PONGO: Gutsy, Blunt and Brilliant!

Editor: Christopher George 

Pongo’s debut appearance at this year’s TheGreat Escape festival, performing at Brighton’s The ARCH on Thursday May 9, 2019. The release will be closely tailed by a second remix of Pongo courtesy of Anoraak, to be issued via Kitsuné in June.

Originally hailing from Angola’s capital city of Luanda, as a kid Pongo was forced to flee to Europe with her family to escape its lengthy and violent civil war. Eventually settling in Lisbon, her turbulent experiences are borne out across the ‘Baia’ EP, a gutsy debut which blends Portuguese lyrics with nods to the Angolan genre of Kiduro - a hybrid which assimilates soca and samba - alongside a fondness for more western touchstones like techno & bass music. The immersive, Dancehall-flecked ‘Chora’ - taking its title from the Portuguese word for ‘cry’ - itself rides atop crisp bursts of steel drum and snares, which ebb & flow beneath a smoothly assured vocal.