Zanku

What it is

Zlatan Ibile invented a dance in 2018, named it Zanku, and Lagos producers spent the next two years writing beats for it. The scene it belongs to had already been running as shaku shaku, music from the mainland with a harder edge than the afrobeats being exported from the same city at the same time, and the two words get used loosely for the same records. What separates it from afrobeats proper is what sits under the vocal: a fuji percussion bed, the sakara frame drums and the small talking drums that Yoruba party music has run on since the 1960s, sequenced tight and pushed forward in the mix. The kick doubles on beat 3, the clap states the backbeat instead of implying it, and nothing about the arrangement is spacious.

What it sounds like

Dry and forward. A hard, short kick with a click on it, a bright clap, and hats moving in sixteenths at low velocity. The percussion is the character: a sakara or a sampled omele snapping through the offbeats, and a shekere marking the eighths. Melodies are usually a single plucked or whistled line four bars long, and there are often no chords at all under it. Bass is a short sub note that stops before the next kick. The vocal is the record, delivered in Yoruba, Nigerian Pidgin and English inside the same phrase, with ad libs stacked behind it. Mixes are loud and midrange-heavy because these records live on phones and in danfo buses.

Key elements

• The doubled kick on beat 3Beat 3 and the e of 3 back to back, the second about twenty velocity quieter. The second half of the bar arrives with a stumble the first half did not have.
• A clap that says it out loudAfrobeats leaves the backbeat implied and puts a rimshot on beat 3. This puts a loud clap on 2 and 4, which is most of why the two sound unalike at the same tempo.
• The fuji bedSakara frame drums and small talking drums, sequenced rather than played, taking five offbeat sixteenths in bar one and seven in bar two. This is the part that says mainland rather than island.
• A shekere on the eighthsEight strokes a bar alternating between 38 and 54, and unlike the afrobeats shekere it leaves the sixteenths between them alone.
• No harmonyMost of these beats have a single melodic line and no chords under it at all. The percussion is doing the work a progression does elsewhere.

How to get them

• Double the third beatPlace a kick on beat 3 and another on the e of 3 about twenty velocity lower. Check it against the clap on beat 4; if the pair sounds like a mistake on its own you have it about right.
• Kick soundShort, tuned near 55Hz, with a click layer at 2kHz so it survives on a phone speaker. Cut the tail at 120 milliseconds so the doubled hit reads as two events rather than one long one.
• Find real fuji percussionSample a sakara or an omele from a fuji record rather than reaching for a conga. The frame drum has a dry snap with almost no pitch in it and nothing in a stock library sounds like that.
• ClapTwo machine claps stacked about 10 milliseconds apart, high-passed at 350Hz, loud on 2 and 4. This is the part that separates a street-pop beat from an afrobeats one.
• One line, no padWrite a single plucked or whistled melody four bars long and leave the harmony out. If you find yourself adding a pad the record has stopped being this.
• Mix for a busPush 1 to 3kHz on the vocal and the percussion and roll off below 50Hz. These records are heard on phones and in traffic, and sub energy is wasted there.

Reference points

Zlatan Ibile, Naira Marley, Small Doctor, Mohbad, Poco Lee, and producers Rexxie and Niphkeys, with Sikiru Ayinde Barrister's fuji records underneath the percussion. Named as reference points for the sound, not as endorsements or as anyone to imitate.