“I can twerk to anything. I’d twerk to Mozart!”

A bold statement. One I overheard through the chatter and bass of a Halloween party this past weekend. From across the living room-turned-dance floor, whose hardwood bore the scuff marks from shoes, scrapes from Ikea couches and a weird, sticky splotch that definitely fell into the category of “We’ll worry about that later,” homegirl in a Guy Fieri costume (let that part sink in) proclaimed herself to be a cross-genre twerker.

At first, hearing this threw me all the way off guard. But after some consideration, I determined this combo totally feasible. If the mood strikes, whose to say a gorgeous Requiem can’t insight some artful clapping?

Music is meant to be enjoyed, no matter what movement or expression goes along with it. And, like classical twerking, sometimes the best musical mashups are the joints you never saw coming — ones that subvert social folkways and switch up the points of view.

In the spirit of jumping out of the norm, this week’s update features selections from NPR Music interns Mano Sundaresan and Zoë Jones, who each have distinct tastes and a natural penchant for the cool and unorthodox.

As always, enjoy Heat Check in its entirety on Spotify.

Megan Thee Stallion and VickeeLo, “Ride Or Die”

The upcoming romantic thriller Queen & Slim (written by Lena Waithe and directed by Melina Matsoukas) teeters between skin-tingling intrigue and all-out hysteria as a black couple go on the lam after accidentally shooting a white police officer. It’s the type of situation that calls for your “ride or die” instincts to kick in.

So, of course, the soundtrack’s leading single has to embody that level of suspense, exhilaration and unexpected Bonnie & Clyde badassery. And if you’re going to call Megan Thee Stallion to get the job done, of course, the track has to be twerk-able. The Houston hottie crossed paths with New Orleans bounce artist VickeeLo and producer Blaqnmild to ensure the correct sonic ratio for the clappers. NOLA bounce sounds good on you, Meg. — Sidney Madden

Hook, “Iffy”

Hook’s voice is candy-coated sludge, her bars glowing Microsoft Paint scrawls. Her songs are always a few tics weirder, more home-cooked than the mainstream rap styles they pull from.

“Iffy” could’ve been refined into something crystalline, pleasant as anything from a major label pop rapper, but instead it’s a slushy fever dream where Hook haunts the corner of your room, bellowing heartbreak and stardust: “If I leave, I ain’t coming back!” You won’t want to wake up from this. — Mano Sundaresan

UMI, “Love Affair”

In this soulful, slow-burning jam, UMI is trying to convince herself that she isn’t in love. “I just want a good time,” she explains, reminiscent of the thoughts many of us have when our feelings are a little too close to comfort. — Zoë Jones

Ness Nite, “Gucciprada”

“I’ma make her feel like Guccipradachanellouisvuitton,” Ness Nite coos, the syllables spiraling inwards, lapping at each other’s tails. They’re a singer from Minneapolis making gender-less dream pop, sometimes leaning into rap flows, constantly subverting masculine hip-hop tropes. “Gucciprada” is a song of pastel hues and sliding synths, hurtling into the nearest designer store off the strength of its snaking chorus. — Mano Sundaresan

Doja Cat, “Rules”

After blowing up off a bovine bop and spending a solid amount of time as a living meme last year, Doja Cat has kept fans tuned in as she’s found new ways to express her eccentric, impetuous creativity. With her sophomore album, Hot Pink, on the way, Doja is getting more delightfully aggressive with her bars.

“That’s my ego that you stroking / N****, don’t laugh ’cause the p**** ain’t joking / N****, don’t splash when the p**** be soaking,” she purrs. — Sidney Madden

Father, “ICEMAN”

Father sounds a little more like summer than fall on this breezy, keyboard-backed track, which is more than welcome as temperatures drop. Even when he’s iced out, he’s still so warm. — Zoë Jones

Odunsi (The Engine), “Wetin Dey”

As the Afro-alt-soul movement starts beaming out of places like Lagos, Nigeria and into the larger music stratosphere, you’ll want to remember Odunsi (The Engine) and the viscid, bouncy ride of “Wetin Dey.” — Sidney Madden

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Before the members of Congolese music collective KOKOKO! take the stage at Washington, D.C.’s Rock & Roll Hotel, they slip into bright yellow jumpsuits.

The fashion choice, they explain, has utilitarian roots: That’s what a lot of workers in Congo wear. Their instruments have a similar no-frills style — they were crafted from kitchen pots, tin cans and air-conditioner parts.

“It started out because commercial instruments in Kinshasa [where they live] are too expensive to buy and also too expensive to rent. So it started with the necessity of creating your own guitar or your own bass,” says member Boms Bomolo.

The group’s name reflects their humble origins. “KOKOKO” means “knock knock knock” in the local language, Lingala. When they were getting started in 2016, they picked it as a call-out for somebody to open the door and let their music in.

And the door is definitely open for their joyful dance music, with energetic percussion, electronic beats and call and response vocals between the band members and audience. Even if the crowd at Rock & Roll Hotel doesn’t understand the Kikongo, Lingala, French and Swahili lyrics, they eagerly repeat the words back to singer Love Lokombe.

