Getting to know DJ Nigga Fox

In 2014, I was working as a journalist for an Angolan magazine, and a couple of years later, I was hired as communication manager and producer for an agency. During this time, I met with several personalities and artists, and along the way I learned a lot about the African Portuguese speaking countries, especially their culture.

An interview with the mythical Angolan singer Bonga at his home has probably set the time when my interest for the African rhythms deepened. I started attending several concerts in downtown clubs, and some events in the outskirts of Lisbon, and I started to understand better the reality of the communities of African descendants in Portugal.

At a given time, I attended a music event in one of the best-known nightclubs in Lisbon, the Musicbox. That night, DJs I had never heard about played a sound of Afro-electronic music, which I became obsessed with, the so-called ghetto sounds. This was one of the monthly club nights at Musicbox taken by the name Noites Príncipe that became the setting for the Portuguese label Príncipe to introduce their best self-made producers, who in fact represent the second and third generation of emigrants from the former African colonies, born and raised in the Lisbon suburbs.

In his article for Pitchfork, Madison Bloom sums up an history of hundreds of years: "Portugal’s colonial past in Africa was brutal: Between the 15th and 19th centuries, Portuguese ships transported nearly six million Africans into slavery, and onetime colonies Angola, Mozambique, and Guinea-Bissau only gained independence less than 50 years ago, in the mid ’70s. Since then, generations of African immigrants have moved to Portugal, with many of them settling around Lisbon."

It was in 2016 that I first heard about the label Príncipe, particularly because in that year the British duo Tim & Barry were exhibiting their documentary "Sounds of Ghetto" at the DocLisboa - Lisbon International Documentary Film Festival, which I try to attend every year. In documentary they reported their research on the sub-genres and musical communities, focusing on the label Príncipe, which gave national and international visibility to a movement of electronic music of African influence, made in the suburbs of Lisbon, standing out, among others, DJ Nigga Fox as one of the faces of the independent label.

The label, that officially started in 2011, has played a major role in promoting new artists who are able to show what they are capable of, offering them the ticket outside their community of residence, and showing the world what would not otherwise have been revealed.

Introducing DJ Nigga Fox

DJ Nigga Fox is the stage name of Rogério Brandão Luís, Angola-born producer and international DJ based in Lisbon. Born in Luanda on August 18, 1990, he moved to Lisbon with his parents and an older brother when he was just 4 years-old. Influenced by a Congolese mother and Angolan father, Rogério grew up in the outskirts of Lisbon, where he soon discovered and developed a taste for the production of beats and melodies, giving rise to his first sound compositions in front of the computer inside his bedroom. Over the years, the work of the producer and DJ evolved in an unparalleled way, which has favored his reputation on a global scale.

As I started attending Príncipe’s events, I gradually got to know their producers and DJs, and that's how I met DJ Nigga Fox.

Curiously, Thom Yorke from Radiohead, had heard about DJ Nigga Fox before me when in 2015 he shared some of the tracks he was listening to at that time, among which was the theme "Weed" by DJ Nigga Fox, from a list that included producers like Kool A.D. and Bernard Parmegiani. Yorke gave visibility to Nigga Fox's dizzying vibrations, and consequently to other producers at the label, growing their prestige.

In 2017, Native Instruments - leading manufacturer of software and hardware for computer-based audio production - was invited into the producer’s home studio to catch him making a track. Native shares the encounter with the renowned artist that plays his tracks mixing beats and styles, and showing off his skills, and until today this is how he does it.

Early this year, the opening of the Copenhagen International Documentary Festival featured the music of the Portuguese-Angolan DJ Nigga Fox, who contributed to the soundtrack of the selected films "Batida de Lisboa" (2019) by Rita Maia and Vasco Viana and "Vitalina Varela" (2019) by Pedro Costa.

The producer has been all over the place performing on the main national and international stages, namely at the Sónar Festival (Barcelona), Moulin Rouge (Paris), Berghain (Berlin), Club to Club (Turino, Italy), Imminent (Lisbon), Rex Club (Paris), Apollo (Barcelona), Les Siestes Électroniques (Toulouse), Hoco Fest (Tucson, Arizona), H0L0 (NY), Play (Los Angeles), Lux Frágil (Lisbon), Musicbox (Lisbon), Hard Club (Porto), Moonshine (Montreal, Canada), Mofo Fest (Tasmania, Australia), WWW (Shibuya, Tokyo), Imminent (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) among many others.

Talanzele track from Cartas Na Manga, Princípe 2019

As one of the most talented producers of electronic music of his generation, he has already been recognized multiple times by some of the most prestigious international music publications, such as Pitchfork (which has also included his work in a list of The Best Electronic Music of 2018), Trax Magazine or The Wire.

Discography

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