Hazzy Bako grew up in Tamale, the main city of Dagbon, the Dagomba kingdom in northern Ghana, where Simpa is what people dance to: a neo-traditional popular music built around a male lead singer, drummers and dancers. He’s taken that and pushed it through afrobeat, calling the result Achiika. “Taali,” released Friday 29 May, carries that sound onto his forthcoming EP Bako, due 26 June.

Dagbon’s hereditary drummer-historians, the lunsi, have been keeping the kingdom’s history on the lunga, the hourglass talking drum, for centuries, and Bako’s own songs work in a similar spirit: love, work, the pride of where he’s from. He’s already worked the same vein with Rotterdam-based Ghanaian highlife trumpeter Peter Somuah on “Zugsun,” and Bako is the next step.

Stream “Taali” HERE and look out for Bako on 26 June.