UK Electronic Singer Opens Up About Her Interest On Amapiano On ‘Nowhere To Hide’ Single. Aluna remains an accomplished collaborator, with her recognisable silvery tones characterising recent work with MK, Diplo, Jayda G, Kooldrink & Prettyboy D-O and Kornél Kovács. Yet fresh insights now add fuel to her extensive vocal and songwriting skillset, asserting her as a creative force in her own right.
After coming into prominence as one half of UK electronic duo AlunaGeorge, St. Albans-raised Aluna Francis has now established herself as a solo artist, and is propelling global electronic sounds into the future. Operating out of LA for seven years now, the vocalist has been expanding a niche in which American, British and African histories collide.
In 2020, Aluna dropped a solo album ‘Renaissance’ – a celebration of dance music’s Black and queer roots, honouring history while powering through into the future with genre-spanning fusions and contemporary guest feature curation. Her In Session mix traverses hypnotic and energised sounds from across the African diaspora, providing us with an entrancing hour of atmospheric amapiano, syncopated rhythms and refined vocals.
She opened up about her interest in amapiano and what attracted her to the genre. “I would describe amapiano as quite a minimal form of music – often you can hear that there are few instruments, but they’re used in a very particular way. It feels like the producers who make it are almost in this meditative state: it’s got an enormous amount of energy in it, but it’s really simple,” she told MixMagazine.
“I wrote ‘Nowhere to Hide’ in London with Higo and Prettyboy [D-O] and that was a very different experience. I’ve kind of had to rework my methodology – instead of aiming directly for the end result, I take a different route, and let the arrival be something that I can’t necessarily plan. It was really nice being able to send Kooldrink a vocal over a beat that was very, very different, and have him sort of rework it. Kooldrink has a really broad production background, but is one of the pioneers of the genre in South Africa, so he’s able to include the traditional sounds and marry that with vocals, which is a very particular art form. That kind of nailed it for me,” she added.
