Uganda’s EDM DJ, Tera Nitric

Tera Nitric Story

In this music era today, Tera Nitric born Clyde Epaphroditus is taking the music waves in Uganda by storm. Not only is he talented but also hardworking. One cannot talk about EDM (Electronic Dance Music) in Uganda and fail to hear his name surface or mentioned by someone in the crowd or crew. He has worked his way up and successfully released music with various underground EDM record labels in the US and Europe. Versatility is also one of his strengths as he can make various genres of music ranging from Bigroom house to Afro EDM, to even anything like Amapiano and UGX-bounce.

This budding artist actually started making music in 2015 in his senior five class while at Macos. The artist name Tera Nitric, initially was his rap name. Writing rhymes and raps is what he used to do but still had a hidden love for EDM music. And neither did he have any idea about deejaying and making EDM music back then. All he recalls is that he had a lot of that music on his laptop. Thereafter, he then promised himself to learn an instrument when band guys in school were actually having short breaks. After that, he got to know the basics in Keyboard from band buddies “Glenn & Kulo” and that is when he actually decided to switch from rapping to making music(producing) because there were honestly many rappers and aspiring rappers in Macos. By then it was Mainests, EyezClosed, Drillz and many more. But there were fewer producers so he asked himself, “why not start with basics in Piano”. So by the time his form six vacation started he was already out and pretty sure that all he wanted was to make music. Initially, he felt the urge to make Hiphop and trap music.

Hearing from Tera Nitric

“2016, which was my vacation was a year of making a choice, so nothing big happened. Until fast-forward to 2018 which was like First Year 2nd Semester of campus when got this roommate ‘Canaan’ aka ‘Crums’ who had LMMS and FL Studio which are production software brands. So I joined a room and he was my roommate. I discovered Crums made music on his laptop by then we both were into Hip-Hop and trap so I used to make trap beats and he made some trap and EDM. So later while making trap, we all decided why not switch it up to EDM mostly. Maybe because we just felt that trap beat makers were also too many in Uganda. There was that urge to be unique, even when we were new to making music, which was actually hilarious now that I think about it. Oh, by the way Crums really disliked me the first time I was his roommate because I used to stay up later than him and he liked his lights off by like 9pm. Honestly I found it weird that he slept at 9pm. So I used to stay up either making short notes for law school or trying to learn how to make EDM music.”

“So after being so affiliated with the EDM genre, Crums introduced me to DJ Arta his OB who is also an EDM Producer and DJ. The link up was immediately strong because somehow by that time we all made Progressive House music actually in 2020 me and DJ Arta had progressive House Tracks released on the same label Wolfrage Records based in Netherlands. Crums made more tropical house because of Kygo’s influence on him. But one thing in common is that I, DJ Arta and Crums were all inspired by Avicii (RIP). So DJ Arta is the founder of Electronic Wave and he took me up to be part of it. Electronic Wave is a Group of Ugandan EDM Producers and DJ’s. From then I never looked back. I became more indulged with this music. It has been a good journey from 2018 to date. Actually four years since I started Producing Music.”

“In 2020, I got more inspiration from a Kenyan friend and Talented Producer and DJ ‘Moses Gitua’ aka ‘KeyRai’. To me, he is the African ‘Nicki Romero’. His music and DJ sets inspired me to keep growing my craft. His hard work and work ethics is just high up there. You can realize that in 2020, my soundcloud and YouTube pages had alot of Progressive House tracks because of some of my inspirations, “Moses Gitua ” and “Avicii”.  In 2021, I decided to diversify my creativity to other different subgenres like Bigroom House, Future Bass, Afro EDM, Trap EDM and more. Last year honestly was a good year. I got to make music that was signed by labels I never thought would sign my music. I had music released on labels based in the US which are Shift Axis Records, NoFace Records by Max Vangeli who was an associate to Swedish House Mafia. The tracks I released last year off labels were majorly Bigroom House tracks that I made with my Colleague and good friend in Kenya named ‘DRUE’. His a real bigroom fan just like me so we decided to make tracks together. We had 3 releases and had one this year off Seal Network and many more in the kitchen.  This year I have already released tracks off labels like Seal Network based in Germany and Mafia Family Crew based in Sri Lanka. More music with diversity is yet to drop off.”

UG-X Bounce.
What is UG-X Bounce?
This is an EdM genre that was first thought of by DJ Mericorn, a fuse of EDM with african elements like percussions, and instruments. In 2020 she asked that we should dive into the sound design of the genre and we alluded from the kadodi music, ‘Bagisu Music’ of Eastern Ugandan. The genre has been in the works for nearly two years now and finally one can testify that it is ready and many tracks are going to be released under the genre by Tera Nitric and Afriki Wave. You will soon know what Afriki Wave is all about in no time. The genre was first started with the 3rd step pattern and the rest was histroy. We just felt the need to come back to the African routes and own our sound as EDM creatives from Uganda. The sound so far has received personal support and good feedback from various artists like DJ Arta, DJ KosGabby, ItsMdnyt, DJ Ronnie, Maerco (Moses Gitua, Drue, Sktr4, Ndunda, DJ Bismarck these are DJ’s from Kenya). Right now, Tera Nitric’s story hasn’t yet ended, stay tuned for more music.

Follow Tera Nitric on social media:
https://t.co/GKZAImg1VN

Stream Tera Nitric’s music on streaming sites: https://songwhip.com/teranitric

Catch Tera Nitric’s DJ mixes and music on YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCNRCJV0uYD37DQ0AC8xfMgg

Uganda’s EDM Scene