In their first two years, KOKOKO! toured the world and released a slew of singles and an EP. They dropped their debut LP, Fongola, in July to rave reviews. Earlier this year, their performance at South by Southwest music festival in Austin, Texas, caught the attention of NPR’s All Songs Considered. Now wrapping up their first big tour across North America, they stopped by NPR’s Tiny Desk on October 1.

During the concert, the group’s instrumental inventory included rows of plastic containers, pots and pans and a guitar fashioned out of two cans and a wooden fretboard. Some of the objects were ready to be played with no adjustments, like the metal kitchen pots used for percussion. Others, like the drum kit that features parts of an old air-conditioning unit, took a bit more assembly — the musicians had to go out, collect scraps and combine them into one cohesive instrument.

Perhaps their greatest creation is a “monumental human-size bass harp,” as described by member Xavier Thomas — made from a wooden cross, metal cans and a plastic barrel. They call it “Jesus Crisis,” a humorous reference to evangelical churches in Congo, which Thomas says can get quite “inventive” with their religious interpretations. The harp was made by group member Dido Oweke, who, according to his bandmates, visualizes the instruments he wants to make as sculptures first.

“We brought [the harp] once on tour, but it’s so hard to transport. It’s like moving a house,” says Thomas, also known as Débruit when he does solo electronic music projects. Thomas, originally from France, is the only member of the band not from Congo; he acted as the interpreter for the other musicians interviewed for this story.

Thomas met his bandmates while working on a music project in Kinshasa. They jammed together at a block party in 2016 and formed the group shortly after.

The music itself, which combines homemade instruments with electronic synths, channels the sounds and spirit of KOKOKO!’s birthplace. Kinshasa, home to an estimated 12 million people, has a rich aural landscape, according to Bomolo, Thomas and percussionist/vocalist Makara Bianko. Street vendors clink nail polish bottles together. Shoeshiners call out to customers. Megaphones blast recorded advertisements for cellphone credits on a perpetual loop.

“With your eyes closed, you can tell who’s where — at what distance,” Thomas explains. “Boms is inspired by the sonic chaos and reorganizes it into music.”

KOKOKO!’s high-powered performance, yellow jumpsuits and all, is a demand to be seen and heard in the middle of Congo’s vibrancy — but they also make a point on their website and during the interview to highlight the challenges faced by Congolese people.

The world sees Congo as an Ebola hotspot — the country is currently is facing the second largest outbreak in history. But the musicians say the virus does not play into daily life in Kinshasa, which is more than a thousand miles away from the affected area. The members of KOKOKO! have other concerns, like violence, corruption and poverty. The World Bank estimates that 73% of Congo’s population lived in extreme poverty in 2018.

Congo is rich in natural resources, making it a top producer of metals like cobalt and coltan. But Bianko believes that the wealth from those resources mainly profits industrialized nations and the multinational corporations that mine in Congo.

“Every time the industry needed something in the world, they found it in Congo, but they didn’t leave anything behind,” says Bianko.

The Congolese way is to not let those struggles haunt their everyday life, says Bianko. People in Kinshasa maintain a spirit of resistance, the group explains — of not letting the financial and political turmoil affect their ability to get dressed up, go out, have fun. Or make music.

That’s why the magic of KOKOKO! is not just that they worked with what they could find to make music. It’s that they dove deep into the research of harnessing sounds from unusual objects and became a project of sonic revolution in the process.

“Now, this is what makes our sound, these instruments,” says Bianko, noting that they’re still adding new objects to their repertoire with every tour. “We wouldn’t switch back [to traditional instruments] because these instruments are the identity of the band.”

The “knock knock knock” of their names has evolved as well. As political instability rocked Congo in 2017, they were literally knocking on the doors of embassies across Kinshasa, trying to get visas approved so the band could tour internationally.

Now, they say, they’re knocking on people’s consciousness “to open up to the kind of musical innovation we’re proposing.”

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Pascal Danaë was born just outside of Paris and the first time he went to the French overseas region Guadeloupe, he was given the “Letter of Freedom” that belonged to his ancestor, Louise Danaë. She was freed from slavery in 1841 at 27 years old. At the time, she had four children, one of whom was Pascal’s grand grandfather.

The history of slavery and French colonialism plays a big role in the music Danaë makes now with his three-piece blues band Delgres. He named the act after Louis Delgrès, the freedom fighter who resisted the reintroduction of slavery in Guadeloupe by Napoleon in 1802 and died for the cause.

We met up with Delgres at La Boule Noire in Paris to hear live performances of songs from the band’s latest album, Mo Jodi, and to talk about some of the features that make the band so unique. Danaë sang in Creole and his bandmate, Rafgee, played the parts that would normally be handled by a bass guitar on the sousaphone, an instrument typically found in New Orleans brass bands. Danaë also shed light on the historic and musical connection between Africa, the French West Indies and Louisiana, as well as the healing power of the blues.

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