Shabazz Palaces' Tendai Maraire has joined forces with guitarist Hussein Kalojni to form Chimurenga Renaissance, a project inspired musically by Zimbabwean beats, conscious hiphop, Congolese guitar and revolutionary politics.

The duo's debut EP Girlz With Gunz combines electric, acoustic and electronic instrumentation in a manner that will be familiar to fans of Shabazz Palaces' acclaimed 2014 album Lese Majesty (reviewed by Hua Hsu in The Wire 366), featuring synthesizers and samples in collision with live ngoma drums and mbira thumb pianos. Guests on the album include Sassy Black of THEESatisfaction, Mall Saint, Moon, JusMoni and Nyoka.

In an accompanying essay entitled Remembering Grace, A Girl With A Gun, Zimbabwean writer, film maker and left wing cultural critic Charles Tonderai Mudede celebrates the memory of Grace Maseva, who fought in the Second Chimurenga, the conflict that liberated Zimbabwe from white rule.

Mudede writes, "It is fitting indeed that the most experimental, dazzling and even dangerous work by Chimurenga Renaissance, a duo that is a part of the trans-African Black Constellation (Shabazz Palaces, THEESatisfaction, Erik Blood), is inspired by women like my cousin Grace. She was once a girl with a gun. She was trained to kill her oppressors. She wanted to build and live in a better world. Peace always has a price."

Girlz With Gunz is released by Glitterbeat on 5 February.