Batida feat. Poté - “Ah!”

This time around, Batida invites Poté for a fully instrumental track. This is the second single taken from the forthcoming Batida album, out on Crammed on the 21st of October. The album is titled “Neon Colonialismo” and is not about neon.

The new single is illustrated by a video portraying a bike* ride from the outskirts of Lisbon, in Amadora, where Pedro aka Batida grew up, down to Lux, the legendary club, where Poté & Batida performed an all-night DJ set. The trip includes a brief stop at Padrão dos Descobrimentos, the monument marking the Age of Discovery (in the 15th & 16th centuries), i.e. the start of the colonial period, during which Portugal established the biggest slave trade market ever created in the history of the Atlantic Ocean. “Ah!” is about the common sonic and rhythmic ground shared by two producers who grew up elsewhere.

Batida has always kept a dialogue open with Luanda. Reflecting on his own relation with Angola-influenced sounds coming out of Lisbon, Poté states “It was the first time I heard parallels between what I was hearing as a kid in St Lucia and what other people were doing in dance music.” Pote´s music reveals the rhythmic sound of his heritage and his interest in exploratory, emotive songwriting. The network he’s built along the way speaks volumes about the variety of his influences: with connections from Lisbon’s Enchufada label, to Benji B and Damon Albarn. Actually, it was in one of Damon’s Africa Express gatherings that Poté and Batida started working on this track, back in 2018.

*Both bikes are electric and one of them endorses Sea Shepherd, whose mission is to protect the marine wildlife in the world’s oceans.