In bold defiance of the pandemic's gloom and doom, Nyege Nyege Festival, which normally takes place in Jinja, Uganda, maintained its forceful, take-no-prisoners attitude for its sixth year through a mostly online and entirely free edition.

Packing over 300 pre-recorded performances into four days, Nyege Nyege 2020 was a multidimensional feast of audiovisual elements and shapeshifting club heaters from talents around the African continent, Middle East, Europe and the Americas.

Their strategic focus on Pan-Africanism, combined with a broad definition of electronic music that encompasses hip-hop, noise-saturated-metal and experimental, as well as four-on-the-floor, has made Nyege Nyege's programming some of the most consistently compelling in today's festival landscape. A mini-documentary by Mumbai-based agency Wavlngth, part of the festival's web offerings, delved deeper into those points as it shone a light on Nyege Nyege's radical spirit.

There were Afrocentric collectives representing Black diasporas such as Barcelona's Jokkoo and Montreal's Moonshine as well as Brussels-based experimental club night Leaving Living Dakota and Johannesburg queer collective and DJ incubator program Pussy Party, all of whom discharged serious dance floor pressure. Hybrid sounds born from traditional music, street styles and digital distortions were also pervasive—Moroccan ensemble Mr ID & Mehdi Nassouli, for instance, paired Amazigh and Gnawa music with syncopated beats. In addition to these high energy offerings were special showcases including a performance of Mauritanian wedding music and a presentation on the making of a Gabonese harp.

Dozens of acts impressed during the 96-hour festival, but these ten stood out the most.

Menzi

The Mzsansi Gqom showcase served an essential selection of fierce broken beats indigenous to South Africa, taking viewers into local districts where the genre's hypnotic snares originated. Artists revealed different facets of gqom, from Surreal Sessions who DJ'd alongside musical bow player Jethro Louw to Phelimuncasi's poetic verses. But it was 27-year-old Menzi Shabane who gave us a look into gqom's future. The rising star took the genre's staggered tempos into new territory with industrial darkwave and dystopian sound design that added explosive volatility to gqom's signature precise percussion. Dancers juxtaposed against fluorescent visuals and inverted colours accentuated this semi-controlled chaos.

HHY & The Kampala Unit

Blending dub, techno, horns, trumpet and drums, this ensemble was a technicolour tour-de-force with both its visuals and sonics acting in tandem to deliver a sensory assault. High-octane brass, drone textures and jagged percussion came together in a 30-minute performance of cascading drama that will likely cement the group's position as a torchbearer of next-generation electro-jazz.

Faizal Mostrixx

A self-described "Afro-futurist Ugandan griot," the up-and-coming producer played a sassy set imbued with an old-world feel. Incorporating sped-up samples of Ugandan singers on a densely layered tapestry of tribal footwork, minimal techno, mutant dancehall and folk instruments, Mostrixx showed off both his spiritual and club side.

Pangar

Right off the bat, this duo from the Reunion Island went straight for the jugular in their electric live show of mostly original tracks. Using MIDI controllers, a 16-channel analogue mixer and various stompboxes, producers Kwalud and Betnwaar released a storm of bass-driven creole, pounding drums, gabber and arrhythmic Soca in their hard-hitting interpretation of Reunion Island's ancient Sega and Maloya sounds.

Blacksea Não Maya

Dissecting different Afro-Portuguese styles such as batida and kurdoro in between aggressive trap and spliced accordion rhythms, the Lisbon-based family trio of DJ Kolt, DJ Noronha and DJ Perigoso put on a carnival-ready display of forward-thinking riddims with sinister undertones. Pushing a relentless mix of classical strings and blistering sub-bass, Blacksea Não Maya made up one half of Príncipe's showcase alongside RS Produções, whose piercing combination of spooky basslines and complex percussion is also recommended watching.

3Phaz

In a pulsating live show, Cairo-based artist 3Phaz unveiled an experimental side of Mahraganat, which in itself is a variation of traditional shaabi music. Created in the suburbs of the Egyptian capital, Mahraganat goes heavy on reverberating percussion and autotuned vocals, but under 3Phaz's watch it swells with gnarly bass while synths get twisted into lopsided shapes.

Slikback

Breaking the scales with heavy-duty bass weight, the Kenyan-born artist unleashed a cyclone of brutal electronics as knotty as his net-covered surroundings. Dropping hardcore missiles from his SVBKVLT label-mates as well as his own compositions ("Cardi Black x Swordsman"), Slikback has a way of bending noise, drill and processed vocals into opaque dark matter.

Afrorack

Described by the festival as "the first person to build DIY modular synth setups in Africa," 30-year-old Brian Bamanya broadcast waves of glistening, weightless techno coated in acid shimmers from his modular machinery. Channelling an airy, oddball mood that brought to mind the wonky tactics of Firecracker Recordings, Afrorack played around with synths in a way that retained their ethereal aura without getting too abstract.

Raymond Haddad

Repping the AS AA S and Radio Alhara takeover, Haddad fired a flurry of tightly coiled beats from his Eurorack system that seemed to madly vibrate against each other. Pensive and cinematic, the fluid soundscapes spoke to the musician's jazz influences.

Hibotep

In a wide-ranging set that showed off her diverse tastes, the Somali-Ethiopian creative steadily crafted a warped landscape using various shades of sci-fi. These include haunting drum & bass, Dr. Octagon-reminiscent beats, dubstep with stretched vocals and slick ghettotech.

Support Nyege Nyege Festival by purchasing their recent compilation album, available here for one month only.