Whatever Happened to Nguzunguzu?

a.k.a. An interview with the groundbreaking duo, who helped set the modern club music template and then stepped back from the spotlight.

Nguzunguzu started small. A collaboration between a couple of art-school kids (a.k.a. Asma Maroof and Daniel Pineda), the duo first took shape in Los Angeles during the late 2000s, cutting their teeth at random parties and eventually as residents at Wildness, a weekly party that took place at historic Latin / LGBTQ venue the Silver Platter. At a time when most DJs picked a sound and stayed in their lane, and discussions of “bass music” in the US usually referred to the rise of tearout dubstep, Nguzunguzu were outsiders, self-described “weirdos” who filled their sets with regional club sounds from Latin America, the Caribbean, Africa, the US and beyond, along with bits of house and techno, the latest strains of UK bass and a healthy dose of hip-hop and R&B.

Nowadays that kind of genre-blending, tempo-shifting approach has become commonplace, and while Nguzunguzu certainly doesn’t deserve all the credit, there’s no question that the course they charted helped to redefine the parameters of bass and club music.

Although Nguzunguzu never became household names—their unwieldy moniker probably didn’t help on that front—Maroof and Pineda did put together an awfully impressive body of work. They were the first artists signed to the Fade to Mind label, and also dropped music on influential outlets like Hippos in Tanks and Innovative Leisure. At one point M.I.A. enlisted Maroof to be her tour DJ, and the two also co-produced the former’s Vicki Leekx mixtape. The Perfect Lullaby, a mix Nguzunguzu created for DIS magazine, became a sensation, and was even glowingly reviewed on Pitchfork, something that was practically unheard of for an online DJ mix. (In truth, their Moments In mixtape, which consisted entirely of songs sampling Art of Noise’s classic “Moments in Love,” might have been even more impressive.) They also produced tracks for the likes of Kelela and Le1f, remixed countless other artists and eventually joined forces with Fatima Al Qadiri and J-Cush in a supergroup called Future Brown. (The quartet released a single album on Warp in 2015.)

From a purely creative standpoint, it’s hard to categorize Nguzunguzu as anything but a success, and to be sure, they earned plaudits from the music, art and fashion worlds alike. That being said, the duo’s output (at least under the name Nguzunguzu) began to drop off significantly during the latter half of the 2010s, and has now slowed to a trickle. What happened?

Looking to find out, I phoned up Maroof and Pineda last week. (Full disclosure: We’ve all known each other for more than a decade, and Nguzunguzu played numerous parties and events that I organized during the late 2000s and early 2010s.) Over the course of a lengthy conversation, they confirmed that while their life (and place of residence) has changed significantly in recent years, they haven’t actually quit making music. Their work, however, has taken on new forms, and is now showing up in prestigious theaters, high-end fashion campaigns and critically acclaimed documentaries. (And yes, another collaboration with Kelela is on the way too.) As we talked, they also considered their own place in the history of club and bass music—especially now that so many of the methods and aesthetics they pioneered have been widely adopted—and reflected back on the early days of Nguzunguzu, the project’s various successes and setbacks, and why they approached music the way that they did.