Walk into any booth worth playing in and you’ll find the same ritual. The DJ plugs something in. For twenty-odd years, that something has been a USB drive carrying thousands of decisions made long before the audience stepped through the door. The tracks selected, the cue points marked, the waveforms analysed, the crates organised. Everything compressed into a device small enough to lose down the back of a sofa.

That ritual is changing.

Last autumn, AlphaTheta announced that Rekordbox now supports direct Spotify playback. Over a hundred million tracks, accessible within the same software used in pretty much every club. Apple Music had already integrated with DJ software earlier in the year. Pioneer’s latest flagship player, the CDJ-3000X, arrives with streaming built directly into the unit. Beatport has been operating its own streaming tier for years, purpose-built for DJs, available inside Rekordbox, Serato, Traktor, and a growing list of standalone hardware.

You can now, in theory, walk into a booth with nothing but a login and start mixing.

The assumption that you’ll need a USB is eroding. And if the music no longer has to travel with the DJ, the question worth asking isn’t about the format. It’s about what formed around carrying it, the habits, the economics, the culture, and the identity and what happens to all of that now.

From Record Bags to USBs

DJs have been through a version of this before. The shift from vinyl to digital was not a single event but a slow, contested shift in what it meant to turn up to a gig prepared. For a long time, carrying records came with limits. The physical constraints were real: a bag could only hold so many twelve-inches, and every slot was a choice. You learned your records because you had to. The grooves became familiar. The sleeves and centre labels were a physical form of memory, each one a marker of something earned financially, over time, or emotionally.

USBs dissolved most of these limits. Thousands of tracks in your pocket, travelled light, arrived with cue points already set and waveforms pre-analysed. The library expanded. The preparation became more technical in different ways: colour-coding crates, building playlists, exporting for the hardware waiting at the venue. DJs could carry everything without abandoning the principle of deliberate selection. They still owned the music, every track on a USB had been purchased, downloaded, and brought into the room as something belonging to the person carrying it. (Soulseek and dodgy rips are a separate conversation.)

The move from records to USBs changed how DJs carried their music. The move from USBs to streaming could change whether they own it at all.

This matters more than it seems. When the format changed from vinyl to digital, digging survived. The commitment needed to find music, the hours spent in shops, on Juno Download, through Bandcamp pages, label mailing lists and recommendations between friends remained. Streaming changes the character of that commitment in ways that are starting to become clear.

Is Digging Still Part of DJing?

Ask almost any DJ who came up through the late 90s / early 2000’s and they’ll tell you digging is the most important part of the craft. Not just finding music, but the specific relationship that forms with the music you’ve committed to. When a track costs a couple of quid and you’ve bought it off a label’s promo list, or because you caught it in someone else’s set and spent three days tracking it down, it creates an emotional connection that something surfaced by an algorithm while you were scrolling doesn’t.

Streaming does not kill discovery; that would be a lazy conclusion. Beatport’s streaming catalogue is purpose-built for it. DJs can search huge archives from inside the booth. Connected systems can suggest music related to what is already playing. This is a form of discovery, but its character is different.

When the booth starts suggesting what to play next, where does the platform’s taste end and the DJ’s begin?

Algorithmic recommendations are decided by what has already worked, not just for one DJ, but through the entire mass of user data informing the system. The track you found on an underground label’s Bandcamp page at midnight, limited to two hundred copies, does not feature in algorithmic logic. The promo a producer sent you directly because you supported their last three releases is outside the catalogue entirely. The white-label test pressing that a collector passed along has no metadata.

None of this is new territory for anyone who has watched the music industry wrestle with streaming over the past decade. But for DJing specifically, where the difference between using a platform’s selections and demonstrating your own has always been central to the culture. Private edits, vinyl-only releases, tracks bought directly from artists and never available on any major platform: these are the things that have always separated a selector from someone who presses play on a playlist. They may become more culturally significant, not less, precisely because they do something an algorithm can’t.

When Every Track Is Available, Taste Matters More

The practical arguments for streaming in the booth are not trivial. A DJ who streams can react to a crowd moving in an unexpected direction without owning the music that direction needs. Testing an unfamiliar track comes at no cost, so flexibility has become unlimited.

There is also an economic argument that makes streaming more attractive, especially for DJs early in their careers. Owning a serious library of purchased downloads is expensive. At Bandcamp’s standard pricing, regularly buying music quickly adds up. For a DJ who doesn’t earn enough from gigs to offset that outlay, streaming access to the same catalogues at a monthly subscription rate is a game changer.

But abundance creates its own problems.

Decision fatigue is real, the paralysis of too much. A USB with five hundred carefully chosen tracks demands a different kind of mental engagement from a catalogue of a hundred million. You know what you have and you know which version of a track you’re playing, why you chose it over another, how it has been received before. That familiarity is part of what makes a DJ adaptable. The size of the library is not.

The homogenisation risk is also worth taking seriously. If most DJs that play a given genre are drawing from the same streaming catalogues, guided by the same charts and algorithm-driven recommendations, the difference between sets begins to flatten. What becomes genuinely rare is judgement: the ability to know music deeply, to understand how a track sits at 3am versus midnight, to carry a relationship with it that goes beyond having pressed play on it once.

A DJ who understands five hundred tracks deeply could be more adaptable, and more distinctive, than someone who can search millions but knows very few properly.

Your Library Is Not Entirely Yours

The legal and technical world of streaming DJing is murky. A streamed library depends on an active subscription, a reliable internet connection, compatible hardware and software, the continued availability of each track on the platform, and the platform’s ongoing support for DJ equipment. Any one of those conditions can fail.

The internet problem is very relevant for underground venues. Festivals, basement clubs, converted railway arches, and warehouses are not reliably connected spaces. Signal drops, and the Wi-Fi can’t always handle a crowd. Spotify’s integration with Rekordbox and Serato, launched last autumn, currently has no offline mode. This means any DJ relying on it needs a live connection throughout their set. Beatport’s streaming tier includes an offline locker, but this is restricted to software-based setups; CDJ users can’t access it.

Then there is the question of what happens to tracks. Music disappears from streaming services without warning, for reasons like licensing disputes, label changes, and deliberate artist withdrawals. The wave of artists and labels who removed their catalogues from Spotify following revelations about CEO Daniel Ek’s substantial investment in Helsing included many in electronic music. Kalahari Oyster Cult, the Amsterdam-based electronic label, stated they did not want their music benefiting a platform whose leadership backed tools of war. Massive Attack described it as a moral and ethical burden placed on artists by the economics of streaming. These withdrawals matter for listeners; for a DJ who has worked on a set featuring tracks from those catalogues, a quiet Sunday removal can become a live problem on Friday night.

The comparison with USB ownership is not a clean one though. Downloaded files are not perfectly independent either because they rely on library software that requires maintenance and compatibility, so they can corrupt or fail like any other data. USBs can be lost, stolen, formatted incorrectly, or exported in a format incompatible with the hardware at a venue.

This is not a choice between complete ownership and complete dependence. It is a choice between different kinds of control, and different things that can go wrong. Knowing which failure you’d rather face at two in the morning is probably the most honest framing.

Sitting beneath all of it is a contractual grey area where the technology has moved faster than the law to resolve it. The terms under which a DJ can use a consumer streaming subscription for professional performance are not the same as the terms governing a track purchased and downloaded. The venue’s music licence and the DJ’s streaming account are not interchangeable. The industry is moving towards streaming in the booth before the legal foundation for it is fully settled.

What Producers Gain and Lose

The shift from downloads to streaming does not only affect the person behind the decks. It restructures the economic relationship between DJs and the producers whose music they play.

Under the download model, a DJ is a direct customer. A track purchased from Bandcamp generates a clear, one-time payment to the rights holder. This is usually somewhere between £1 and £2.50 per download, with roughly half going to the label and artist after distributor commission. It is not a fortune, but it is a concrete transaction and investment in the music being played.

With a streaming model, that relationship becomes recurring in theory but fragmented in practice. Every play generates a fraction of a royalty, already thin on even the most generously structured platforms, and rates vary month to month depending on total catalogue usage. For major label artists with millions of plays, streaming income is real. For the small independent producers, the payoff is considerably worse.

Beatport has positioned itself as the streaming platform for DJs, and its CEO has spoken publicly about not treating DJs like any other consumer. But even the most sympathetic platform is operating within streaming’s structural logic: pooled revenue distributed proportionally, with rates that reflect relative catalogue size as much as cultural significance.

The tension this creates is real. Are DJs becoming recurring listeners who generate some ongoing value each time they play a track, or disappearing as paying customers who once made a direct investment in the music they used? For a producer whose relationship with their audience was partly built through the DJs who bought their records and played them live, the difference is not only economic; It’s relational.

Bandcamp, which has been a refuge for direct artist-to-fan economics and has paid out over $100 million annually in direct-to-fan sales, becomes more significant in this context. As the mainstream catalogue becomes more accessible by subscription, the gesture of buying a track directly from an artist carries more cultural weight than it once did. It signals something that a stream never can.

What Streaming Can’t Replace

There is a corner of every serious DJ’s library that no streaming service has ever touched.

Unreleased promos sent directly from producers to the DJs they trust. Personal edits: unofficial, uncleared, produced for a particular moment in a specific kind of set. Tracks bought from artists at a merchandise table after a live show. Vinyl-only releases that were never digitised. Music removed from platforms years ago, preserved only in the collections of people who bought it at the time. Regional and obscure catalogues that have never made it onto a DSP.

These are the materials that have always defined the boundary between a DJ who uses music and one who carries it. No subscription provides access to a producer’s unmastered demo sent by email to thirty trusted people, and no algorithm surfaces the EP limited to thirty copies. These things need relationships with labels, producers, other DJs, and scenes that streaming does not provide and cannot replicate.

That’s where the debate contradicts itself. As the mainstream catalogue becomes universally accessible, the music outside it becomes a stronger sign of identity, not a weaker one. The easier it becomes to reach the same tracks as everyone else, the more valuable the unreachable ones become.

This is not nostalgia for scarcity. It is a recognition that scarcity has always been what sets DJs apart.

The USB Isn’t Dead. Its Meaning Is Changing.

This article didn’t begin with the prediction that USBs are finished, and it will not end there. The reality of most club systems (the CDJ) means USB compatibility is not disappearing any time soon. DJs who stream at home will still arrive at most venues with a USB.

What has changed, or is changing, is what a USB represents. For twenty years it has been the expected container for a DJ’s musical identity: the physical proof of decisions made, music owned, preparation done. That expectation will no longer be universal. The USB has become a way into the booth rather than the only one.

When vinyl gave way to digital, the fears were familiar: that digging would die, that selection would collapse, that musical identity would flatten. It did not happen. The format changed; the commitment to the music didn’t necessarily follow. That earlier transition was about how DJs carried their libraries.

A library built carefully over ten years, accumulated through deliberate purchasing, organised to reflect how a DJ thinks about music, carrying the tracks that only that combination of taste, access, and effort could have produced, is not something that can be recreated by subscribing to something. It is built under conditions of scarcity. Those conditions shaped the library and the library shapes the set.

Streaming is here and it won’t leave. For some of what DJing involves: discovery, flexibility, and access for those earlier in their careers, it represents a genuine expansion of possibility. For the parts that make DJing what it is: the preparation, the deliberate selection, the accumulated knowledge of music carried over years, it raises issues that have not yet been answered.

The end of the USB may still be a long way off. The end of the assumption that being a DJ means selecting the music you play may have already begun.

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Una Rave en la Plaza

On July 25th, Bogotá turned Plaza de Bolívar into a dancefloor. Surrounded by the Capitolio Nacional, the Palacio de Justicia, and Palacio Liévano, home of the city’s government, the square hosted the fifth edition of Monumentum: Bogotá Distrito Rave (the third to take place there). Doors opened at 1pm, the music ran until 9 and entry was free to anyone over 18 until the square reached capacity.

If the significance of that isn’t already obvious, Plaza de Bolívar is not a park or a festival ground. It's the most symbolically loaded public space in Colombia; it’s used for presidential inaugurations, protests, and national mourning. And for one Saturday a year it becomes Monumentum, a free electronic music festival, backed and organised by the city government itself.

This makes you wonder how Bogotá’s electronic music culture went from hidden after-hours parties and unmarked doors to taking over the capital’s front room.

Before the City Became a Dance Music Capital

To answer that, you have to go back to a much smaller, much less official Bogotá.

In the early 1990s, electronic music in the city lived almost entirely at Cinema, the only club of its kind at the time, plus after-parties thrown by a collective called Morrocco, DJ Connection nights, and secret after-hours parties hosted in houses around Chapinero. Cinema was run by the Pachón family, and Gerardo Pachón was one of the most recognised trance and techno DJs of the period. Having music to play wasn’t simple. DJs depended on vinyl, a lot of it brought back personally from trips abroad. Information about upcoming parties circulated through street flyers rather than anything digital.

Then, in 1995, the city government accidentally gave the underground a gift. Bogotá’s mayor at the time, Antanas Mockus, introduced the “ley zanahoria”, a law banning alcohol sales between 1am and 6am. With clubs being forced to close early, this restriction ended up fuelling the underground culture it was trying to contain. During Mockus’s second term in 2002, more venues began registering as private social clubs to work around the rule, so he extended legal nightlife hours to 3am, which is still the case in most areas today.

The 2000s turned that underground into something with its own social conscience. Pioneers of the 90s and 2000s scene, DJs Sonico and Dani Boom ran Bogotrax, a ten-day festival that combined electronic music with art, culture and social action. It took music into neighbourhoods like Ciudad Bolívar and prisons: La Modelo, the Cárcel Distrital and Buen Pastor. The festival eventually closed after a decade, but the instinct it represented, that this music belonged to the whole city, not just the parts with money, never really left. There is an obvious echo of that philosophy today in Monumentum.

It’s worth adding that Bogotá’s relationship with electronic sounds began long before any of this. Long before Cinema or the first drum machine showed up in a Chapinero living room, composer Jacqueline Nova was working with tape machines in the late 1960s, manipulating chants of the Indigenous U’wa people with electronic circuitry in pieces like Creación de la tierra. This could’ve been the first time anyone in the city treated electronics and local sound as natural collaborators rather than opposites. That idea would resurface, in very different forms sixty years later.

For much of its history, electronic music in Bogotá developed around, alongside, and sometimes in spite of the institutions governing nightlife. Monumentum shows something has changed: the city is no longer simply regulating electronic music culture, It’s creating it.

Where the Underground Found a Permanent Home

Walk through Chapinero on a Friday night today and the lineage from those 90s after-hours parties is hard to miss.

Video Club, which is tucked into the heart of Chapinero between XXX cinemas and half a block from the Iglesia de Lourdes, has built its reputation on being unfiltered: no dress code, no door policy beyond the vibe, people arriving in heels, sneakers, suits, and drag all get the same welcome. Its programming is heavy on house, tech-house, and groove, and it also hosts a recurring LGBTIQ+ night called Gostoso.

A few blocks over, Octava, founded in 2015, is more of a sensory experience than a straightforward club. It’s a three-floor space where two floors host the music and the third is a smoking terrace designed for conversation. It draws a slightly older, house and deep-house / tech crowd. It was also included in DJ Mag’s 2021 Top 100 Clubs.

