Two rising experimental forces—mau from nowhere and hihi—collide in unexpected harmony on Pressure, their boundary-pushing debut collaborative album. Out now, the 11-track project is a raw, genre-defying deep-dive into emotional turbulence, constructed from the fringes of hip-hop, noise, soul, and glitchy, surrealist pop. It’s not just a meeting of minds—it’s a sonic exorcism shaped by dislocation, duality, and a shared need to process the overwhelming.
Though oceans apart in origin—mau raised across Nairobi, the UK, and the Netherlands, and hihi rooted in hyper-digital, high-emotion sound collage—the two artists found themselves in London, strangers navigating a new environment. Amid the unfamiliar, they uncovered a mutual language in musical contradictions: texture vs. tone, clarity vs. chaos, vulnerability vs. bravado. The result is Pressure—a project that simultaneously honors the hip-hop that raised them and completely reimagines it. “A huge part of this project was playing telephone with a lot of the rap music we grew up on,” they explain. “Honouring a sound that’s been so formative for both of us while infusing our own unique styles into this story of diving into a new space, drowning, and doing our best to continue treading water.”
Across tracks that blur genres as much as emotional states, Pressure moves between the frenetic and the meditative. Its sound is expansive yet intimate: a dreamlike haze one moment, an industrial reckoning the next. While “portals” and “let it pass” explore fleeting escapism and reflection, the record erupts with a chaotic, collage-like energy on songs like “a_m_h” and “what’s all this then.” Elsewhere, tender moments like “miss you” and the raw introspection of “Green hill zone” ground the project in lived experience, weaving themes of disillusionment, identity, and longing through sonic experimentation.
Pressure isn’t just a debut—it’s a mission statement. A fearless, fluid conversation between two visionary artists at the edges of genre and emotion. In a musical landscape crowded by conformity, mau from nowhere and hihi have created a world entirely their own: unpredictable, unpolished, and undeniably powerful.
