A year after NON Worldwide formed in 2015, its three founders played a set in a church in Amsterdam. All had to cross borders to get there: Chino Amobi from the US, Angel-Ho from South Africa and Nkisi from London. Despite having built one of the electronic underground’s most exciting collectives, it was the first time they had been in the same place at the same time.

A combination of experimental record label, radical art project and social network, NON is a community of musicians that straddles the African diaspora, slipping between borders and timezones to fight against the silencing of black people everywhere.

Their combined histories span the world. Nkisi, the performance name of Melika Ngombe Kolongo, is Congolese, but grew up in Belgium before settling permanently in London, initially as a photographer. Angel-Ho, a childhood nickname of Angelo Valerio, was born and raised in Cape Town, and initially created work to soundtrack films and performance art. And Amobi, whose parents are Nigerian, is currently studying for a masters in design at VCU in Richmond, Virginia, where he grew up. During high school, he began producing beats and designing album covers for his brother’s rap music; that branding moxie has carried over into NON, whose stickers and badges feature arresting slogans such as “EXORCISE THE LANGUAGE OF DOMINATION” and “NON IS A HAMMER WE USE TO CRUSH THE ENEMY”.

Although there’s no particular NON sound, its members each have individual qualities. Nkisi’s is fluid techno that ripples purposefully towards the end of each track. Amobi samples everyday sounds like car horns and sirens, and navigates around genres with the confident beat of a city native. Angel-Ho’s music has flickers of repetitive sound that threaten to flare up at any moment.



“You’re listening to [our] music, and then the track is over, and you’re like: ‘OK, where was I?’” Nkisi explains over the phone from Belgium. “The track is two minutes long, but you feel like you’ve been transported to another world for the whole day.”

Their signings range from Johannesburg performance artists FAKA, a duo who match suave attire with poised dance moves whilse exploring black queer identity, and London-based Zimbabwean artist Farai, whose music video for Lion Warrior featured some of the London diaspora’s brightest young things, including stylist Ib Kamara and ICA associate poet Belinda Zhawi. “We try to bring physicality into the online world and also the virtual experience into the physical world,” Chino tells me over Skype.



‘It is our time to get our reparations’... Angel-Ho. Photograph: NON Worldwide

Their platforming of scattered African voices is a kind of decolonisation process, unpacking how the legacy of colonialism continues to affect black people globally. Their NON XCHANGE programme at London’s ICA gallery discussed the creation of “social spaces that disrupt the flow of power”, and Angel-Ho has described how the NON-released EP Emancipation, a collaboration between Angel-Ho and FAKA’s Desire Marea, is for “black queer trans communities – it is our time to get our reparations ... [and] reclaim our erased narratives”. Much of NON’s output confronts power structures that exclude black people and, as the title of Angel-Ho’s EP suggests, looks to emancipate them from that framework. The internet acts as an intercontinental forum for discussions. Amobi calls NON “a leg up” for black people to tell their own stories: “How can we use the technology we have now to create and write our experience, before those themes are written about us?”



NON are not the only underground musicians with cross-continental networks, joining the likes of London-based Bala Club, Stockholm’s STAYCORE and Mexico’s Naafi, with whom they’ve collaborated. “The beauty of collectives is that they’re a constant experiment. In a weird way, they’re like research on how to be with other people,” says Nkisi, explaining how her NON collaborators have grown into friends as well as artists.



The trio are hugely collaborative: Amobi created artwork for Angel-Ho’s Emancipation EP, while Angel-Ho is performing at Opaque Poetics – a one-day music festival curated by Nkisi later this week, with a programme of artists and producers creating temporary, immersive soundscapes. NKISI (EDIT) is the name of a song on Amobi’s new album PARADISO, named partly after the club in Amsterdam where the three of them met for the first time. Amobi describes the process of working so closely together as similar to playing a role-playing game, constantly interacting like avatars in different formations across each other’s work. “We are able to build each other up and almost crash into one another,” he says. “Because I feel that crashing into one another has the potential to spawn new life, new realities, and push culture forward.”

The dedication of the NON founders to creating their own worlds – whether that be in pockets of the internet, temporarily in museums, or throughout their music – is what sets them apart.

“In a weird way, it’s like magical realism, to work with the senses and be able to put people in a type of trance,” says Nkisi, explaining what draws her towards making music. “Music is a kind of portal that can be opened. But what am I pouring through it? What are my motivations?”

Even if her motivations aren’t fully clear, the results are: NON’s musical portal provides the African diaspora – dispersed across continents – with the kind of voice and community that has often been denied them.

• Nkisi’s Opaque Poetics festival is at Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridgeshire, 2 September.