Gate and Kaputt, both also based in Chapinero and typically running from Wednesdays, lean into a darker, more Berlin-influenced atmosphere: the harder, more experimental side of trance and techno in Bogotá. Radio Berlín, true to its name, lives in the same lane, and is still one of the clubs most associated with the city’s techno scene.

What’s changed isn’t really the clubs themselves; it’s their status. All five of these venues are now listed as allied clubs of Monumentum, working with the city government, the Bogotá Chamber of Commerce, and a DJ group run through the local bar association. Venues that spent decades operating in the same self-contained way clubs everywhere do are now officially part of the infrastructure the city points to when it talks about its creative economy.

There Is No Single "Bogotá Sound"

Ask what Bogotá actually sounds like and you’ll get a different answer depending on the night, the club, and the decade you’re asking about.

Sonico is one of the scene’s longest-running figures and he calls Bogotá the capital of hardcore and drum & bass in Latin America. This claim would surprise nobody who’s spent a night at one of the city’s harder parties. But that’s only one current among several. Bogotá has a hardcore and gabber scene that has thrived for years, built by a generation of young ravers who rejected established house and techno for high-BPM, distortion-heavy sets. Meanwhile, entirely separate rooms are dedicated to ambient and experimental listening, trance nights pull their own crowd, and guaracha, the raw, high-tempo sound that’s spread across Latin America in recent years, exists alongside all of it without anyone treating that as a contradiction.

So the more useful question isn’t “what does Bogotá sound like.” It’s what makes all of these different sounds recognisably Bogotá at all, and the honest answer has less to do with a defining sound than with a shared attitude: intensity over polish, a comfort with extremes, and a scene small enough that a hardcore raver and a deep house regular are probably standing in the same club at some point during the week.

Making Imported Music Local

The more interesting question is what happens once all of that imported sound actually lands in Bogotá. For a long time the honest answer was that not much changed at all.

Producer Dani Boom has talked about how the city put enormous weight on anything imported, while undervaluing its own musical culture. He described it, in retrospect, as something close to a colonised mentality. The person he credited for shifting that was Richard Blair, a British studio engineer and Peter Gabriel collaborator who founded Sidestepper with Colombian singer-songwriter Iván Benavides in Bogotá in 1996, creating productions out of local musicians and local styles. This project became one of the biggest influences on Colombian electronica and helped open the door for what followed. Around the same period, DJ and producer collective Bollo Room started throwing parties that mixed calypso, cumbia, champeta, old-school reggaeton, and salsa in with straightforward techno sets. Crate-digging archivists like Mario Galeano pushed traditional Colombian folk styles back into the rooms that had mostly been playing records from somewhere else.

That thread runs straight into what’s happening now, just with different tools. Bogotá producer Gregorio Hernández de Alba, who records as dj +1, has spent recent years producing albums out of deeply personal, specifically local material: one record inspired by the herbal teas his mother made to get through Bogotá’s shifting seasons, another blending Latin American rhythms directly with techno, phonk, and UK garage. None of it reads as a gimmick or a marketing angle. It reads like an artist genuinely uninterested in choosing between “international sound” and “where I’m actually from”.

That’s probably the clearest evidence that Bogotá has moved past the anxiety Dani Boom once described. Nobody currently defining the city’s sound seems to be asking whether they’re allowed to sound like themselves.

From Underground to Cultural Institution

Which brings the story back to the plaza.

Monumentum began in 2022 inside El Bronx, Bogotá’s Bronx Distrito Creativo. It was a red-light and crime-affected district turned into a cultural redevelopment zone. The second edition moved to the larger Plazoleta Jorge Tadeo. Over its first four editions, the event drew roughly 42,000 people and more than 25 artists, establishing itself as one of the country’s leading platforms for making electronic music visible.

The 2026 edition ran from July 22nd to 25th, combined the Saturday party at Plaza de Bolívar with a separate, free academic strand called ¡LAB. This was open to anyone who registered in advance and featured sessions on the professionalisation of artistic projects, the creative economy, audience-building, technology, and the future of electronic culture. Alongside the music, a selection of twenty local food, drink, accessories, fashion and design businesses ran a commercial zone as part of the city’s “Hecho en Bogotá" (Made in Bogotá) economic development strategy.

And then there’s the detail that actually changes the shape of this story. This year’s edition came with the approval of a formal policy agreement that institutionalises Monumentum as “Bogotá Distrito Rave”, transforming what started as a single party into an official public policy aimed at strengthening electronic music in the city. FUGA director Blanca Andrea Sánchez described it as proof that when the public sector works in coordination with industry, clubs, academia, and cultural organisers, it becomes possible to build platforms that create real opportunity throughout the creative ecosystem.

It’s a genuinely rare thing: a scene that spent its first two decades defined by secret parties and workaround alcohol laws now has a place in the city’s cultural policy. Whether that’s an unambiguous win depends on who you ask. Institutional backing brings resources, legitimacy, and reach that no festival could generate by itself. However, if handled carelessly, it could sand down the rough edges that made the underground worth protecting in the first place. What’s notable about Monumentum so far is that it hasn’t tried to replace the clubs, it has chosen its lineup and programming around the existing ones. Hopefully this balance holds as the policy framework matures.

The People Keeping It Moving

Underneath the institutional story are the people it’s actually about.

Keith Barrera’s story started at home. Her father, Carlos Barrera, was a well-known DJ in Bucaramanga and taught her to love music and the craft of mixing. She’s been rising fast since 2019, and this year became the first Colombian artist represented by the European agency TRIVIAL Bookings. She arrived at Monumentum off the back of shared lineups with Sara Landry, CamelPhat, Ellen Allien, Fatima Hajji, and Charlie Sparks. She played this year’s Plaza de Bolívar edition through a partnership with Páramo Presenta.

Pao Calderón represents a different generation. She has been producing and DJing for over a decade, has multiple wins as Colombia’s best DJ and runs her own label, DTL Records. She arrived via her home club, Octava.

Diossa plays sets that draw from techno, afro house, and indie rhythms without settling into any one of them. Her roots are Colombian, but she developed through Miami’s clubs, and is now based in New York. She headlined alongside Barrera and Calderón and, together, the three showed different versions of what international reach can look like for Colombian artists.

Further down the bill, Linda Lenor, who is a Bogotá-born, Madrid-based DJ, producer, and founder of Cosmic Music Records, represented Gate Club. Dankz carried Radio Berlín’s hard techno identity and Saradélica brought VideoClub’s blend of house, breaks, and Latin American sound into the mix.

Maybe the most telling detail of all sits underneath the confirmed names. This year’s Talent Search (the open call that gave one emerging DJ the job of opening the festival) pulled in more than 140 applicants from around the city, narrowed down to 24 semifinalists, four reached the final showcase, and the winner, The Corrosive, opened the Plaza de Bolívar on July 25. The prize also went beyond the set: it included training, mentorship, professional video production, and future performances.

What Does Bogotá Sound Like Now?

It’s tempting to end somewhere tidy — to land on a genre, a BPM range, a defining trait. Bogotá doesn’t really allow that, and by now it should be clear why.

What Bogotá has is a scene confident enough to host hardcore and ambient, guaracha and melodic techno, the after-hours culture of 90s Chapinero and a government-backed policy all at once, without treating any of it as contradictory. It absorbed British sound engineers and darker techno influence from Berlin and made something that still, unmistakably, sounds like it comes from here, not because it resisted the outside world, but because it stopped being anxious about letting the outside world in.

Plaza de Bolívar, on July 25th, was really just that idea made physical: a festival hosting the sounds that used to hide from any kind of official attention. Electronic music that once depended on unmarked doors and secret locations now has a place, once a year, right in the middle of everything.

That’s not a genre. It’s a city deciding what it’s confident enough to do in public.

Sourced from The Bogotá Post, Bogotá's official city government site (bogota.gov.co) and FUGA's own newsroom, Infobae, Rolling Stone en Español, Electronic Groove, Mixmag, Remezcla, Bandcamp Daily, Vice, and artist bios via Beatport, Resident Advisor, Exetra Records and Colombia Electrónica.

Born and raised in Nairobi, Kenya, Beng’s creative life has been dedicated to a simple mission: to help foster and sustain electronic music in his region.

There is something unusually complete about the way Beng works. Music, performance, visual direction, technical production, and events all feed into the same idea: creating something that reflects the people around him and gives them something they can recognise as their own.

With few routes into the world he wanted to be part of, Rabudi learned by doing: organising house parties, sourcing equipment, and developing event concepts before gradually taking responsibility for different parts of the experience, including the sound, the visuals, the logistics, the programming, the atmosphere and the small details that determine how a night feels to those that choose to indulge.

Over time, that self-taught approach grew into something much bigger than finding his place in electronic music. Rabudi began using everything he had learned to help support culture and opportunity.

But the more you speak with him, the clearer it becomes that music is only the starting point. He thinks about how it can be used to bring people together, create a sense of belonging, and help people see themselves differently.

For Beng, the event is not just a night out. It is a mirror.

“Self-hate is something I really want you to talk about. I realised that as an African, I inherently have a lot of self-hate.”

It is a striking admission, but also the idea that brings many of the different parts of his work together. For Rabudi, questions of identity, belonging, and how African people see themselves are inseparable from the culture he wants to create.

This is at the centre of our conversation. Not as a neat slogan or an easy political message, but as something he has been trying to untangle through sound, design, fashion, photography, hospitality and community.

Electronic music is the vehicle, but the ambition behind it runs deeper: to encourage people to recognise value in where they come from, how they look, and who they are.

“I do my best to foster a fresh identity that’s not based off of self-hate. I’d hope to remind folks, anyone of melanin, to always love themselves for who they really are. So as to encourage the pursuit of contentment.”

Growing Up Around the Edge of Nightlife

Rabudi was born and raised in Nairobi. His childhood was defined by school, family structure, and a distance from the nightlife that existed around him.

“Nairobi was just a bit of a blur. The stay in school thing is really intense, so everything about your life is wrapped around your academic life.”

Creative interests were not treated as being as important as academic ones. Talent in football, swimming, drama, or music would be secondary to the expectation to focus on school.

“We had a lot of that extra talent, but it was: no, don’t use it, just focus on school stuff.”

As a kid, he says he didn’t fully understand Nairobi’s nightlife. His first experience of being out in the city at night was not at a club or a rave, but a drive with a relative during a family gathering.

“We had the chance to step outside and we went for a drive. It was my first time outside at night as a human being ever.”

That distance made nightlife feel less like something normal and more like a mystery. When he eventually started going out, it was through friends, sleepovers, and the small windows of freedom that came with being around less restrictive households.

“I struggled with the night out initially, but I guess at some point I just took that initiative to say I want to explore the nightlife, I want to know about it.”

Discovering Electronic Music From a Distance

Before he became involved in nightlife directly, electronic music arrived through fragments: radio, television, downloads, posters, whatever access was available.

“I got into electronic music when I was like 13,14. At that time I had no methodology of how to be involved with it. It was just typical love as a kid.”

The first artist to pull him in was will.i.am through The Black Eyed Peas, followed by Calvin Harris, Deadmau5 and Skrillex. What interested him was not just the sound, but the world around it: the production, the technology, the visuals, the scale, the infrastructure.

Deadmau5 opened his eyes to the relationship between sound and visual identity: the mask, album concepts, and how a symbol could become part of the way an artist was understood. Skrillex opened up another side of it, DJing as performance, storytelling, and movement.

“What got me into DJing was Skrillex. The dubstep was cool, he had a few bangs, but his DJing is underrated. He’s a mad DJ.”

From there, Rabudi went deeper: into history, genre, production, and the mechanics of how electronic music travels.

“I definitely went deeper and deeper. I am a history buff, I got into the history side of it.”

That historical instinct still shapes how he thinks about sound. He talks about deep house, disco, Detroit, Chicago, UK electronic music, South African music, Kwaito, Benga, and other African-influenced electronic music as connected, not isolated. For him, genre is not a set of boxes. It is a map of movement.

Booking Himself Into the Room

Beng’s route into the industry was practical before it was glamorous.

“I’ve always just had to book myself, really.”

Before residencies, larger concepts, wider recognition, and scrutiny, there were house parties, borrowed equipment, and the desire to simply be involved. In high school, he helped organise the sound system for a house party, trying to pull together a mic, speakers and a controller. It didn’t go perfectly, but the instinct was there.

“That was the first thing I did. I just wanted to be involved, wanted to help.”

That instinct to help, fix, connect and organise became part of the foundation for everything that followed. He was not only trying to become a DJ; he was learning how events happen: the equipment, the venue, acquisition, logistics, the lot.

A close friend was also key to that early development. Beng credits him with helping shape his understanding of event concepts and the importance of creating a room with intention.

“Right after we finished high school, my friend curated a gig. It was really a great experience being included and involved in the process.”

He is careful not to overstate his role in those early ideas. What mattered was the opportunity to observe, participate, and learn.

“I definitely learned a lot on the job. It really helped me gain perspective.”

This pattern of researching, observing, making mistakes, and then building again would become invaluable to the way he developed his own work.

Building Ideas, Not Just Events

When Rabudi talks about events, he doesn’t speak in the language of hype. He talks about safety, hospitality, comfort, arrival, intention, and emotion. He thinks about how people receive an invitation. How they interpret a ticket price, whether the environment feels intimidating, whether someone can afford to be there, and whether he’s giving them a legitimate reason to stay.

“I always try to put myself in someone else’s shoes. If I’m at home with my friends or partner and I’m thinking of going out. Before I buy a ticket, I ask myself why, what’s the point?”

That question, why? is central to so much of his work. Sometimes the answer is money, geography, perception, or the feeling that an event was not designed for you in the first place. He speaks about keeping tickets accessible not as a marketing trick, but as a way of reducing friction between classes.

“I always charge 500 Kenya shillings (£3) for a basic ticket no matter how big the function is.”

He compares his approach to selling quality lemonade in the neighbourhood as a kid.

“There is always competition in any kind of business. The only problem is, sometimes we get so caught up in competition, the quality of the product suffers. Soon it all becomes a cash grab type thing. The art, the quality of service and the customer/buyer relationship completely deteriorates.”

For Rabudi, the aim is not simply to sell tickets. It is to shift expectations and create the conditions for something more meaningful: expression, dance, friendship, creativity, discovery, and a sense of belonging.

That attention to how people experience his work is also tied closely to the way he separates different parts of himself.

The Person Behind Beng

The distinction between Rabudi and Beng goes deeper than a stage name.

Beng is the artist, the DJ, the producer, and the person on stage. Rabudi is at the back end: the sound guy, the one doing the lights, the one handling logistics, acquisition, and energy. They are not separate identities, but different states of mind within the same person.

“The dj/producer is Beng, that’s me making music and on-stage performances. I however don’t like being performative when I’m not in that setting. Outside of that I’m Rabudi, quiet and actually really shy at times.”

“While planning things, being pragmatic and observant, I’m Rabudi. Always working to stay steps ahead, really sensitive to information and intuition. But once things get going, when the pressure is on and it’s time to step up, I’m Beng.”

That shift is partly creative, partly professional and partly protective. He speaks openly about having to grow up quickly, about learning to be careful with people and about carrying a sense of responsibility from a young age.

