Slikback (KE)




Fredrick M. Njau is an electronic music producer originally from Nairobi, now based in Poland. He started out with a pirated copy of VirtualDJ and his first beats made in FL Studio. A pivotal moment came with his encounter with the Ugandan collective Nyege Nyege and its sublabel Hakuna Kulala.
Slikback’s music oscillates between noise, industrial, club music, trap, drill, and ambient. His 2023 album Attrition (Planet Mu) is – by his own admission – his most refined work to date, written during a period of forced and temporal suspension: waiting for a visa after relocating to Poland. This state of transition, marked by the birth of a child and a new rhythm of life , shaped the album’s inner dramaturgy.
In parallel, he collaborates with leading figures of the experimental scene: Giant Swan, Brodinski, Objekt, while also building connections with local drill artists in Nairobi. He does not hide his attachment to the place he comes from:
“There may be a lack of resources in the region, but when we adapt to the simple things we have, we end up making some really amazing stuff. I’m glad I was born here for sure.”
His music grows out of systemic constraints: from visa rejections to the marginalisation of the African scene. It doesn’t so much “experiment” as forge new forms under pressure, outside the privileges of the European avant-garde. It’s a sound that follows its own logic: rhythmically unpredictable, sonically brutal, formally precise. In recent years, he has already performed in Poland: at festivals like Unsound and Ephemera, proving that his live energy matches the intensity of his studio work.