Jamz Supernova’s First Mr Bongo Compilation Runs From Sunrise to the Small Hours

Jamz Supernova’s first compilation for Mr Bongo rests on one organising idea: a record that moves from sunrise to the small hours. ‘Dance Around The World’ gathers 16 tracks across two halves, Day and Night, and grows out of the show and Bandcamp community of the same name.

The Day side leans on live instrumentation, storytelling and sunlit grooves. Night tips into club rhythms and dancefloor experiment. “When you travel, you get to experience both the day side of somewhere and the night side, and the music and the feeling can change so much between the two,” she says. The structure is a curatorial logic rather than a gimmick, and it follows more than a decade of steering listeners past the mainstream through her BBC Radio 6 Music show, her Future Bounce label and DJ sets.

The tracklist moves between contemporary and archival material, drawing on Groundsound, SIMANGAVOLE & SOA RAVELO, Esa Williams, Oruã, Lenna Bahule, Célia Wa, 15 15, Catu Diosis & Neana, Jus Now, Evehive & Clementaum and Mokotron. Jamz appears herself on ‘Tan Toddy’ with Sam Interface and Lateena. Two Colombian cuts sit in deliberate contrast: Verito Asprilla’s reggaeton-tinged ‘Quiero Ser Buena’, and Brenda x Diva Cruz’s ‘Sin Africa’, which addresses African identity, colonial history and the Afro-Colombian experience, and which Jamz helped bring together as A&R.

In her liner notes, Jamz points out that every region represented has used music as a form of resistance to colonialism, while saying she is equally interested in how music moves us forward. The release is marked with a listening session and conversation at Shai Space in Peckham this Sunday, 18th October, with an acoustic set from Lenna Bahule, followed by a Jazz Cafe date on 30th October with Diva Cruz, Esa Williams and Samtheman.