As Rabudi, he describes himself as sensitive, private and deeply invested in people. As Beng, he knows the stakes are high and that leadership sometimes needs a harder edge.

“As Rabudi, I’m sensitive and I care too much. I hate that I do, I sometimes really wish I didn’t, I’d be rich. But I guess that’s how the universe works, checks and balances.”

That honesty gives the care running through his work a clearer context. It does not come from naivety. It comes from someone who understands that sensitivity can leave you exposed, but has chosen not to abandon it.

Promoting Self-Love through Art Direction

The more we speak, the clearer it becomes that Rabudi’s visual direction is not decorative. It is another expression of the same questions around identity and self-acceptance that run through the core of his work.

He talks about texture, lighting, tone, colour palettes, and visual quality as part of an attempt to challenge how Africans are seen by others, and also by themselves.

“I point the mirror at myself and everyone around me. The suburb kids, those from out of town, those that are struggling to make ends meet. The everyday person. Especially those of us that are in the lower middle-class section of society, where I’m from, we are the majority. What I’m always trying to say is: we’re cool too, there’s no need to play pretend.”

For him, that means refusing the idea that beauty only exists in polished, lush, or aspirational settings.

“Just because I don’t live in the affluent parts of town, doesn’t mean I’m anything less.”

He talks about wanting people to feel comfortable taking pictures where they live, not needing to travel somewhere more polished to feel presentable.

“Why not just take it where you live? Do exactly what you need to do where you’re from with what you have.”

It sounds like a simple question. In Rabudi’s work, it becomes an entire visual philosophy.

That thinking feeds directly into his fashion, staging, visual language, and colour choices. He talks about jungle green, mud brown, charcoal black, contrast, and how an environment can either flatten or enhance someone’s image.

“In my opinion, it’s not enough to just settle and rely on aesthetics when you’re trying to start something worthwhile. It’s a collective, collective bits and pieces of information and emotion that then create an art direction.”

The point is not simply to make something look good. It is to create the conditions for people to see themselves differently.

Beyond Alcohol, Toward Culture

Rabudi is also conscious of what nightlife often becomes when it’s fuelled by alcohol. He resists that model.

“I try not to facilitate drinking and drugs. I always fight that narrative, it’s really hard to do so however. It’s no mystery that the nightlife’s economy is so closely tied to a beverage or substance of choice.”

Instead, he imagines a wider ecosystem around the event: food vendors, coffee and tea connoisseurs, merchandise, flowers, beads, art, fashion. An event that supports micro-economies and gives local creativity a place to exist.

“I’d rather people come and eat food. I’d rather have a rep for having great food at the concert, beautiful jewellery, perfumes that smell good, someone selling custom made skateboards over there, really cool t-shirts, or beautiful cards with sweet messages and souvenirs. You know, that gift shop feeling.”

This is where his work moves from curation into community-building. The event becomes an environment where music, fashion, design and local creativity reinforce each other.

It is another expression of the same idea running through Rabudi’s work: that people should be able to enter an event and find more than just something to drink. There should be culture, creativity, and a feeling that the event belongs to the people who attend.

“Creating a consistent environment for conversations and honest connections with one another is a big job. We shouldn’t be too complacent about it.”

HI8US, Taking a Break From Normality

HI8US is the concept that ties many of these ideas together, although Rabudi is deliberately careful about revealing too much about it, simply because, as he puts it, it is currently on hiatus. Its full story is not the focus here, but he does open up about the thinking behind it.

“The sound that I followed definitely helped me come up with HI8US as a concept. Because when I say I’m on hiatus, it means I’m taking a break. I’m taking a break from the norm.”

At its genesis, HI8US was a secondary stage within a larger event, a hidden, alternative room inside a more mainstream environment. It was physically separate, slightly unexpected, and based around discovery.

“I essentially was just trying to create an alternative realm in a mainstream type environment.”

That phrase could describe much of Rabudi’s work. He is not necessarily trying to reject the mainstream. He is trying to build another room inside it. Somewhere the rules change.

Grassroots Without Borders

Towards the end of our conversation, Rabudi talks about cross-continental collaboration.

“It’s definitely a long-term plan for HI8US.”

At its simplest, the idea is about grassroots communities in different parts of the world supporting one another.

For him, collaboration is not just about booking artists from other countries. It’s about sharing resources, ideas, visual language, sound, context, and methodology between people working at a similar level in different parts of the world.

“I’m happy to be in this interview to talk about it, because you are in fact the representation of the grassroots over there and I’m a representation of the grassroots over here.”

He connects this to African-influenced electronic music: the accents of Kwaito, Benga, Afrobeat, and other local forms feeding into new electronic expressions across the continent and diaspora. When he speaks about FāëM, the Lagos duo we recently featured, he recognises a parallel mission.

“It’s the same mission, but different circumstances, so therefore different methodologies.”

For Rabudi, these connections could allow artists and organisers to exchange ideas, learn from different approaches, and find new environments in which to experiment. The value is not in international visibility; it is the possibility of building relationships between cultures that have different circumstances but often share similar ambitions.

That recognition matters. Beng is not looking for global validation in the traditional sense. He is looking for opportunity: opportunity to test, fail, refine, travel, exchange, and grow without being forced immediately into high-pressure, commercialised environments.

“Grassroot is the most realistic environment where you can do anything, that’s where you know if something’s actually worth doing or not.”

For artists working outside dominant industry centres, access to this kind of opportunity can determine whether a promising idea dies early or has the time to become something substantial.

“We need more geographical space, because monopolies have successfully starved local creative continuity.”

It is one of the few moments where Rabudi allows himself to speak directly about the limitations around him, but even then, the focus returns to building, not complaint.

Electronic Music as a Vehicle

For all the detail in Rabudi’s work: the lighting, the art, the curation, the colour, the vendors, the ticket, the DJs and producers he works with, the centre is surprisingly simple.

Love.

Not in a sentimental sense entirely, but more as a practice. As a way of treating people, a way of designing an event, and a way of dealing with inherited shame.

“For me, electronic music is a vehicle. A night out, music, art, is a vehicle, but the point is to spread love from within.”

That love, he says, should move outward.

“That love can also be transmitted from one person to the next if we decide to treat each other better. The music is really just a way to communicate that.”

In that sense, Rabudi Beng’s work is not only about Nairobi, electronic music, or just nightlife. It is about what happens when people actively choose to preserve integrity. To arrive as they are. To dress how they want. To hear something unfamiliar. To feel seen without needing to perform wealth, polish, or fit into someone else’s idea of success.

“Africans are so much fun. You don’t need to be drunk to have fun around Africans, we’re great company.”

He highlights rhythm, colour, beauty, movement, the things he believes are already there, waiting to be recognised.

“We know how to dance, every African can dance to a great extent, every African has a natural sense of rhythm and that’s a fact. We all know what rhythm feels like, looks like and sounds like.”

Beng’s work offers us another way of thinking about what nightlife can be. It does not always have to mean making things bigger, louder, or more exclusive.

Sometimes it is about making a space feel like home. Sometimes it is about seeing yourself clearly, maybe for the first time, and realising there was never anything wrong with where you came from or where you are.

“Despite the self-hate thing, somewhere inside, I know that I really like myself. It’s hard to show it and be that person 365 for plenty of unfortunate reasons. But deep down, I know I’m cool as f*ck.”

That is the message he wants to pass on.

Not escapism. Not image. Not a perfect night.

A mirror.

A sound system.

A room full of people choosing to love themselves honestly.

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^{By Miquel Sinclair, founder and editor of Silver Sun}
Lenzman was one of the artists who made me fall in love with drum & bass. Tracks like “Ice Cold Soul”, “Open Page” and his VIP remix of MC Conrad & Makoto’s “Golden Girl” made me feel a connection to music that I had never experienced before. They set me on a path that would eventually shape a huge part of my life and work.

Mine is only one story among many. The tributes shared since his passing have made clear how deeply his music, The North Quarter, and the community he built around them has affected people.

The News

Teije van Vliet, known professionally as Lenzman, died on the afternoon of Saturday 11 July at the age of 47. His family confirmed the news the following day in a statement shared through his Instagram account. “For three-and-a-half years he fought with so much strength, courage and love,” read the message, signed by his wife, Ashanti, and daughters, Riva and Nya.

He had been living with kidney cancer since his diagnosis in January 2023. The cancer had already spread and was incurable, but he did not speak publicly about his illness until July last year. Throughout his treatment, he continued making music and returned to DJing whenever his health allowed.

To listeners around the world, Teije was Lenzman: a Dutch producer, DJ, founder of The North Quarter, and one of the best to ever do it.

What Set His Music Apart

Lenzman’s music is easy to recognise without ever feeling confined to a formula. It has the warmth of soul and jazz, and the sample-hunter’s instinct of someone who grew up listening to 90s hip-hop. You can hear where his influences came from, but it never felt like he was only reproducing them.

“Open Page” captures that balance: spacious and patient, allowing Riya’s vocal to be at the centre, not reducing it to a hook. His remix of Children of Zeus’ “Still Standing” goes further by turning a soul record into DnB without stripping away its intimacy. Lenzman described it as the point where his efforts to bring hip-hop and drum & bass together finally matched what he had imagined. His more recent collaborations with Fox, such as “Starlight” and “Golly”, were guided by that same respect for the voice at the centre of a track: the production supported the story rather than competing with it.

That instinct also ran through his two albums for Metalheadz. Looking At The Stars, his 2014 debut, brought his melodic and emotionally direct approach to the most iconic drum & bass label. Bobby, released in 2019, became more personal still. The album was named after his daughter’s stuffed toy dog, and its cover was drawn by his father. Lenzman had become a parent around a year before working on the album, and described how fatherhood led him back to memories and music from his own childhood.

It was an unusually personal foundation for a DnB album, but it suited him. His music had always made room for memory, family, and vulnerability. Even when his tunes were built for the club, their emotional focus felt like it was somewhere beyond it, in the people, histories, and relationships carried into the room.

That is what made his catalogue feel different: it never felt anonymous, it always sounded like it came from somewhere, and someone.

More Than a Sound

Lenzman’s influence on drum & bass was never just about how his own tracks sounded. It was about a point he made, in interviews and through his own catalogue, about what the genre was allowed to be.

When he launched The North Quarter in 2016, he described wanting to build a home for artists writing songs with real substance, pointing out that drum & bass, more than two decades old by then, was still often stuck lyrically in the club, describing itself rather than saying anything beyond it. He made a comparison to how hip-hop matured from DJ-led music to something MCs could use to talk about anything at all, and he thought that drum & bass deserved the same confidence.

He carried that thinking into how he talked about the genre’s history, too. In a 2021 interview, he spoke about drum & bass’s roots in Black music, the diversity of the scene he’d found when he first discovered jungle, and about his discomfort watching the audience for the genre narrow over the years, even as the tools to produce it had become more accessible than ever. It wasn’t a comfortable thing to say and it wasn’t said for effect. It came from someone who wanted to honour the artists and history that had opened the door for him.

The push for lyrical maturity and the insistence on remembering the genre’s roots opened up a space that a lot of artists making thoughtful, vocal-driven, genre-blurring music are working in today.

The World He Built Through The North Quarter

If Lenzman’s own tracks were his voice, The North Quarter was the room he built so other people could speak too.

He founded the label in 2016, naming it after the district in Leiden where he used to live, a small, personal detail that says a lot about how he approached the whole project. The first release was his own All For You EP, a ten-track collection blending drum & bass with hip-hop, featuring Redeyes and DRS. It included his “Still Standing” remix, which went on to win Best Remix at the 2016 Drum & Bass Arena Awards and set the tone for everything the label would become: melodic, soulful, and not afraid to reach outside the genre.

Over the following decade, The North Quarter grew into one of the most respected homes in DnB for artists working in that same soulful, exploratory space: Redeyes, FD, Fox, Note, Objectiv, Zero T, Satl, Echo Brown, Submorphics, Tokyo Prose and others all found a home there, and often for full, considered projects rather than one-off singles. Fox’s vocal LP for the label and Zero-T & Onj’s Kilburn Park, are the kind of records that don’t get made without a label being fully behind the artist’s vision.

Asked in 2023 what he looked for when signing someone new, Lenzman was clear that a ready-made fanbase or obvious commercial potential mattered less to him than whether the sound was bringing something different to the table. That approach was his A&R philosophy and shaped a label that never sounded like it was chasing a trend, because it wasn’t.

The evidence of what he built also came from the events. The North Quarter’s club nights started small, at The Pickle Factory, before outgrowing it and moving to Phonox, where Lenzman later described the moment he realised what he had: a sold out night where his set used only label tracks, and the crowd knew every word. That’s not something that happens to a record label. It happens to a community.

The People Around the Music

The scale of the response to Lenzman’s passing says as much about him as any of his music does.

Goldie, who signed Lenzman to Metalheadz and watched him grow from a promising young producer into a label boss in his own right, wrote:

Doc Scott, another Metalheadz pioneer, remembered the very beginning, recalling how Marcus Intalex had first told him:

Doc Scott followed this by saying that Lenzman had fulfilled that promise.

This kind of memory, passed between people who’d been in the scene for decades, is its own evidence of how long Lenzman had been trusted by the people around him.

That trust was visible in a different way in June, at a fundraising night held at Phonox in his honour. Sets from The North Quarter roster alongside DJ Flight, LSB, Workforce, and GLXY, raised money for Lenzman and his family after his treatment ended. Watching the response to that night from home, Lenzman wrote about how much it meant to him, and about the strange grief of knowing he’d reached the point where he wouldn’t get to see the people who showed up for him again, or experience DJing anymore.

It’s a really hard thing to read. It’s also, in its way, the clearest possible way to see what he meant to the people around him, that a community would gather like that, for one of its own, while there was still time for him to see it happen.

The Influence That Cannot Be Counted

None of what Lenzman built shows up cleanly in numbers. Streams and bookings can tell you a version of the story, but not the real one.

The real one is in the artists who had a home because The North Quarter existed, a place for drum & bass that went beyond the club. It’s in the producers who understood for the first time that drum & bass didn’t have to choose between hitting hard and meaning something. It’s in the community that formed around Phonox on North Quarter nights.

And, in a smaller way, it’s in stories like mine. I didn’t come to dance and electronic music through a straight line, and I didn’t pursue a career in music because of one producer. But Lenzman’s music was part of the beginning of that path, one of the reasons I kept discovering, kept following the thread, not knowing where it would lead. I’d guess a lot of people reading this could say something similar, about him or an artist like him. That’s what this kind of influence actually looks like. It doesn’t announce itself. It just quietly changes the course of someone’s life, long before they understand what is happening.

Lenzman’s music did that for me. The response to his passing has made it clear that I was far from the only one.

For this edition of Behind The Sound, we speak to Southampton producer Ashdunn about Garage Shared, where UKG is right now, the attention around being a young artist, and what the future holds.

Ashdunn’s route into garage feels closely tied to the music he grew up with. House in the car from his dad, old-school garage in the summer from his mum, and later, a deeper introduction to modern UKG through his connection with Garage Shared.

Now 17, the Southampton producer is building momentum with a sound he describes as “bumpy, old-school-influenced” but shaped by modern production standards. Following the release of Get Live, we caught up with Ashdunn to talk about early influences, the Garage Shared community, the UKG scene, and where he wants to take things next.

