntly knocking quiet-storm vocal samples into each other, this is one of many exquisite cuts on the rap duo’s surprise new LP Snakes and Ladders. BBT

Tim Reaper – Roll Call
Categorically the best use of a US college marching band sample since Fleetwood Mac’s Tusk: the UK producer splices their jubilant chants and synchronised playing into breakbeats pushed to post-human speed. LS

​2hollis – Human After All
Co-written and produced with Mk.gee, this track sees the US hyperpopper go full Purpose-era Justin Bieber with his vocal, as dense clusters of glitched-up sound whiz past his bleached-blond locks. BBT

Niki and the Dove – The Kiss
A decade after their last album, the romantic, Prince-loving Swedish duo make a surprise return with this intoxicatingly heady, prismatic slow jam about the kind of kiss that knocks you sideways. LS

​Sister Wives – Hairless Whisper
Following up their Welsh music prize-nominated debut album, the Sheffield rockers deliver a grooving riff built with Iommi-grade heft, as vocalist Rose Love confronts hustle culture. BBT

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