Wild City #252: Unnayanaa B2B Hamza Rahimtula

As a tag team digging through their combined vinyl collection, Unnayanaa and Hamza Rahimtula have been bringing the house down. Anyone who has danced captivated to one of their back-to-back sets this year, in any of the go-to local haunts that the pair is making its way through, knows that that metaphorical statement isn't hollow praise.

After connecting at AQI (the multi-day event hosted by Hamza's Windhorse Records and Warehouse Mix), the two of India's most long-standing and deepest purveyors of house music developed a fascination with each other's collection and eventually combined them with their first B2B set at Goa's JUNA earlier this year, tapping into a synergy that should have been obvious.

"I restarted collecting vinyl when we launched AQI. When Unnayanaa played, it was a revelation," says Hamza. "He was dropping the exact styles of house music we love, and doing it with authority. It inspired me to dig deeper and refine my own collection. When we finally went back-to-back at Juna, everything clicked. Playing with him feels like learning and elevating your own craft at the same time.

As such, their formidable 3-hour Wild City mix, which captures the pair's recent visit to Bangalore's Indiranagar Social, is a full mapping of house music's DNA. Genre staples like Ron Trent, Kerri Chandler, and Louie Vega connect easily with the disco lineage of Dinosaur L and Sister Power, while the African and Latin-rooted rhythms of the likes of Africanism and Jafrosax provide a percussive throughline to the genre's legacy and influences across continents.

Delivered with a puristic sense of craft using only vinyl selections coming together over a rotary mixer, Hamza and Unnayanaa still bring a showmanship to the mix, which times its exchanges of rhythmic breaks and singalong beltings, almost using the records to communicate with the audience in a very literal manner. Then, almost like an epilogue or a tantalising post-credit section, the upbeat sets gradually shift via grittier beats into a leftfield comedown in its final 15 minutes.

“A set built on house and disco in all their colours, with jams strong enough to make you forget where you are for a moment. When everyone locks in together, that’s the magic.” – Unnayanaa

“This mix moves through soulful house, jazz-funk grooves, percussive layers, and acid-tinged disco, a way to show the many shades of house and disco without staying in one lane.” – Hamza Rahimtula

Direct Download Wild City #252: Unnayanaa x Hamza Rahimtula

Tracklisting

Romanthony- The Wanderer (Journey Man Thump)
Kris Wadsworth- Uranus 333 (Side B)
Masters at work- Brazilian beat (Dope mix)
Copyright- One Drum (Afropella)
Jean Lostebien (cybnosis Live Remix)
Free Radicals- I just cant turn it loose (Jerome Sydenham Special edit)
Lawn Chair Generals- The Truth
Lucy Pearl- Dont mess with my man (Mood II Swing Main Vocal)
La Fiesta Sound System- Dancando Comigo
Chuck Love- Something Right
ID
Bobby Brazil- Gool! (Pleasure bar remix)
Risk Assessment - Rhyme
Barboss - Conceptual
Distant Sun- Machine Lernt
Kerri chandler - Bar A Thym
Ron Trent- Black Magic Women
Kenlou- What a sensation
Louie Vega- That’s how he works
Sturaro Chiara- Ear Game
Universal Love- Ritmo da Rua (Brian Tapper reconstruction)
Jafrosax- In the morning (Jazztronik remix)
Stacy Kid- Let love enter OR Stacy Kid- Disco Mania
Xtasy- Let your Body go
Dinosaur L- #5 Go bang (Francois k Mix)
C & T - Go Bang (Gaucho Dab mix)
Stargard- Wear it out
T connection - Do what you wanna do
Carrie Lucas I gotta keep dancin
Sister Power- Love potion
Montana- I love music
ID
Detron- I cling (Yoruba Soul Mix)
DJ Gregory- Damelo
Africanism- Antigua (Bob Sinclair Amour Kefe Remix)
Nuova Compagnia di canto Popolare- La Gatta Cenerentola
D’Jaimin & Te Oulé Oulé Family- Children of afrika (Vocal mix)
ID
Steffan Schleiermacher- Mad Rush
Andy Pickford- Raumfähre