Origins & Early Development

How did you first get into dance music, and what made you connect with garage in particular?

My dad always played house music in the car and I remember loving the feeling of the bass, and my mum always played old-school garage tunes in the summer. Most of the modern garage I listen to was introduced to me by Gavin, who runs Garage Shared, including artists like Sammy Virji and MPH back in 2021 and 2022.

Who or what first inspired you to start producing?

I’ve always been inspired by music and DJs in general, but I really started producing by chance, as I was introduced to Logic in school. So it wasn’t necessarily a specific artist or DJ. However, I always looked up to David Guetta and Fatboy Slim as prolific DJs.

Being from Southampton, how has your environment influenced or inspired your relationship with music?

Since I’m 17, I’ve not really experienced the nightlife of Southampton, so I can’t really speak on it. But I find massive inspiration from garage artists like Artful Dodger and Craig David, who helped pioneer the sound coming from Southampton.

Garage Shared & Community

Garage Shared comes up throughout Ashdunn’s journey so far, from his first years sending music to Gavin and getting his release signed by them at 13.

How did your relationship with Garage Shared first come about?

My mum knows Gavin from going clubbing together years ago, and she introduced me to him when I was 11. That was when I first started sending some of my tunes to him.

How has the backing from Garage Shared shaped your confidence as a producer?

Garage Shared have massively supported me, as they have worked with me since I was 11 and first started producing. If it weren’t for them, I wouldn’t have the likes of DJ EZ and Radio 1 playing my tunes, so I’m immensely grateful for the opportunities they’ve given me.

How important has it been to have support from people who understand your direction and give you a platform to develop from?

It’s a massive relief and a joy to see people resonate with my music, especially with support from such established people in the UKG scene, as sometimes it’s hard to distinguish how good your sound is without a second opinion.

What impact did having your first release signed at 13 have on your confidence as a producer?

It made me feel like this could potentially become something more than just doing it for myself. That ability to share my music with more people was exhilarating and definitely made me feel more confident in my ability.

Production & Process

As Ashdunn’s output has developed, consistency has become a key part of how he talks about his sound. Instead of going from one idea to another, he says he is starting to land on something more defined.

How has your production process changed as you’ve developed as a producer?

I now think I’m starting to develop a more consistent sound, whereas in previous years my tunes would be multiple different, inconsistent styles. I’ve finally landed on a more bumpy, old-school-influenced sound with modern production standards, which I really enjoy making.

When you’re producing, what techniques, plugins or tools feel central to your sound?

I use Serum FX for most of my effects, also Serum OTT and Kickstart are essential, but a lot of the plugins I use are just the Logic Pro default plugins.

17 & Recent Momentum

Ashdunn’s recent EP, 17, reflects that shift in direction. Compared to 16, he describes the project as more rooted in old-school garage and less shaped by the pressure of thinking about an audience.

Congrats on releasing your EP, 17. What feels different about where you are now compared to where you were around the time you released 16?

I feel that my sound for this EP has been more consistent and has a lot more roots in an old-school garage sound, which I love. I also felt that I made this EP devoid of the thought of an audience, simply making these tracks because I enjoy them.

As more attention comes your way, how are you staying grounded?

I will likely just focus on improving my ability as a producer and DJ, and make myself the best I can possibly be to provide people with the best show I can. I don’t think more popularity will hinder that.

Age, Attention & Barriers

The attention around Ashdunn’s age is hard to avoid, but it comes with both opportunity and limitation. While it has made his story stand out, it has also affected what he can access as a DJ.

You’re building strong momentum at an age where most producers are still finding their feet. How do you deal with the challenges that can come with that?

Because of my age, I can’t DJ in clubs and have been denied many times. I was due to support Bushbaby in late 2024, but when they found out I was 15 at the time, they took me off the lineup.

With so much attention around how young you are, how do you feel about that narrative, and where do you want the focus to be?

I appreciate the fact that I am doing this at a young age and that it is a spectacle. However, I also want my music to be appreciated not just because of my age, but mostly for the quality of it.

UK Garage Now

Ashdunn is coming through at a time when UK garage feels bigger and more visible than it has in years. For him, the current moment is exciting because the genre is travelling further than ever and still giving space to the underground, old-school-inspired records.

What excites you most about where UK garage is right now?

It feels a lot more global now. You see IPC, Main Phase, Sammy Virji and Silva Bumpa selling out shows in America, whereas even a few years ago that wouldn’t have happened.

What do you think the current wave of producers is bringing to UKG that feels different from previous generations?

I’m seeing a massive resurgence in a very old-school sound, with the likes of Oldboy, Mark Williams and HARDLINE putting out some great deep cuts and keeping the underground scene alive, while UKG progresses further alongside.

What do you think has driven the resurgence of speed garage over the last few years?

Consistency and uniqueness. Artists like Sammy Virji, MPH and Oppidan are the trailblazers because they have their own sound and have been consistent with it over the years.

Looking Ahead

With his recent run of releases, Ashdunn is already looking to the future. His goals are clear: keep improving, build towards a sustainable career in music, and eventually get onto the biggest stages.

With things moving so fast, how much do you think about the bigger picture of where you want your career to go?

I’d love to get to a point where I can make a living off music, ideally reaching a similar status to IPC or Silva Bumpa.

What’s a dream milestone you’d love to achieve in your career?

I think if I could play the big tent at Reading, that would be amazing, I went last year to see Sammy Virji and it completely transformed my concept of the skill of DJing.

Looking ahead, what can people expect from you next, and is there anything coming up that you can share with us?

I have an EP that I’m working on due to release in January, with an immense lineup of grime MCs such as Jman and Killa P, and will be releasing singles in the months leading up to it.

A huge thank you to Ashdunn for taking the time to speak with us, giving us his insight into his journey so far, his relationship with Garage Shared, and the sound he is continuing to develop.

Make sure to check out his latest single Get Live and keep an eye out for his upcoming projects.

Stream Get Live

Connect with Ashdunn on: Instagram | Spotify | SoundCloud | TikTok

At $1,699 (£1,469), it fills a gap the company hasn’t touched since the XDJ-1000MK2 launched a decade ago, a full feature media player that’s more “affordable” than the CDJ-3000x. For bars, small clubs, and home setups, it makes sense. The specs back it up: a 10.1-inch touchscreen, same as the CDJ-3000X, cloud and streaming access, NFC login, rekordbox CloudDirectPlay, USB support, hot cues, and a loop encoder that makes its CDJ debut here. On paper, it’s a solid unit for the price bracket.

But that’s not what people were actually talking about.

The Screen Problem

The CDJ-1500X is dominated by its touchscreen. That by itself isn’t the issue, modern DJing involves a lot of browsing, scrolling, and waveform reading, and a bigger screen helps with all of that. The CDJ-3000X proved that. The concern is what happens when functions that used to be controlled by physical buttons start migrating into that screen instead.

The CDJ-1500X does have a physical Beat Loop encoder, which is new, but many DJs will welcome it. Turning a knob to set loop lengths can be quick, clean and familiar to anyone coming from Traktor setups or Denon players. In that sense, the change is not automatically a downgrade.

But the original loop functions will be handled through the screen, e.g. manual loop points. That does not make looping impossible, or even necessarily difficult. However, looping by feel, without looking down, is something that gets burned into muscle memory over years of playing. A touchscreen asks for a different kind of engagement. You have to look, aim and tap with precision to hit the right part of the interface. This is fine for browsing, but it will start to cost you when performance functions live on it.

A button isn’t just a trigger. It’s something you can find without looking, trust without confirming, and use under pressure without a second thought.

The browse knob has also been redesigned, moving away from the wide, flat encoder that has appeared on essentially every CDJ and XDJ unit until now. The cue and play/pause buttons have gone matte gray, matching the unit’s finish but changing the visual and tactile language that made the CDJ layout so learnable in the first place. These are aesthetic decisions that have practical consequences.

The Shared Language

Part of what made CDJs the standard isn’t that they’re the best-designed piece of hardware ever made. It’s that their layout became a shared language. You could walk into any venue in any country, plug in, and understand the equipment before the first track was even loaded. That standardisation is so important, it’s what allows DJs to perform confidently in unfamiliar environments.

When hardware changes that shared language: different knob profiles, different button feel, functions moved from physical controls to screens, it creates friction. And the CDJ-1500X changes the established layout in several places at once.

That’s not the same as saying it’s a bad player. It is probably a very good one, but it’s worth being honest about the trade-off.

CoBeat and the Connected Booth

The most culturally loaded part of the CDJ-1500X announcement is CoBeat. This is AlphaTheta’s new crowd-request system, which sends track requests and audience reactions directly onto the CDJ-1500X’s screen. Audience members scan a QR code, send requests from a pre-approved catalogue, and react to each other’s picks with emojis. All of it shows up on the player.

Crowd-request tools are not new, Virtual DJ had its own version as far back as 2016, and apps like RequestNow and YoDJ have been around for years. What’s different about CoBeat is that it’s baked into the hardware itself.

For certain contexts, this is a useful feature. Bars, private events, commercial rooms, and mobile setups have always worked with audience input. The question is what does this signal about how AlphaTheta is imagining the future of Djing.

There’s a real difference between reading a room and receiving a request. One is physical, watching the crowd, sensing where the energy is, making decisions through the music itself. The other is administrative. Obviously this feature is optional, but the fact that it exists says something about where the product line is heading.

What’s Missing

A few omissions from the CDJ-1500X are worth flagging. There’s no digital output, which is a genuine surprise at this price. The XDJ-1000MK2 it effectively replaces had one, and Denon DJ’s SC6000 Prime offered it too. There’s no standard IEC power inlet, replaced by USB-C via a proprietary adapter, which is a practical headache if that cable goes missing.

None of these are dealbreakers for the markets the unit is clearly targeting. But they’re part of the picture.

Where This Leaves Us

The CDJ-1500X will most likely be a great media player for the spaces it’s designed for. The large screen will make browsing easier, it fills a real gap below the flagship, and the new features will be very useful to a lot of DJs. For bars, smaller clubs, home studios and mobile setups, the case for it is easy to understand.

The harder question is what the eventual successor to the CDJ-3000X will look like. DJ hardware is moving toward larger touchscreens, more connectivity, more software integration, and form over function, the CDJ-1500X is carrying all of those trends in a single package.

The booth has always worked best when a DJ can rely on the equipment without managing it, when the controls are in muscle memory rather than on a screen. The more hardware asks for your attention, the less you can give to the room.

This is the tension that we’re starting to see, and the CDJ-1500X proves that it’s real.

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Manchester a city that people think they already understand.

The Haçienda, Madchester, Factory Records. The long shadow of dance music history so thoroughly documented in books, films, T-shirts, tattoos, and a thousand DJ set introductions, that it can start to feel less like history and more like wallpaper.

The problem with wallpaper is that you stop seeing it.

And what is happening in Manchester right now is worth seeing clearly. Not because it replaces the past, but because it complicates it. The city’s present is more fragile, more pressured, and more interesting than the usual version of the story makes room for.

This is a city where one of, if not the most influential event series in the UK is marking its twentieth anniversary this year. Where the Sankeys has returned after nearly a decade away. Where one of the North’s most important underground spaces is preparing to close permanently. And where a group of venues, studios, and creative spaces are in a regeneration zone that will reshape the area for years to come.

Manchester’s electronic music history is famous.

Its present feels more urgent.

The Foundations

The short version, because most people reading this already know the story: by the late 1980s, Manchester had become one of the central points in British club culture’s transformation.

Eastern Bloc Records, established in 1985, became one of the city’s defining institutions: a record shop, meeting point, and source of imported sounds that helped connect Manchester to house, techno, electro, jungle, and the wider movement of electronic music.

The Haçienda, opened by Factory Records and New Order in 1982, became the venue where Manchester’s acid house moment took hold with force. What happened there in the late 1980s rippled through British club culture in ways that are still being seen today.

Then came Sankeys Soap, which opened in Ancoats in 1994 and became one of Manchester’s most important post-Haçienda club spaces.

These places were not just venues where good nights happened. They were part of the infrastructure which allowed artists, promoters, DJs, record buyers, and audiences to form a shared idea of what club culture could mean.

That idea was specific to Manchester: tied to its post-industrial geography, its working-class culture, its weather, its local pride, and its refusal to be impressed by things just because they were expensive, polished, or coming from somewhere else.

That character has never fully left.

It runs through much of what makes is happening in the city now.

The Warehouse Era

In 2006, The Warehouse Project began inside the shell of Boddingtons Brewery in Strangeways.

Founded by Sam Kandel, Richard McGinnis and Sacha Lord, it introduced a different model for Manchester’s nightlife: seasonal, temporary, industrial, and built around the feeling of an event that appeared for part of the year rather than a club that opened every weekend.

That model changed the city’s scale.

From Boddingtons to Store Street, Victoria Warehouse and now Depot Mayfield. People did not only go because they were already in the city. They travelled to Manchester because WHP had become the destination.

The names became bigger over time: Aphex Twin, Four Tet, Disclosure, Bicep, Fred again.., Overmono, but the more important change was structural. WHP created a yearly rhythm around raving: the season announcement, the lineups, the sold-out dates, the sense of Manchester becoming a national meeting point for a few months each year.

This year, WHP is marking 20 years with a wider retrospective, including the short film Twenty Years In Manchester, directed by Leigh Powis, an outdoor photography exhibition in Spinningfields, a podcast series, and a print magazine documenting the people and spaces that shaped the project.

“Reaching 20 years is a huge moment for us. The Warehouse Project has always been about progression and pushing the boundaries wherever possible.”

^{— Sam Kandel & Richard McGinnis}

That is the key to WHP’s place in Manchester’s story. It gave the city scale, expectation, and international visibility. It proved that Manchester could support club culture at a size no UK city could match.

But it also created a new kind of event: large, seasonal, high-impact, and often headline-driven.

That model is extraordinary at what it does.

It is not the only model the city needs.

The Smaller Rooms That Reshaped the City

While The Warehouse Project gave Manchester scale, something just as important was taking shape in smaller rooms: a former MOT garage in Salford, a basement on Spear Street, a record shop in the Northern Quarter, in bars, and multi-use spaces where the music could still feel close enough to touch.

The White Hotel has become the clearest example. Located in a former garage on the edge of Salford, it built its reputation through its forward thinking programming, rough-and-ready atmosphere, and weighty sound system.

Its appeal came from that uncertainty. You did not always know exactly what you were walking into, and that was part of the point. It operates with what The Guardian described as a “minimum budget, maximum ideas” philosophy, The White Hotel became one of the North’s most important underground spaces because it gave unusual ideas room to happen.

Soup, formerly known as Soup Kitchen played a different role. The Northern Quarter venue became a small but important space for local DJs, cult artists and leftfield programming. Its 14th birthday line-up that brought together Willow, Parris, mamba.exe and Demdike Stare, said a lot about its identity: local identity, serious music, and refusing to treat intimacy as a limitation.

Eastern Bloc carried another kind of continuity. First and foremost it’s a great record shop, but that is why it matters. Established in 1985, with a selection of electro, house, techno, dubstep, and jungle, it also functions as a venue known for its low ceiling and crisp, punchy sound. Manchester artists are at the forefront of its programming and it hosts regular open-to-close parties.

