Singeli
Dar es Salaam at two hundred and up, with the hand drums doing the running.
The pattern
2 bars, sixteenth notes. Loops until you stop it.
The hand drum lane is what makes this playable rather than merely quick. Eight strokes a bar on every e and every a, alternating 56 to 86, and in bar two a ninth arrives on the and of 3. Against that the kick plays beat 1, the and of 1, the and of 2, beat 3, the and of 3 and the and of 4 in bar one, then swaps the and of 3 for beat 2 and beat 4 in bar two. Snare on 2 and 4, plain, with a single answer at the end of bar one and a three stroke roll after beat 4 of bar two, rising from 72 to 100. Closed hats sit on the beats and the ands at 44 and 58 and never on an e or an a, giving one step a bar to the open hat. The shaker runs unbroken underneath at 36 to 60. A sixteenth here lasts 68 milliseconds, so those two percussion lanes together put a hit into the air about twenty two times a second.
What it is
Two hundred beats per minute is the low end. Singeli came out of the Tandale and Manzese areas of Dar es Salaam in the early 2010s, built by producers working in FL Studio on secondhand machines for MCs who rap over the top at a speed that has to be heard to be believed. Underneath it is mchiriku, a Zaramo street music with electric keyboards and a drum pattern that already ran fast, and taarab, whose string and vocal samples get looped and pitched. Sisso Records and Pamoja Records in Dar are where most of it comes from. What makes it work rather than exhaust is that the hand drums play the offbeat sixteenths continuously, so the tempo is subdivided rather than merely fast.
What it sounds like
Overdriven and joyful. Everything is clipped, the kick and snare are stock samples pushed far past their headroom, and the keyboard is a cheap workstation preset played as a repeated riff. Hand drums fill the offbeats. A shaker sits under the whole thing. Taarab samples, strings and a sung phrase, get pitched up and looped every two bars. The MC is loud, dry, and continuous. Nothing has reverb on it, partly by choice and partly because at this tempo any tail at all turns the record into a wash.
Key elements
- The tempo, subdividedAround 220, but the hand drums play the sixteenths between the kicks, so the rhythm is legible instead of just fast. Take those away and it stops working.
- Hand drums on the offbeatsEight strokes a bar, every e and every a, alternating between 56 and 86 so the figure breathes rather than machine-gunning.
- A snare on 2 and 4The one conventional thing in the pattern. It gives a listener something to hold while the rest of the bar goes past at three hits a second.
- The roll into the loopAfter the beat 4 snare, bar two adds a three stroke roll rising from 72 to 100. This is how singeli signals a section change, since there is no room for a fill.
- Looped taarabA pitched-up string or vocal sample from Swahili coastal music, repeated every two bars. It carries all the melody in the record.
How to get them
- Sequence at the real tempoSet the project to 220 and write there. Writing at 110 and doubling gives you a half-time record with fast drums on it, which is a different genre entirely.
- Hand drumsTwo or three conga and djembe samples, short, alternating on the e and the a of every beat. Vary the sample as well as the velocity or the lane machine-guns.
- Clip everythingPush the drum bus into a hard clipper by four or five decibels. Singeli is not a clean sound and a controlled mix removes the thing people recognise.
- No reverbAt 220 a 200 millisecond tail covers three sixteenths. Use short delays instead if you need depth, timed to the sixteenth so they land on the grid.
- Loop, do not arrangeChange the sample every eight or sixteen bars and leave the drums alone. The MC provides the variation, and a busy arrangement at this speed is unlistenable.
- StraightSwing 0.5. A sixteenth here is about 68 milliseconds and any swing at all pushes the offbeat drums into audible lateness rather than into feel.
Reference points
Sisso, Duke, MCZO, Bamba Pana, Makaveli, Sisso Records and Pamoja Records in Dar es Salaam, and the Nyege Nyege Tapes releases that carried it abroad. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.
The pattern is a starting point rather than a rule. If you want the theory underneath why any of it works, Battuto measures it.