Nazar^AO

Photo credit: Marieke Bosma

Nazar is an Angolan musician and producer currently based in the UK. Born in Belgium and raised during his teenage years in post-civil war Angola, his formative experiences shape the emotional and thematic core of his work.

Drawing from personal and collective memory, Nazar reconfigures Angolan kuduro into a darker, more abrasive form he calls “rough kuduro.” His debut album Guerrilla (2020) uses this sound to explore his family and country’s history. Through fragmented narratives, oral histories, and stark sonic textures, every track documents his personal story of the war and its aftermath in countless people's lives in a detailed and episodic manner.

His follow-up, Demilitarize (2025), marks a shift in tone and scope. Moving away from the immediacy of Guerrilla, the album ventures into a more abstract, dreamlike space. Here, kuduro rhythms dissolve into looser forms, and vocals drift through layered, introspective soundscapes that gesture toward release.

Evocative and immersive, Nazar’s music captures the psychological residue of physical and mental turbulence, drifting fluidly between impressionistic atmospheres and moments of unflinching clarity to piece together a compendium of work as emotionally resonant as it is sonically distinct.

Nazar
Live | North American premiere