Stage & Radio adds another layer to that story. Its history reaches back to 1946, when the address became associated with modern jazz, but its current form has developed into a small, sound-focused venue with strong links to Manchester’s underground dance music community. Crop Radio now operating from the space also speaks to the way local infrastructure exists in rooms, radio, online platforms and community networks at the same time.

Hidden, YES and Amber’s complete the picture. Each is different in scale and purpose, but together they show that Manchester’s current underground, is spread across warehouses, basements, record shops, rooftops, live rooms and new spaces, each giving the city a slightly different kind of energy.

What many of these spaces share is a refusal to organise themselves entirely around the obvious headline act. The music matters, but so does the room, the regulars, the residents, the promoters, and the sense that something can still grow from the ground up.

The city’s history is famous for big moments, but its dance music culture is being shaped just as much by smaller ones.

The Return of Sankeys, and What It’s Saying

Nine years after closing its doors, Sankeys returned to Manchester in January.

The new version is not trying to recreate the venue at the same scale. Instead, it has reopened as a 500-capacity city-centre space with a stripped-back, basement-style feel, no VIP areas, and a no-phones-on-the-dancefloor policy.

That decision is the most telling part of the return.

The original Sankeys was a Manchester institution with international reach, voted No.1 in DJ Mag’s Top 100 Clubs poll in 2010. The new Sankeys is deliberately smaller, more controlled, and more focused on the room itself.

“What we’re creating is an intimate underground club with a chill out room. We will only be open one night a week on the Saturday. There will be no VIP or phones allowed on the dancefloor, everyone is a VIP. People need to stop taking pictures and start dancing to the beat.”

^{— David Vincent (Creative Director)}

The venue is also designed to echo the old Sankeys physically and spiritually: metal pillars, immersive lighting, flexible layouts, and a room that can be reconfigured depending on the night.

Rather than building everything around announced headline names, the idea is to make people trust the experience. As one line from the relaunch put it: “When you arrive, you’ll discover the line-up on the night. It’s about the experience, not ticking off a name.”

Whether that philosophy can be sustained long term remains to be seen. Manchester is a city with a knowledgeable, demanding audience, and trust takes time to rebuild.

But the return itself feels significant.

At a time when large-scale events dominate so much of rave culture, Sankeys has come back by moving in the opposite direction: smaller room, fewer distractions, less hierarchy, more focus on the dancefloor.

The no-phones policy also points to a mood shift. Sankeys, Amber’s, The White Hotel, FOLD, and parts of The Warehouse Project, some of the spaces that feel most culturally alive right now are the ones trying to put distance between the dancefloor and the outside world.

That does not mean every venue needs the same rules.

However it does suggest something has changed. After years of club culture becoming more visible, more filmed, and more content-driven, some venues are trying to make the room feel private again.

The Strange Quarter and the Pressure on the Underground

A group of venues and creative spaces that have come to define Manchester’s underground: The White Hotel, Hidden, the DBA, The Yard, The Bag Factory, and the studios and practice rooms around them, sit inside or near the boundary of the Strangeways and Cambridge regeneration area.

The area where Manchester meets Salford (around Strangeways prison and the Cambridge Industrial Estate) has been given the informal name “the Strange Quarter”, an unofficial label for one of the city’s most important cultural areas. Former industrial buildings, clubs, studios, practice spaces, pubs and DIY venues have turned it into one of the most interesting parts of Manchester’s current music culture.

That future is now uncertain.

The Strangeways and Cambridge Strategic Regeneration Framework, approved by Manchester City Council and Salford City Council in late 2025, sets out a long-term plan to transform a 130-hectare area across Manchester and Salford. The proposals include around 7,000 new homes in seven neighbourhoods, up to 1.75 million square feet of commercial space, and a new urban park designed partly to address long-term flood risk.

The Cambridge section of the framework is especially relevant. It includes the Cambridge Industrial Estate, home to The White Hotel, The Bag Factory and Hidden, in an area where flood risk, new green space and future development are all being considered together.

The councils have acknowledged the cultural importance of the area. Consultation responses called for heritage buildings to be preserved and celebrated, and many respondents said existing cultural venues should be retained. The framework also includes heritage and culture as part of its vision for the area.

Those assurances matter.

But they do not remove the uncertainty.

A regeneration framework is not the same thing as a guarantee. It sets a direction, shapes future planning decisions, and gives the area a long-term vision. What it cannot easily preserve is the delicate network of rooms, rents, informal relationships, late-night uses, studios, venues and communities that made the area culturally important in the first place.

That is why the Strange Quarter feels so significant.

It is not just another part of Manchester waiting to be redeveloped. It is one of the places where the city’s underground has been able to gather, experiment and grow without being fully absorbed into the polished version of the city around it.

The question now is not if the area needs investment.

It’s if Manchester can improve the area without flattening the culture that made it worth noticing.

The End of The White Hotel

Of all the venues in the Strange Quarter, none carries more of the area’s identity than The White Hotel.

And it is the one already confirmed to close.

It will shut its doors in January next year, bringing an end to a decade-long run as one of the UK’s most loved underground spaces. Founders Austin Collings and Ben Ward have explained that flooding issues and redevelopment pressures around the venue are the key reasons behind the decision.

The explanation is strangely straight forward. The White Hotel is in an area identified for long-term flood management as part of the wider Strangeways and Cambridge regeneration framework. Proposals for the area include new green space and drainage systems designed to respond to increasing flood risk.

“Basically, it’s a swamp, (the team wanted) to go out on our own terms, long before we became a museum.”

^{— Ben Ward}

The White Hotel opened in 2015 inside a former car garage on a Salford industrial estate, and became synonymous with experimental club culture: rough, strange, confrontational, funny, difficult, serious, and unserious all at the same time.

It hosted artists including Andrew Weatherall, Objekt, DJ Stingray 313, Space Afrika, aya, Blackhaine and Rainy Miller, alongside Helena Hauff, Djrum, Traxman, Sabres of Paradise and many others. But its importance was never only about who played there.

It was about the kind of atmosphere it allowed to exist.

The White Hotel felt like a place where things could happen before they were fully understood. Experimental electronics, noise, techno, queer club culture, live performance and unique forms of nightlife all sat close together. The venue did not always explain itself, and that was part of its power.

Before closing, the venue has a stacked final run lined up: Zenker Brothers, re:ni, Mama Snake, Galcher Lustwerk, Rhadoo, dBridge, Eris Drew and Octo Octa, and Nathan Fake are all confirmed. The team is also hosting their first ever festival, The Black Lights, a weekend of experimental electronics and alt-techno in venues around Blackpool.

Collings’ parting thought on the venue’s legacy carries the same defiance that shaped the space from the beginning.

“The White Hotel is similar to the Highlander and Keith Richards,” he said. “It’s immortal.”

Maybe the idea is.

But the specific version of it: the former garage, the industrial estate, the strange corner of Salford, the feeling of arriving there at the wrong hour and somehow being in exactly the right place, will close in January.

Whatever comes next will have to start from somewhere else.

What Manchester Sounds Like Now

There isn’t a single description of what the city sounds like.

It sounds like the hard-edged intensity of The White Hotel’s final stretch, and the peak-hour scale of the Depot at the Warehouse Project. It sounds like Eastern Bloc’s record-shop intimacy, Soup’s community-first bookings, Stage & Radio’s soundsystem culture, and the queer club culture of the DBA. It sounds like Sankeys on a Saturday night with no phones, just the music and whoever shows up.

It is rave-rooted and experimental. Large-scale and local. Industrial, bass-heavy, queer, underground, and globally visible through Parklife and The Warehouse Project.

Those things are not contradictions.

They are part of the same city, operating in parallel, occasionally crossing over, and collectively producing a culture that is more varied and more alive than Manchester’s mythology sometimes makes room for.

That mythology makes it easy to look backwards.

The present demands something else: attention to what is happening now, in smaller rooms than the Haçienda, in garages on industrial estates, in record shops that have outlasted almost everything around them, and in the spaces still fighting to exist before they become part of the story too.

What Manchester Has to Protect

Manchester has reinvented itself before, more than once, and more dramatically than most cities ever have to.

The post-industrial city that became a culture capital. The culture capital that kept producing new movements after the old ones faded. There is a genuine confidence in Manchester’s ability to absorb change and come back with something new.

But reinvention has conditions.

It needs the spaces where new culture can form: affordable, unpolished, tolerant of noise, chaos, failure and ideas that don’t need to make sense. The Strange Quarter has been providing these exact conditions.

The Strangeways and Cambridge is not automatically a threat. Cities need housing, investment, infrastructure and flood protection.

But it does make the next chapter delicate.

It has survived losses before, and it will again. The question should be, over a long redevelopment cycle, can it protect enough of the cheap, unique, unglamorous spaces where the next version of its dance music culture will need to begin.

The Warehouse Project is celebrating twenty years. Sankeys has come back smaller and more determined. The White Hotel is preparing for its final stretch with the same defiance that made it matter in the first place.

Manchester knows how to mark its moments.

Whether it can protect the conditions that make those moments possible is the more difficult question, and the one that matters most.

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Corsica Studios was never defined by size or polish. It was a small, rough round the edges space, and for many people, that was exactly what made it matter.

Its legacy came from the nights, artists, crowds, and ideas it gave room to; the ones that don’t always fit neatly into more commercial spaces. At the end of March 2026, Corsica as we know it closed its doors.

To understand why the closure cut so deeply, it is worth looking at what Corsica was, why it mattered, and why spaces like it are so difficult to replace.

What Happened

Corsica Studios operated for 24 years, from 2002 to 2026, under the railway arches at Elephant & Castle in South London.

The project began earlier than that, in the late 1990s, when founders Amanda Moss and Adrian Jones were searching for affordable studio spaces around King’s Cross. A short-lived space on Corsica Street in Highbury gave the project its name, before the move to Elephant & Castle in 2002.

The reason for the closure is more specific than the usual “another venue gone” story.

Corsica’s team were clear that the venue was not closing because of current noise complaints, and said it had not been forced out directly by developers or the council. But with major residential development moving closer to the venue, its long-term future became more and more complicated.

Owner Adrian Jones explained that the venue had effectively been told it could stay as long as it wanted, but would not be able to continue making noise past the 1st April 2026, the point at which the first residents of new housing backing onto the venue’s smoking area were expected to move in.

For several years, the team had been working with Southwark Council, the Greater London Authority, and the Music Venue Trust to secure a future for Corsica in the area. Under a Section 106 agreement tied to the surrounding development, the developer Delancey is set to fund the soundproofing of the arches, with the space expected to be handed back around 2027. Corsica has first refusal on returning.

This means, that means the building everyone knew had to change in order to survive at all.

The venue celebrated its final chapter with a closing programme running from New Year’s Eve 2025 through to late March 2026, ending with a near-30-hour closing weekend that brought together promoters from across its history.

Why the Closure Felt Different

Many venues close every year. Most are mourned locally and forgotten nationally.

Corsica’s closure generated something else: a genuine outpouring across UK and international dance music culture.

Part of that comes down to recognition. Corsica was named Best Small Club in DJ Mag’s Best of British Awards in 2009 and 2019, and was voted as one of the best clubs in the world by DJ Mag readers on multiple occasions.

But awards only explain part of it.

Josh Doherty, who has ran I Love Acid at Corsica since 2007, said: “It’s up there with the most important clubs in dance music history,” comparing it to the Haçienda and Plastic People.

That is the distinction worth sitting with.

What Made Corsica, Corsica

To understand why Corsica mattered, it helps to remember what it was before it became known as a club.

The original Corsica Street space in Highbury was “warehousey”, painted white like a gallery, and hosted performance art and sculpture alongside dance music. When the project moved to Elephant & Castle, that mixed identity wasn’t lost.

Corsica slowly became a club over the course of the 2000s, partly because late-night events helped support the wider artistic programme: the bands, workshops, dance classes, and experimental projects that had always existed around it.

That rough-edged character never fully disappeared.

Jamie Shearer, who joined as general manager in 2011, remembered arriving for his interview and being struck by how DIY the operation still felt. The bar, he recalled, was literally “a plank of wood.”

Even as the venue developed into one of London’s most respected club spaces, that sense of roughness was always central to its identity.

The sound mattered. Corsica’s Funktion-One system was reconfigured over the years, tuned by people who understood the rooms through experience rather than theory.

The layout mattered too. With two roughly equal-sized rooms, Corsica pushed promoters away from simple headline-led programming. There was no huge main room designed for one obvious draw. Instead, nights had to build their own world across the building.

That helped create something more meaningful than a series of bookings.

Jaded, I Love Acid, Rupture, Plex, Colony, Machine, Trouble Vision, Find Me In The Dark, Small Talk and Evian Christ’s Trance Party all found a home there at different points. Some became closely tied to the venue’s identity. Others used Corsica as a platform before moving elsewhere.

The venue also hosted live and experimental performances from artists including Sunn O))), Four Tet, Björk, Florence Welch, and Thom Yorke, always remaining closely associated with underground dance music.

None of that happened by accident.

It happened because Corsica kept making space for unfamiliar sounds, unproven promoters, and ideas that might not have made sense in more polished rooms.

The Problem With Replacing a Venue

It is tempting to think of a club closure as a property issue: a lease, a licence, a building, a room.

That misses most of what made Corsica valuable.

A sound system can be rebuilt. A space can be soundproofed. A venue can reopen in a refurbished form. But what is difficult to replace is 24 years of accumulated trust between a venue and the people who built nights, friendships, careers and communities inside it.

Corsica’s staff, promoters and regulars understood the building in a way that cannot simply be transferred. They knew how the rooms sounded. They knew what kind of risk the venue could take. They knew how to support strange ideas before they became obvious.

That kind of institutional memory is fragile.

Rupture did not just rent a room at Corsica. It grew there. Its birthday events, murals, radio documentation and sense of community were built over years inside that specific space. This is true of many of the promotions that became connected to the venue.

This is why the story feels more complicated than open or closed, saved or lost.

Something can be preserved on paper, the name, the team, even the address, while the original feeling quietly disappears.

The Wider Context

Corsica’s closure did not happen in isolation.

All over the UK, nightclubs and grassroots music venues have faced years of pressure from rising costs, redevelopment, licensing issues, changing habits and the increasing difficulty of operating late-night spaces in city centres.

That backdrop matters, but it is not the whole story.

Corsica was not simply closed by indifference or financial collapse. It was squeezed by the difficult collision between an existing venue and new residential development arriving almost on top of it.

That makes it a London story as much as a nightlife story: a reminder that cultural spaces often survive for years before suddenly finding the city has changed around them.

What Remains

Even if Corsica returns to the same arches in 2027, refurbished and soundproofed, it will not be the exact version that closed in March.

The plank-of-wood bar, the white-painted gallery origins, the rough edges, the specific configuration of the sound system, the feeling of the rooms as they were, those things are so difficult to transfer. They either have to be rebuilt, or they simply become part of the memory.

What does carry forward is less tangible.

The artists, promoters, and staff shaped by Corsica are still active. The promotions that grew there still matter. The communities it helped sustain did not disappear the moment the doors closed.

The Corsica team has also been applying some of that same thinking to the Carpet Shop in Peckham, a smaller space running since 2024, which functions in some ways as an incubator for new promoters and ideas.

