Search - Buraka Som Sistema :: Black Diamond

HOTTEST DANCE ALBUM FROM AFRICAN EURO CULTURE

Grace H. Davis | FORT LAUDERDALE, FL | 12/18/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"THIS DANCE ALBUM FROM AFRICAN EURO CULTURE IS TOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HOT!!! CAN MIX WITH ANY UPBEAT USA DANCE MUSIC IN THE HOUSE MUSIC GENRE, OR TRY MIXING WITH SOCA JAMS...I CAN'T STOP DANCING! BLACK DIAMOND...EXACTLY!!! INCREDIBLE, THE BOMB! IF THE FIRST HALF IS TOO TECHNO TO THRILL YOU...ROCK TO THE SECOND HALF, START WITH IC19! TAKE US INTO 2009 EURO SOUTH AFRICA!"

Music to Mend the Past(?)

Michael C. Puzio | 05/14/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Buraka Som Sistema are a rag tag team that put together an excellently thumping album that has a streamlined semi-theme to it. It's genre is kuduro; although it could easily pass with great acclaim and pride to be the fantastic melding of latin-esque style, hip-hop & 'drum & bass's dependence on strong bass rythyms, and the sampling & variations with electronica-like approach. The thematic gist of 'Black Diamond' seems to be on the verge of attempting to say something able to be interpreted as socio-political speech. From the obvious that the members are a Portuguese-Angolan identifying piece, to the tracks 'Africas Pt. 1' & '2', they infuse the convergence of cultures to create a sound quantifiably not new to the ear, but distinctly original in it's own product. This may, one might say, mirror the developing socio-political changes that are presently occurring in Angola (Africa symbollically as a whole) and Portugal (the E.U., really) as presented in the language and the topics briefly mentioned throughout different tracks & in the short title itself. Obviously the past of these two countries and continents is not positive, but at present, with the changes and developments in both that we may or may not be aware of, there is an interaction & even potential sense of interdependence that is the elusive message behind the simple content of 'Black Diamond'. Buraka Som Sistema may be surmised as saying: while past is prologue, the present is - as these artists have created through their music - what we make to be the future. That, or I've read too deep into it. Either way, it's a superb album for people who enjoy hip-hop, techno or electronica, and/or reggaeton/latin-influenced pop."