Get to Know: Zakente

Herodes Santo’s birth certificate says Angola, but this isn’t the place in Africa that has his heart.
“For me, São Tomé and Príncipe is the best country in the world. I love the culture, the people, the kindness. I love everything,” the artist better known as Zakente says, during an afternoon video call with DJ Mag. When we catch up with the rising producer, he’s quite far from the island nation in reference, where “about 98 percent” of his family members are from — today, he’s at home in Lisbon. Santo moved to the E.U. when he was two years old, long after Angola and the other aforementioned regions gained independence from the Portuguese empire in the 1970s. 

Despite living out his youth on a different continent, he uncovered ways to stay close to his history.
“I grew up listening to a lot of Afro house and African music, you know, so it’s easy for me to mix those styles,” he shares. Thousands of miles away from the beaches where his parents came of age, Zakente fuses the layered drum patterns and upbeat rhythms of his homeland with the rumbling bass of contemporary club music.
“I’m a bit shy with this,” he tells us when we ask if his mother and father enjoy his work. “We don’t talk about it much, but yeah, they love it.”



The global stylings he spins today are largely the product of his own evolution. Santo began making music in 2013, looking first to headlining artists like Avicii, Afrojack, David Guetta, Otto Knows, Nervo, and Swedish House Mafia (“They’re my favourite group!”) for inspiration. In 2017, his big room and EDM tastes took a backseat, as he turned toward Afro tech elements to differentiate himself. Thankfully, the timing couldn’t have been better.
“This is special — so special. Because we were so small, nobody listened to this music, and now it’s becoming — maybe not mainstream — but more popular,” he shares of the rise of African club sounds, pointing to South African producer Black Coffee as one figure who’s lifted the genre’s international profile higher.
Still, some of Santo’s earliest champions shared his European home — take Italian duo Giolì & Assia, for example.

“They played one song of mine at a volcano, then we started having conversations, and we still talk,” Santo shares of how he became connected with the Sicily-based musicians, who’ve been known to scale towering land formations for their popular #DiesisLive video series. “They’re amazing, really. I love them.”
After spotlighting his dark techno stunner ‘Anomalia’ in the setlist, the couple went on to release a number of Zakente’s singles and remixes, including ‘Pandemia’, ‘Kishimoto’, and ‘Trust Me,’ a track that harbours a bold and crashing intensity, and which also serves as a window into Zakente’s unexpected take on sound design — one that weaves repetitive vocal chops with deep basslines and ancestral drums for a truly transportive effect. 

Other labels, such as Offering Records, Kaminhada Music, and Ultra (the last of which dropped his highly percussive remix of Giolì & Assia x Mahmut Orhan’s ‘Lost’ in 2022) also pushed Zakente’s grooves to wider audiences.

The pandemic proved a prolific period for Santo in terms of tune-crafting, and when clubs and borders reopened, he trekked to nightlife meccas like Ibiza, where he performed during the 2022 International Music Summit (IMS) at Destino Pacha Resort.
“It was just at the start of the summer, so it was not that full of people, but you could feel the energy and ambiance of the place,” he shares, smiling at the memory of playing there for the first time. 

Despite the growing popularity of Afro tech, Afro house and Afrobeats among nightspots on the Spanish isle, he attests that it’s still a lesser-sought-after flavour in his own country, next door.
“I went to a lot of different clubs, but I feel my music is too small for Portugal. I think my music fits better in different locations,” he offers up candidly. He would know — last October, he travelled to Uganda for Nyege Nyege, an annual festival that’s become a popular platform for emerging African electronic artists. During his time there, he began working on an LP, which he plans to unveil in 2023.
“I met a lot of different artists, so I have a lot of new ideas,” he says of the inspiration he found there.


When we inquire as to whether there are other dream destinations Santo hopes to play, he’s quick to answer.
“I have three countries,” he starts, holding a trio of corresponding fingers up to the screen. “First one: America. Second one: Brazil. And Japan.” Given the current speed at which he’s clocking streams, this manifestation is likely to become a reality. However, only time will tell if these lands will ignite his spirit and fuel his creativity quite like his family’s old stomping grounds along Africa’s western coastline.