“We leave with our heads held high.”

^{- Corsica’s team}

That feels like the right note.

Corsica Studios was not important because of its capacity, its location, or even just its sound system. It was important because, for 24 years, it kept saying yes to people and ideas that might not have found space elsewhere.

A new venue, however well protected, will have to earn that trust all over again.

The version that already earned it has closed.

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Sources: DJ Mag’s Corsica Studios forever: the art and heart of a London clubbing institution and London’s Corsica Studios to close down in 2026, Resident Advisor’s London club Corsica Studios to close in 2026, NME’s London’s iconic Corsica Studios confirm 2026 closure and final events, London The Inside’s One of London’s Best Clubs Is Closing Next Year, Corsica Studios (official) Nothing Lasts Forever

HIFEELINGS’ connection with electronic music runs deep. Originally from Poland and now based in Southampton, his dedication began through the internet, production culture and the bass heavy music that defined a generation.

Over the past year, his releases have shown an artist in motion, drawing from personal experience, the people around him, and UK dance music culture without being to one genre or lane.

Can you remember when you first connected with electronic music, and what inspired you to start producing?

I kind of always had an interest in electronic music, rooted in me, with Skrillex being my biggest inspiration. About 10 years ago, when I was a kid, I discovered a YouTube channel, “Kaskobi,” and I loved watching his launchpad light show covers he did, specifically Skrillex’s ‘First of the Year’ cover. It’s like the guy would press a button on his MIDI controller and a light animation would appear along with the sound; it was super fascinating at the time.

The very next week, I went ahead and bought the same MIDI controller he had and downloaded Ableton and some of the projects he had been sharing, and since then I kind of naturally found motivation to learn the program and naturally dived into music production with time.

Was there a moment where UK dance music started to feel like the direction you wanted to take?

I think I gotta give credit to all the people who I went with to Boiler Room Liverpool in 2024, where I got to witness some of the greatest in the scene currently, such as Saint Ludo, Bakey and Skream & Benga. That honestly was the starting point for me where I became hooked and thought to myself ‘ah, this could be me if I put in enough hard work as they do’. It just felt so fresh, and seeing the crowd reactions became very motivating to start doing something.

Do you feel like you have a defined sound now, or does it still feel like something you’re evolving release by release?

My sound and new avenues I’m exploring are constantly evolving, and I don’t think I have found ‘the sound’ I want to stick with. I love Dubstep, I love UK Garage, I love Techno, and sometimes I have a battle in my head if I should keep experimenting or stick within a certain field. But also I feel like I should just not give any thought to it because every release I put out does contain a feeling and message in the tracks, and that kind of became my priority for the things I want to put out.

What non-musical influences (everyday life, art, club spaces, films, cities) work their way into your productions most?

Honestly, my northern crew of friends are the best thing in the world and keep me so inspired and full of energy (Shoutout Sazza, Hamez, joegarratt and my skrillcord crew). Having a mature crowd of genuine, grounded people who also happen to love UK music is, I think, what everyone needs. I love the fact they keep me humble and accountable and that we all can have deep talks about anything in life, and I guess I take bits of these experiences and put these types of messages in my music.

With tracks like “FRIENDS?”, “STAY” and “feeling more”, there seems to be a personal or emotional thread running through them. Are those tracks usually connected to real experiences, or does the meaning develop as the music comes together?

1000% these releases unveil a deep meaning to my experiences and personal events in the last 9 months of my life, mainly to do with breakups, being blindsided and not feeling like enough. It will all start to make sense soon, as they are planned to be a part of a bigger project I will be set to drop by the end of this year, so keep your eyes peeled.

Are there sounds, genres or ideas you’ve been wanting to explore that haven’t fully come through in your releases yet?

I definitely want to show off my heavier side of production within the Dubstep and UK Bass space, but I have no idea when I will be able to with the amount of sick collaborations I have ready to unveil within the rest of the year. But what I will say is there is a dope heavy one coming later this year with an upcoming LA producer, Martha, which has been getting rinsed already in the city, so we are stoked to unveil this!

Looking ahead, what’s the dream milestone you’d love to achieve in your Career?

Getting to play a big festival in the UK like Parklife or Creamfields would most definitely be the top of the list for me. I feel like it would solidify me as a name here in the scene and maybe get me some opportunities I can’t even predict yet hahah.

When you’re producing, what techniques, plugins or tools do you keep coming back to?

I love to stick to the default stock plugins for mixing as I think they are good enough straight out of the box. But my favourite plugin of all time that isn’t stock has to be the delay plugin called Comeback Kid by Baby Audio. Overall, the rule I stick to in production is ‘less is more’ in terms of cluttering the mix with elements that aren’t needed. You don’t need much to make good music these days.

A big thank you to HIFEELINGS for taking the time to speak with us, offering insight into his journey, creative process and the ideas behind his recent releases. Make sure to check out his latest single, “Take U There”

Stay connected with HIFEELINGS, and keep an eye out for his upcoming projects.

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Few cities are at the crossroads of dance & electronic music like Barcelona.

It is one of the most visited cities in Europe, home to some of the continent’s biggest festivals, and a place that thousands of DJs, producers, and music fans pass through every year. But, despite its international profile, Barcelona is holding onto something many cities lose as they grow: a genuine sense of identity.

That identity isn’t built around a single genre.

It isn’t techno in the way Berlin is techno. It isn’t bass music in the way Bristol is bass music. It isn’t defined by one club, one movement, or one generation.

Instead, Barcelona’s electronic music culture has been shaped by being open to new sounds, new people, and new influences.

For decades, artists have arrived in the city carrying pieces of somewhere else with them. Some stay for a season. Others stay for years. The result is a city that feels constantly in motion, absorbing ideas from Europe, Latin America, and beyond without completely losing sight of what makes it distinct.

The question isn’t why Barcelona became important.

The question is how it managed to become one of electronic music’s global capitals while still sounding like itself.

The Foundations

Barcelona’s rise as a dance & electronic music city is relatively recent compared to some other cities in Europe.

Cities such as London and Manchester were already developing strong club cultures throughout the 1980s, Barcelona was still emerging from decades of political and cultural isolation following the Franco era. The city had nightlife, but it wasn’t yet recognised as a destination to visit for electronic music.

That began to change in the early 1990s.

The 1992 Olympic Games transformed Barcelona’s relationship with the world. Infrastructure improved, tourism accelerated, and the city suddenly started to attract international attention on a scale it had never experienced before.

Electronic music arrived at exactly the right moment.

Within a few years, a series of institutions appeared that would define the city’s future: Nitsa, Sala Apolo, Mondo Sonoro magazine, and in 1994, Sónar.

Among them, Nitsa would become one of the most influential.

At a time when international DJs were still a rarity in Spain, Nitsa began bringing artists such as Jeff Mills, Laurent Garnier, Aphex Twin, Darren Emerson, and Todd Terry to Barcelona. More importantly, it introduced local audiences to a new way of experiencing music.

It wasn’t simply a club night.

It was a gateway.

Meanwhile, Sónar was establishing something just as important. Rather than presenting electronic music as a niche underground movement, the festival positioned it alongside technology, design, digital culture, and contemporary art.

That decision would prove to be hugely influential.

From the beginning, Barcelona’s electronic music culture wasn’t built around isolation. It was built around exchange.

And that spirit defines the city to this day.

Evolution

By the early 2000s, Barcelona had established itself as an important stop in Europe for dance & electronic music. The foundations were in place. Nitsa had built a loyal following, Sónar was attracting international attention, and the city had developed a culture that felt distinct from the club capitals further north.

The challenge now was different.

How could Barcelona continue to grow without losing what made it unique?

Tourism was accelerating, international DJs were visiting more frequently, festival audiences were expanding. As the city’s reputation grew, so did the risk of becoming defined by the people passing through rather than the people building the culture year-round.

Yet rather than diluting, Barcelona’s increasing visibility often strengthened it.

Unlike many dance & electronic music destinations, the city offered more than nightlife. Its climate, creative industries, international outlook, and quality of life made it somewhere people wanted to stay. Producers, DJs, promoters, and artists from around Europe and beyond began settling in Barcelona, bringing new influences with them and becoming part of the city’s fabric.

The result was a city that became more and more difficult to define by a single sound.

Where Berlin became associated with techno and London remained shaped by soundsystem culture, Barcelona developed into a meeting point. House, techno, disco, electro, ambient, and experimental electronics all found space to coexist, often within the same venues, labels, and communities.

Few artists embodied that openness better than John Talabot.

Born Oriol Riverola, he emerged as one of the defining electronic music producers of his generation. His music blends house, disco, Balearic influences, psychedelic textures, and leftfield electronica in a way that feels deeply connected to the city itself. It was dance music, but never confined by genre.

His label, Hivern Discs, became an extension of that philosophy. Rather than chasing trends, Hivern focused on distinctive underground music from both Barcelona and further afield, helping establish the city as a place capable of exporting culture rather than simply importing it.

Around the same time, a network of local labels and collectives began pushing the city’s sound into new territory. Imprints such as Lapsus and Adepta Editions gave a platform to producers exploring experimental, electro, ambient music, and more unconventional forms of dance music. Together, they broadened the perception of what Barcelona’s influence on electronic music could be.

By the end of the 2010s, Barcelona had become something unusual.

It wasn’t defined by a single genre, venue, or generation.

Instead, it had become a city where local identity and international influence existed side by side, a place shaped as much by the people arriving as the people who had always been there.

That openness is still one of Barcelona’s greatest strengths.

The Current Landscape

Barcelona’s electronic music landscape in 2026 doesn’t revolve around a single venue, genre, or community.

Instead, it exists on multiple layers that overlap. Long-running institutions sit alongside newer underground spaces. Global festivals coexist with local collectives. International artists move through the city while local talent continues to shape its identity from within.

What makes Barcelona interesting today is not the size of one layer, but the number of different worlds operating at the same time.

At the centre of the city’s club culture remains Sala Apolo and its flagship electronic programme, Nitsa. More than three decades after helping introduce a generation of clubbers to electronic music, it still has a huge influence on Barcelona’s nightlife. Not many venues have managed to remain culturally relevant for so long without becoming nostalgic. Nitsa’s strength has always been its ability to evolve alongside music rather than simply celebrate its past.

Elsewhere, venues such as Moog, INPUT, and Les Enfants Brillants reflect different sides of the city’s current identity. Moog remains one of Barcelona’s most resilient underground venues, providing a smaller, more intimate environment in the heart of the city. INPUT has become synonymous with technical excellence, attracting audiences who value sound quality as much as the artists themselves. Les Enfants Brillants, meanwhile, has quickly established itself as one of the city’s most exciting newer spaces, balancing international bookings with a commitment to underground and emerging talent.

Beyond the clubs, Barcelona’s festivals continue to play a defining role.

Sónar remains the city’s most internationally recognised electronic music event, but it no longer stands alone. OFFSónar has evolved into an essential part of festival week, hosting label showcases and artist-led events that feel closer to the pulse of contemporary club culture. Brunch Electronik has carved out its own identity with large-scale outdoor events, reflecting a style of dance music culture that feels particularly suited to Barcelona’s climate and social rhythms.

Together, these events have helped create something few cities can match: a year-round electronic music calendar that operates in clubs, festivals, outdoor spaces, and temporary venues.

However, for all its international visibility, Barcelona’s future may depend less on the artists passing through and more on the communities already there.

One of the most encouraging developments in recent years has been a growing emphasis on local artists, collectives, and independent promoters. As the city continues to attract global attention, there is a renewed effort to ensure that Barcelona remains a place where culture is created, not simply consumed.

That balance has never been easy to maintain. But it remains one of the reasons the city continues to feel alive.

And it is within that balance that the next chapter of Barcelona’s electronic music story is beginning to emerge.

Sources: DJ Mag, Catalan Arts

Emerging Trends

If Barcelona’s dance & electronic music culture has always been defined by openness, the changes taking place today are making that more visible than ever.

The city is not moving towards a single dominant sound. If anything, the opposite is happening. Genre boundaries feel less important than they ever have, and the influences shaping the city’s dancefloors are becoming more diverse.

Perhaps the most significant shift is Barcelona’s growing relationship with Latin American electronic music.

The connection is not entirely new. Shared language, cultural ties, and migration have linked Spain and Latin America for decades. What feels different now is how visible that relationship has become within club culture itself. Artists from across Latin America are appearing more on festival lineups, local collectives are creating new spaces for these sounds to develop, and audiences seem more open to forms of dance music that are from outside Europe.

Instead of simply importing trends, Barcelona is becoming a meeting point between them.

At the same time, local producers are beginning to have a more prominent place within the conversation.

For years, Barcelona’s reputation has been built largely around the international names passing through the city. While that remains an important part of its identity, there are signs of a renewed focus on the artists and communities already operating within it. From the experimental sounds from artists like TAWA and Metrika to the collectives creating spaces outside the boundaries of clubs, there is a growing sense that Barcelona’s next chapter will be shaped as much by local voices as international attention.

Another shift can be found in the way some people are approaching the dancefloor itself.

The growth of social media has changed club culture everywhere, and Barcelona is no exception. However, alongside the highly visible world of viral moments, festival content, and phone screens, there are smaller movements pushing in the opposite direction. Events that prioritise presence over performance, connection over documentation, and experience over visibility are beginning to find their place.

They are a relatively small part of the overall landscape, but their existence shows a broader conversation taking place in club culture: what people want, and what might have been lost along the way.

Sources: TNT Magazine Venga Store

Looking Ahead

Barcelona is not lacking attention.

Every year, thousands of artists, DJs, and promoters pass through the city. New venues open, festivals evolve, and new influences arrive from around the world. In many ways, the conditions that helped Barcelona become one of Europe’s most important dance & electronic music destinations are still there.

The challenge is not growth.

It is maintaining a sense of identity while continuing to grow.

For decades, Barcelona has benefited from absorbing new sounds, new communities, and new ideas without becoming defined by any single one of them. That ability to evolve has been one of its greatest strengths.

Today, this feels more important than ever.

The city is progressively acting as a meeting point between different cultures, generations, and approaches to electronic music. Local DJs share lineups with international headliners. European club culture blends with influences arriving from Latin America and beyond. Long-standing institutions continue to shape the city’s identity and new communities carve out space of their own.

Exactly where that leads is impossible to know.

What seems more certain is that Barcelona’s future will not be defined by a genre, a venue, or a movement. It will be shaped by the city’s ability to remain what it has always been at its best: a place where different ideas come together and evolve into something new.

Few cities have managed that balance for as long as Barcelona.

The next chapter of its story will depend on whether it can continue to do so.

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MR. SHAM G returns to SCREECH with “Lonely World”, a deep liquid drum & bass release that combines soulful melody with rolling dancefloor energy.

With rolling drums, warm melodies and a deep low end, the track sits comfortably between late-night introspection and club-ready weight. It carries the emotional pull of liquid drum & bass while still feeling built for selectors, with enough drive and low-end pressure to work on the dancefloor.

Following a successful UK radio campaign on his previous release, MR. SHAM G is now pushing further into the drum & bass circuit. His recent feature on FX909 MUSIC’s Liquid Base, Vol. 4 compilation placed his sound alongside established names in the scene, marking another step in his growing presence as an artist.

