Niamos!

"Niamos!"
Publication information
Type	Song

"Niamos!"

―Wedding guests cheer as the song plays

"Niamos!" was a song that was a popular hit throughout the galaxy by 4 BBY. The song had many remixes. It shared its name with the planet Niamos.

A version of the song played in a brothel in the Leisure Zone on the planet Morlana One in 5 BBY when the human Cassian Andor visited the establishment in search of his sister. Later that year, a slower rendition was played during a party in the Chandrilan Embassy on Coruscant as senator Mon Mothma talked with her old friend Tay Kolma. In 4 BBY, a faster remix of "Niamos!" was played by a speaker droid at the Wedding of Stekan Sculdun and Leida Mothma at the Mothma Estate on the planet Chandrila. After Sculdun and Mothma had the first dance and other guests also began dancing, the speaker droid arrived, causing many to excitedly exclaim and begin a faster-paced dance.

In 1 BBY, the song also featured in an elevator in the Lina Soh Hospital where the injured rebel conspirator Luthen Rael was being kept on Coruscant.

Behind the scenes

"I remember saying to Tony, 'What if this track is an intergalactic hit?'"

―Nicolas Britell speaks about "Niamos!"

The cues "Niamos! (Morlana Club Mix)," "Niamos! (Coruscant Lounge Mix)," and "Niamos! (Galaxy Mix)" were scored by composer Nicholas Britell for the television series Andor.

The Morlana Club Mix version was the first piece Britell worked on for the show's soundtrack. The track was created for the scene in the brothel where Andor asks about his sister. While many diegetic sounds only last a few seconds during a scene, Britell created Niamos! (Morlana Club Mix) to last for an extended period of time, playing over the conversation between Andor and the brothel hostess.

Britell felt the song worked well with aerial shots of the planet Niamos.

After creating the original piece, Britell suggested to the show's creator Tony Gilroy that the track could recur in other scenes, saying it could be an "intergalactic hit" that played in various contexts. Gilroy, who felt the track was "fantastic," agreed that it would work well when remixed for other scenes. In Andor Season 1, two other versions of the track were used, one "cool jazz" version titled Coruscant Lounge Mix and one "party" version dubbed the Galaxy Mix. The latter was used for the aerial shot of the planet Niamos. When Britell viewed the flying-over shot introducing viewers to the tropical locale, he felt the music was an obvious fit.

Although Brandon Roberts composed the soundtrack for Andor Season 2, a new version of Britell's original track was remixed by Roberts for the season two episode "Harvest." This version appears as in the track "Brasso" on the episode's soundtrack album, named after the character Brasso, Andor's close friend who perished during the final events of the episode. The song plays during the dancing scene of the wedding of Stekan Sculdun and Leida Mothma and the escape of Cassian Andor, Bix Caleen, and Wilmon Paak from the planet Mina-Rau. Gilroy said that the song fit at the wedding as the song "all the kids want to hear," referencing "The Macarena" as a real-world example.

Appearances

• Andor — "Kassa" (First appearance)
• Andor — "Announcement"
• Andor — "Harvest"
• Andor — "Make It Stop"

Sources

• Andor: Vol. 1 (Episodes 1-4) (Original Score) (First identified as Niamos!)
• Andor: Vol. 2 (Episodes 5-8) (Original Score)
• Andor: Season 2 - Vol. 1 (Episodes 1-3) (Original Score)
• Secrets from the Set of Andor Season 2: Week 1 Trivia on StarWars.com (backup link)
• Andor Explained: Episodes 1-3 - "One Year Later", "Sagrona Teema", and "Harvest" on StarWars.com (backup link)
• Andor Season 2 Declassified: Time | Contains Spoilers Eps 1-3 on the official Star Wars YouTube channel (backup link)
• speaker droid in the Databank (backup link)