Premiere: Dana Lu ‘Le Damo Duro’

Dana Lu will release a new EP, ‘Worldwide Link-Up’, next month via APOCALIPSIS. Have an exclusive first listen to ‘Le Damo Duro’,  below.

The Dominican-American DJ and producer follows her ‘Girls Having Fun’ Vol. 1 and Vol. 2 EPs, and an appearance alongside TOKiMONSTA at DJ Mag’s Best of North America awards tour 2023, with five cuts of fast-flowing and collaborative club music on Brooklyn’s APOCALIPSIS label.

Deep sub-bass frequencies and dembow beats set the scene on opening track ‘Enter, Entrar’, featuring vocals from Puerto Rican-Panamanian producer DJ Bembona and Dominican MC Andres Dualitá, before dancefloor weapon ‘Le Damo Duro’ – a collaboration with Pablo Piddy, SHELL X, Amen The Producer – surfaces in a haze of wailing horns and swung snares.

On ‘Sound Di Horn!’, an already giddying fusion of soca and Jersey club reaches new levels of hype with Barbados’ King Bubba FM on the mic, while Lu links up with Bronx-based vocalist Taina Rain for the ravey pop-house thriller, ‘Come My Way’.

“I want to show other Black and Brown-skinned girls that you can do this too, that this is possible, and you can do it your way,” Lu said on her vision, which feels like it’s fast coming true with every new project she drops.

Founded in 2017 by Ecuadorian-Lithuanian artist and cultural activist Riobamba, APOCALIPSIS is a New York City-based label dedicated to amplifying artists of the Global South and diaspora. Recent releases include Mala Fama’s ‘Jichushka’ EP, which features influences from Ecuador’s Indigenous communities, and Riobamba’s own experimental single, ‘S​á​calo’.

‘Worldwide Link-Up’ is out 11th October via APOCALIPSIS. Pre-order the EP here, and listen exclusively to ‘Le Damo Duro’ below.