“Lonely World” feels like one of his most focused drum & bass releases to date. The production is understated but effective, allowing the track’s atmosphere to breathe while the bassline gives it the weight needed to move beyond purely reflective listening. It has the kind of emotional restraint that works in its favour, never over-explaining the feeling behind it.

Behind the track sits a quiet intent. Shamir produced “Lonely World” while thinking about the struggles many men carry without speaking, using drum & bass as the space to express that emotional weight. The track does not advertise the theme directly. Instead, it earns it through atmosphere, movement and a melody that ebbs and flows throughout.

“This song is about the quiet struggles many men carry but rarely speak about,” Shamir explains. “I’ve seen it around me, and I’ve felt it too. Even though the track has a lot of movement and energy, there’s also a heaviness and stillness woven into its emotion. I wanted the song to acknowledge that headspace honestly, and meet people there, not with answers, but with understanding.”

“Lonely World” arrives via SCREECH, the Bangalore-based bass music collective, record label and event platform dedicated to pushing forward-thinking underground bass music from India to a global audience.

Founded by Hellkitty and Hunnit D, SCREECH has become part of a growing movement helping to bring India’s underground bass scene into wider conversations. The label and collective focuses on championing unique voices across drum & bass, dubstep, garage and experimental bass music, while building culture beyond the dancefloor through releases, events, visual storytelling and community-led projects.

SCREECH and its artists have received support from internationally respected platforms including UKF, with releases from the label’s roster also gaining recognition from collectives such as STUDIO, DNB Spread and other figures within the global bass music community.

With a growing catalogue that moves across the different moods and sub-genres of drum & bass, MR. SHAM G continues to write for both the dancefloor and the listener at home. On “Lonely World”, that balance feels especially clear: a track grounded in emotional weight, but carried forward by rhythm, atmosphere and deep rolling energy.

“Lonely World” is out now via SCREECH. Listen here

Walk out of almost any rave or club night right now and there’s a good chance several of the tracks that hit hardest were IDs. No title, no label, no release date. Just a room full of people trying to Shazam something that isn’t there yet.

This isn’t new. Unreleased tracks, dubplates, and white labels have always been part of how dance music moves. Dance music has always been shaped by tracks that existed in booths and on sound systems long before they appeared in shops or on platforms. Exclusivity wasn’t a strategy. It was just how the culture worked.

But something has shifted in the last couple of years. DJs seem to be reaching for unreleased music more often, the conversation around unreleased material feels louder, and the reasons behind it have changed in ways that say something interesting about where the culture is right now.

What Changed

For a while, the logic of releasing music was straightforward. You produced something, you put it out, people bought it or streamed it, and having it available was better than not. Streaming platforms made distribution essentially free and reach pretty much unlimited. The case for holding music back seemed harder to make.

Then the economics of streaming hit properly.

The per-stream rates that producers receive, especially on the underground end of dance music, where audiences are passionate but not massive are negligible. A track with fifty thousand streams on Spotify earns somewhere in the region of £150 ($200) A well-received release on a respected underground label might generate enough to cover the mastering cost and not much else. The financial incentive to release, beyond visibility, is limited.

What hasn’t lost its value is the music itself specifically, the advantage that comes from having something nobody else has.

“A record that only I can play is a lot worth more to my bookings than a record that’s been out for six months and every DJ in Europe has on their USB”

^{— Leon Arendt, a veteran Amsterdam-based producer & DJ}

The Track No One Else Has

The term “ID” which once felt like an in-crowd calling card, has been appropriated by sites like 1001Tracklists to describe any unreleased song a DJ plays, and can be spotted on cardboard cut-outs held up at festivals. What was once a subcultural signal has become its own economy. (DJ Mag)

For established DJs, unreleased music gives them something other people don’t have. It differentiates a set from everything else on the same bill. It’s a reason for promoters to book you specifically rather than someone playing the same released catalogue. And in an era where the top tier of DJs are increasingly playing the same pool of tracks, having something exclusive is one of the few remaining ways to create genuine distinction.

“It’s the same thing as limited stock, sell out culture in fashion.”

^{— DJ Cosworth, head of HARDLINE}

The music that can’t be identified, can’t be found, can’t be purchased; that’s the music people talk about after the night.
(DJ Mag)

For emerging artists, the dynamic works differently but the logic is similar. Sending unreleased music directly to DJs they want to connect with is more meaningful than a SoundCloud link to a released track. A DJ who plays your unreleased tune is making a statement about your music that a stream doesn’t capture.

Where Tracks Prove Themselves

There’s another driver behind the rise in IDs that gets less attention: producers are using live rooms to finish tracks.

Testing reactions is one of the clearest reasons producers play unreleased music. A strong audience response helps producers decide whether to tweak a track, keep it as is, or shelve. This has always been true to some degree, but social media has made the feedback loop faster and more precise. Some DJs now openly test edits during sets and watch online reactions afterward to see which moments resonated most. In a way, the crowd has become an extension of the creative process.

The room tells you things a studio can’t. A track that sounds finished on headphones might fall flat in a system with real crowd. One that felt uncertain in the mix might cause something unexpected on a dancefloor. Playing unreleased material live isn’t just about exclusivity, it can also be an honest part of how the music gets made.

“I’ve changed the direction of releases based on crowd reactions more times than I can count. The dancefloor is brutally honest in a way that no A&R feedback ever is.”

^{— Aaron Redmond, a London-based producer}

The Platform That Emerged From All This

Platforms like 1001Tracklists and LiveTracklist have made track identification faster, more public, and more competitive than it ever used to be. Clips circulate within minutes, timestamped comments appear, and online communities collaborate to identify tracks. (Magnetic Magazine)

This has created something of an arms race. The more visible ID culture becomes, the more value there is in having tracks that resist identification (music that doesn’t appear in any database, can’t be Shazamed, and generates speculation rather than instant answers). What was once discovery has become a treadmill. What was once a treasure hunt has become a comment ritual. (Magnetic Magazine)

New infrastructure has started to emerge around this. Platforms like pl8list have been built specifically to handle dubplate distribution, offering watermarking, private sharing, and direct artist-to-DJ sales, describing itself as a secret third option built around exclusivity and being in the know. The fact that tools like this are being built at all suggests that the unreleased economy has matured to the point of needing its own ecosystem. (Magnetic Magazine)

Where It Gets Complicated

None of this is without tension.

When novelty becomes the primary value, musical storytelling suffers. Sets risk becoming previews rather than journeys. DJs become testers of future releases rather than curators of music history. And listeners, consciously or not, are trained to crave what they can’t have instead of sitting with what they do.

There’s also a question of access. The dubplate economy has always favoured artists with the right relationships; those connected enough to receive exclusive music, established enough to have leverage over when and whether to release. For emerging producers without those connections, the system can feel like a closed loop.

Then there’s the straightforward reality that unreleased music, by definition, doesn’t earn. Tracks sitting on USBs aren’t generating royalties. The advantage they provide is real, but it only converts into income if and when a release eventually happens. For artists who need the music to sustain a career, holding everything back indefinitely has its own costs.

“There’s a version of ID culture that’s genuinely exciting, music finding its form in the room before it’s finished, but there’s a version that’s just hoarding. The difference is usually obvious when you’re watching someone play.”

^{— Brian Houghton, a Liverpool-based promoter}

What It Actually Reflects

The rise of unreleased music in DJ sets isn’t really about nostalgia for dubplate culture, or a rejection of streaming, or even a deliberate strategy in most cases. It’s a response to a set of economic and cultural conditions that have made the old logic of releasing music less appealing.

When streaming pays next to nothing, when every track is available to everyone instantly, when originality is harder to create; music that doesn’t exist yet becomes one of the last genuine forms of currency in DJ culture.

The comments, tracklist hunters, and speculation around IDs are what happens when a scene built on shared discovery meets music that withholds just enough. It generates exactly the kind of conversation that a released track, available on every platform the moment it drops, often doesn’t.

Whether that’s good for the music is a different question. But it’s an honest reflection of where the industry is right now

The music exists. That part most producers have figured out. Studios are more accessible than they’ve ever been, the tools are better, the barrier to releasing something into the world is effectively zero. What hasn’t become easier is the part that comes after: navigating the distance between having made something and having it matter to anyone beyond your immediate circle.

That distance is where most artists get stuck. Not because the music isn’t good enough, but because good music and a career are two separate things, and the industry doesn’t always make that distinction clear.

The Myth of the Work Speaking for Itself

The idea that quality rises to the top is one of the most persistent beliefs in music, and one of the least supported by evidence. Plenty of exceptional artists have disappeared without trace and plenty of average ones have built sustainable careers. Talent is a prerequisite, not a guarantee and treating it as the whole equation is where a lot of emerging artists lose years of momentum.

This isn’t cynicism, it’s just an accurate reading of how the industry actually functions. Music doesn’t exist in a vacuum, it lands in a context (a moment, a scene, a relationship, a platform) and that context shapes almost everything about how it’s received. Two identical tracks released under different circumstances will have completely different outcomes.

The artists who understand this early tend to progress differently to those who don’t. They’re not more talented, they’re just more aware of the full picture.

Positioning Is Not Marketing

When artists hear the word positioning they often translate it as marketing, which then triggers thoughts about content strategies, posting schedules, and doing things that feel inauthentic. That’s not what this is.

Positioning is simpler and more fundamental than that. It’s about having a clear sense of what you’re doing, why it’s distinct, and who it’s for. It’s the answer to the question a promoter, a blog, or an A&R is silently asking the moment they encounter your music: what is this, and where does it fit?

Artists who can answer that question, not in a pitch, just through the accumulated clarity of their output, create a much easier path for the people who might want to support them. The ones who can’t tend to get filed as interesting but indistinct, which is a polite way of saying they don’t get followed up on.

This doesn’t mean having a rigid identity or forcing yourself into a box. It means knowing what you stand for well enough that it comes through consistently, without having to explain it.

Timing Is Underrated and Mostly Ignored

Most emerging artists release music when it’s finished. That sounds reasonable until you consider how much timing shapes reception.

Releasing into a moment when your sound is culturally relevant, when a scene is building, when a genre is gaining traction, when audiences are curious about something new is a meaningfully different experience to releasing into a quiet period or against the grain of what’s capturing attention. The music might be identical, the outcomes won’t be.

Timing also applies to readiness. There’s a version of premature release that’s almost invisible while it’s happening: artists putting out music before they have enough context around them to support it. No relationships with the right people, no audience primed to receive it, no narrative to anchor it. The track lands, gets a polite response, and disappears. The artist interprets this as the music not being good enough and goes back to make something better. But the issue wasn’t the music.

None of this means waiting indefinitely. It means releasing with intention rather than relief.

Relationships Are the Infrastructure

The music industry runs on relationships, and relationships take time to build. The DJs who play your tracks, the blogs that cover your releases, the promoters who take a chance on an unfamiliar name, these moments come from trust, familiarity, and consistent presence over time.

This is where a lot of emerging artists are passive in ways that cost them. They send cold emails into the void, get no response, and conclude the door is closed. What they haven’t done is spend any time in the rooms where those relationships actually form: at the nights, on the forums, in the communities where the people they want to reach actually exist.

Being present in a scene is not the same as networking in the transactional sense that word implies. It’s closer to showing genuine investment, caring about the music beyond your own, supporting artists you respect, building the kind of credibility that comes from being immersed rather than someone who appears only when they have something to promote.

The artists with the most sustainable careers tend to be deeply embedded in communities, that’s not a coincidence.

Consistency Does More Work Than Most Artists Realise

There’s a tendency to treat each release as a separate event, something to push hard for a week or two before moving on. Streaming has reinforced this in some ways. Single-driven culture, algorithm chasing, and the pressure to keep feeding platforms.

But the thing that actually builds an audience over time is less about any single release and more about the accumulation of them. The sense that someone is always working, always developing, always showing up with something that reflects a consistent point of view. The industry and audiences trust that.

Consistency doesn’t mean quantity. Releasing something you’re not happy with to stay visible is worse than going quiet. It means maintaining a visible creative practice, not just in music, but in how you engage with the world around your work. The artists who disappear between releases tend to find that each new release starts from zero. The ones who stay present tend to find that each release lands on slightly warmer ground than the last.

The Support Question Nobody Asks Early Enough

labels used to play a bigger role in developing artists. They signed you, built you, funded the infrastructure around your career, and took a significant share of what you earned as a result. That model still exists at the top of the industry, but for the vast majority of emerging artists it isn’t a realistic pathway, and waiting for it to arrive is another way of losing time.

What that means practically is that the support infrastructure (the people helping you think through strategy, make connections, handle the business side) has to be assembled differently. It might be a manager. It might be an agency. It might be a mentor who’s further along the same path. It rarely happens by chance.

This is the part of artist development that gets talked about least and matters the most. The artists who build careers never to do it entirely alone. They have people around them who understand the industry, can see the bigger picture when the artist is too close to the work, and can open doors that are hard to open from the outside.

Finding those people is its own kind of work and it belongs in the conversation about artist development just as much as making good music does.

Final Thoughts

The distance between producing music and being heard isn’t closed by making better music. It’s closed by everything else: the clarity about who you are, the patience to release at the right moment, the presence in the scenes that matter, the consistency that builds trust over time, and being willing to build support structures rather than wait for them.

None of that is as immediately satisfying as finishing a track. Most of it doesn’t feel like creative work. Some of it takes years to pay off in any visible way.

But the artists who understand that the music and the career are two separate projects, and give both the attention they deserve, tend to be the ones still around when it counts.

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It used to feel like a fixed thing.

You went out at night.
Everything that mattered happened somewhere between midnight and early morning.

That was just how it worked.

Now, we are starting to see something different.

Lineups starting at 2pm.
Events ending before midnight.
People are outside, in daylight, already a few hours into something that feels like a night out, just… earlier.

At first it felt like an exception. Now we are starting to notice it more often. And after a while, it won't feel unusual at all.

Does It Feel Like a Compromise?

The assumption is that daytime events are a softer version of something else.

Less intense and less committed.
Something you did if you didn’t want the full experience.

But that’s not really how they all feel now.

The energy can still build. People still settle into the music. There’s still that point where a crowd locks in and stops thinking about anything else.

The only real difference is the context.

You look up and it’s still light outside.

The Day Changes the Way You Experience It

There’s something about being in a space where time feels more visible.

At night, everything compresses. Hours blur together. You lose track of when things started and where you are in it.

In the daytime, that doesn’t quite happen in the same way.

You’re more aware of time passing. More sober. More aware of where you are. But does that take away from the experience or does it just change it slightly?

It Fits Into Life Differently

One of the reasons this shift is happening is practical, even if it doesn’t feel like it at first.

People go out less often than they used to. When they do, they want it to fit around everything else.

Work, travel, recovery. Having a normal day the next day.

A daytime event lets you do that.

You can go, stay for hours, feel like you’ve actually been somewhere and still leave at a time that doesn’t completely take over the next day.

It changes the balance.

The Crowd Feels Slightly Different

Not completely different. Just… slightly.

There’s less of that feeling of pushing through the night. Less of the slow build towards something late.

People arrive earlier, but they also arrive more intentionally. They’re there for the music, not just because it’s the only place left open.

The energy builds in a different way.

Not better or worse, just more immediate.

It’s Not Just About Avoiding the Night

It would be easy to frame this as people moving away from nightlife.

But it doesn’t really feel like that.

Night events are still there. Late sets still matter. That part of the culture hasn’t disappeared.

This feels more like an expansion.

A more accessible way of doing the same thing.

There’s Something About Daylight

Being in a crowd while it’s still light outside changes the atmosphere in ways that are hard to explain.

Everything feels more visible.

You can see people properly. You notice the space more. There’s less separation between what’s happening inside and everything outside of it.

It doesn’t feel as enclosed.

And that shifts the energy.

It Doesn’t Replace the Night

There are still things that only really make sense late.

Certain tracks. Certain moods. That feeling when everything narrows and the outside world disappears completely.

Daytime events can't recreate that.

They don’t need to, but they can offer a different version of it.

You Notice It More When You Go Back to the Night

After a daytime event, going back to a late one feels different.

Heavier, maybe. More immersive in a way that’s harder to access during the day.

But also more demanding.

You feel the contrast more clearly than before.

Maybe It Was Always Going to Happen

Or maybe it just feels like it was.

The way people go out changes over time. What fits into life changes. What people want from a night, or a day, shifts slightly.

This feels like part of that.

Not a replacement. Not a reaction.

Just another direction things are moving in.

It Still Comes Back to the Same Thing

Time of day doesn’t change the core of it.

You’re still in a room with like-minded people, focused on the same sound, letting it build into something shared.

That part hasn’t changed and let's hope it never will.

The rest, when it starts, when it ends, what it looks like from the outside has become more flexible than it used to be.

And once you notice that, it’s difficult not to keep seeing it.

Origins & Background

Before stepping into drum & bass, what did your journey into music look like, and how did you first find your way into the genre?

I’ve always been into electronic music, and before I got into drum & bass I was mainly making house. When I moved to Bristol for uni, I found the type of DnB that resonated with me most. The scene there is so rich, and the raves in 2018 / 2019 especially were unreal.

You come from a classical music background, how has that shaped the way you approach producing music today?

To be honest, I wasn’t great at the classical grades or theory side of things, and in a way that’s what pushed me toward electronic music. I’m not a super technical producer either, but being a slower learner has actually made me more playful and experimental. I haven’t mastered either side yet, but chipping away at both feels like it’s taking me in the right direction.

Production, DJing & Voice

You occupy a rare space as a producer, DJ, and vocalist, how do those three roles influence one another creatively?

I kind of see them all as connected. Since I was little, I’ve wanted to be the kind of musician who does a bit of everything and brings the whole vision together, so producing, DJing, and vocals all feel like part of the same picture for me. When I’m slacking in one area, focusing on it usually shows me what else needs work, so each side pushes the others. It keeps me evolving, and makes everything feel more cohesive creatively.

How does performing live shape the way you think about producing in the studio?

Love this question! The most meaningful sets I’ve played are the ones where I really feel that human connection, like everyone’s in the same emotional space. That feeling pushes me to go back into the studio and write music with intention, something that carries a message.

Developing Your Sound

How would you describe the evolution of your sound since your earlier releases?

I’m starting to feel like I can finally execute a more polished sound, at least I hope so. It’s always hard to judge your own work when you’re so close to it. But I’m definitely able to be more ambitious with my ideas now and actually pull them off. My early tracks had musical merit, but the production wasn’t quite there yet. I can hear the growth, even if I’m still figuring it all out.

Your music often balances melodic emotion with strong bass-driven energy, how do you approach finding that balance?

That’s just what I love to listen to. My favourite artists are the ones who create music with both sonic and emotional depth, so that style naturally what comes out in what I make too.

What influences, musical or otherwise, outside of drum & bass have played the biggest role in shaping your sound?

Technimatic, SpectraSoul, Nu:Tone and Pola & Bryson are my biggest DnB influences. I’ve always loved the deeper stuff too like Burial, Fracture and Dub Phizix. In terms of vocals, I grew up listening to Amy Winehouse, Etta James and London Grammar. They definitely shaped the way I write songs and the storyteller side of my music which I want to lean into more as I develop.

Growth & Opportunities

Being part of the Hospital Records Women in Drum & Bass mentorship programme seems like it was a significant step, what did that experience mean for you creatively and professionally?

Yes, absolutely! I learned so much about how the industry works, and they pushed me to develop my sound and think more critically about growing as an artist overall. I’m forever thankful for that experience and where it led me.

What advice would you give to producers, DJs and vocalists looking to break into the drum & bass scene today?

To keep at it! if you love it, just stick with it. Trust and nurture your creativity and what you’re trying to do. Feedback is important, but don’t change your vision for others.

The Drum & Bass Scene

From your perspective as both a producer and performer, what excites you most about where drum & bass is heading right now?

There’s so much creativity right now! The tools for producing, improving performances and making DnB content have never been more accessible, so all kinds of creative people can jump in and do cool stuff. Before, the tech was super expensive, but now it’s amazing seeing people think outside the box, carve out their own lane, and push the scene forward.

What do you feel the drum & bass scene might be lacking at the moment, and could it benefit from more representation or perspectives in certain areas?

The scene is definitely lacking grassroots events. Big raves are everywhere now, but my favourite nights have always been the small sweatbox venues where everyone’s locked into the music and actually dancing. With social media, people have shifted into being observers instead of partakers, and I'd love to see that change. 

I also think some promoters and labels could put more effort into genuinely diverse lineups and rosters. The talent is there, so there's really no excuse for the same white-male lineups again and again.

Creative Process

What risks or new directions are you excited to explore in your music?

I’d love to do a 100% Viridity set at some point. I’ve also been working with live musicians more, which is such an exciting direction for me. The Vibre Strings quartet and I did a show in Bristol, which was the highlight of my year. I want to bring that energy into my sets more and more… maybe sax, maybe piano… watch this space!

What part of the production process do you find the most challenging?

Definitely the technical side. It took me ages to get my mixes sounding even okay, and I still struggle. I just want to be able to execute all the ideas I have, but sometimes my technical skills hold me back. I’m always improving though, so hopefully it'll keep getting easier.

What production techniques, plugins, or tools have become essential in shaping your sound?

Great question. I love Fresh Air (Slate Digital) and Soothe (oeksound). They are the best for making the tunes sound so airy and bright but whilst keeping the mix clean. Gen Dopamine (Overloud) is also a fab compressor with a great quality to it. Those are a couple of the game-changing ones I’m using at the moment.

How does collaborating with other artists influence your creative process?

I’ve learned so much just from being in the studio with other producers. Sharing tips has levelled up my workflow, helped me get past so many roadblocks, and made my tunes way more polished. Honestly, I’m super lucky to have been around some really great producers along the way.

Looking Ahead

Looking ahead, what kind of impact would you like your work to have within drum & bass?

I just love the idea of someone feeling inspired after hearing my music. The thought that something I’ve made could spark someone else’s creativity is honestly so cool to me. So yeah… that’s the goal.

Do you have any upcoming plans or projects that we should keep an eye out for?

Ah well I’m releasing lots of music this year with Shogun Audio. They’ve been helping me polish my sound and build my project over the last couple of years, and I’m so excited to finally have the music out.

A huge thank you to Viridity for taking the time to speak with us, offering insight into her journey, creative process and the ideas shaping her music. Make sure sure to check out her latest single, Golden Skies with Acris!

Stay connected with Viridity, and keep an eye out for her upcoming projects.
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In Lagos, nothing really stands still.

The city moves fast, loud, layered with contradictions. It’s a place where energy is constant and clarity is harder to come by. And yet, it’s exactly here that FāëM have built a project rooted not in answers, but in a question.

What Are We Doing Here?

Their latest body of work, WAWDH?!, isn’t just a title or a concept, it’s a reflection of lived experience. One shaped by movement, dislocation, cultural excavation, and the overwhelming pace of a city that demands adaptation.

A Reality That Moves, And So Does the Music

When asked about their description of their sound as a “sonic transcription of reality,” the assumption might be that Lagos sits at the centre of that story. But for FāëM, it’s more complicated.

“We didn’t actually grow up in Lagos… we grew up in different parts of the Southwest,” they explain. “Our parents are civil servants… so we moved around a lot.”

That sense of movement, not belonging to one fixed place, becomes central to how they create. Their “reality” isn’t just geography, it’s environment, politics, and emotion.

“A lot of things that end up in our music come from our day-to-day… the political climate, the economic climate… all those things affect our sound.”

Before Lagos, their music mirrored a slower existence.

“The energy was calmer… mountains, trees… very green. The music we made was more laid back.”

Then came the shift.

“When we moved to Lagos, we had to increase the pace… we were not on the same page with the energy.”

It’s here that the idea of “transcription” becomes clear. Their sound doesn’t imitate, it reacts.

What Lagos Demands, Music Delivers

One of the first questions asked in the interview, how Lagos’ intensity translates into sound, almost answers itself through their experience.

“When we go to parties… there was already an energy you had to match.”

That energy wasn’t optional. It dictated structure, tempo, and intention.

“We had to make songs we could DJ… fast-paced and very groovy.”

But the influence runs deeper than BPM.

“There’s a lot of people in Lagos… it’s almost impossible to know everyone, but everyone exists in the same space.”

That density creates a kind of shared chaos, something FāëM had to learn to navigate both socially and sonically.

“It wasn’t something we did consciously… it was out of necessity.”

Music became adaptation. A way to exist within the environment without losing themselves entirely.

Rebuilding the Dancefloor

Another key question, what makes Lagos’ electronic music scene unique, reveals just how recent and fragile the movement still is.

Before house music took hold, nightlife followed a very different structure.

“You had to buy tables… overpriced tables… bottles. It wasn’t dance-oriented.”

Access was tied to status. Participation had a price.

Electronic music disrupted that system.

“It was cheap… just speakers and a controller… people gather.”

More importantly, it shifted the culture of the space itself.

“You don’t have to be rich… it’s a level ground for everyone.”

That inclusivity became especially important in creating room for communities that previously had none.

“The queer space… there was no room before. Now there is.”

In many ways, the rise of electronic music in Lagos isn’t just about sound, it’s about access, identity, and freedom.

Beyond Outside Influences:
Building Something New

From the outside, it’s easy to reduce Lagos’ electronic music scene to Afro-house or South African influence, something FāëM are quick to challenge.

“That’s what you would expect… South Africa has an upper hand.”

But beneath that surface is something else emerging.

“There are people building a Nigerian electronic music sound… something originating from here.”

It’s subtle. Still developing. Easy to miss if you’re not there.

“There’s this tiny momentum… it’s growing.”

And FāëM are part of that growth, not as self-declared pioneers, but as contributors to something larger than themselves.

Digging Through Time to Find the Future

When asked about their influences, the answer stretches far beyond genre.

Their entry point into electronic music, artists like Avicii and David Guetta, eventually led them deeper, toward Disclosure and Bicep.

But the real turning point came when they looked backward.

“Around 2018, we started to look into Nigerian music from the 60s, 70s, 80s.”

What they found wasn’t just inspiration, it was a gap.

“When people talk about Nigerian music history, they only talk about Fela… but there’s so much more.”

That discovery led them across the continent, Ghana, Zambia, beyond, uncovering sounds shaped by history, conflict, and survival.

“Africa’s music history is so rich… once we found it, we knew we had to explore.”

This process wasn’t passive.

“It’s not luck… it’s work… digging, listening, immersing.”

That digging eventually led to experimentation, particularly with Fuji music.

“It felt like a genre was born… combining Fuji with house.”

A moment where past and present didn’t just meet, they fused.

WAWDH?! A Question Born From Friction

The conceptual heart of the project comes from one of the simplest questions asked during the interview: what inspired you to build a project around such an existential idea?

The answer is anything but abstract.

“It started from frustration… we kept saying it casually, what are we doing here?”

A difficult period creative setbacks and personal disappointment pushed the question further.

“We made a beat… then a song… ‘we’ll make it through.’”

From there, the project unfolded naturally.

“It wasn’t planned… it followed the emotion.”

And that emotion was rooted in something specific: losing direction.

“We got to Lagos and got lost in the chaos… we forgot some of the things we held onto.”

The album became a way back.

There Is No Answer And That’s the Point

One of the most revealing moments comes when they’re asked whether making the project brought them closer to answers.

It didn’t.

“It made us realise there is no final answer.”

Instead, the question itself became the purpose.

“It’s something you have to keep asking.”

To explore that, they stepped away from everything Lagos represents.

“We removed ourselves from the fast pace… locked ourselves in… just to be ourselves.”

What emerged wasn’t clarity, it was understanding.

“You have to answer that question for yourself.”

Creating Without Forcing

Translating ideas like existence and purpose into sound isn’t something FāëM approach analytically.

“It wasn’t difficult… it was a feeling thing.”

If a track didn’t feel right, it didn’t make the project.

“We don’t force it… we let it go.”

Unexpected outcomes became part of the process.

“You go in with intention… and end up somewhere else entirely.”

Instead of resisting that unpredictability, they embraced it.

Two Minds, One Direction

As a duo, creative tension is inevitable, but for FāëM, it’s productive.

“We try both ideas… see which works.”

There’s no hierarchy, no ego.

“The goal is to make a song.”

Their roles shift fluidly, one focused on arrangement, the other on sound design, but the shared instinct is what matters most.

“We can both tell when something doesn’t feel right.”

And when they can’t?

“We ask our sister… she’s very blunt.”

Rooted, But Looking Outward

As their reach expands, another question emerges: how do you stay rooted while going global?

For FāëM, the answer is simple.

“It’s our lived experience… it’s not a gimmick.”

Their identity isn’t something they add, it’s something they carry.

And the goal isn’t just exposure.

“We want people to understand this culture… to learn.”

That ambition is already shaping their next step: a live show designed to translate their music into a physical experience.

“Not just a DJ set… a full performance.”

With a clear vision behind it.

“We want to take it to every city in the world.”

Let the Listener Decide

For anyone discovering FāëM for the first time, the expectation isn’t understanding, it’s interpretation.

“I want people to see what they will see… I don’t want to influence it.”

Because meaning isn’t fixed.

One listener hears devotion to music. Another hears love for a partner.

“That’s the point.”

What matters is authenticity.

“I want people to see the realness.”

And maybe, in doing so, feel encouraged to create honestly themselves.

The Question That Doesn’t End

If What Are We Doing Here? asks something fundamental, FāëM’s answer is ongoing.

In a city defined by motion, that might be the only way forward, not by finding answers, but by continuing to ask questions.

WAWDH?! (What Are We Doing Here)

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Origins & Early Breakthrough

What did your journey into drum & bass look like, and what first pulled you into the genre?

My first memory of drum & bass was hearing the Mind Vortex remix of "Silent Shadows" in a FaZe Clan montage — it just sounded completely different to anything I’d heard before. I kept replaying it and started digging into artists like Muzz and Feint Then a friend showed me Pendulum and that’s when I was fully hooked.

At what point did you start to feel that your music was gaining real traction, and what led to that?

It’s felt pretty gradual — each year since 2022 there’s been a couple of tracks that pushed things forward. Early on it was songs like "Forget" and "TURN IT", then my "Trigger Finger" remix getting DJ support. The biggest jump came in 2024–2025 with "Nonstop", "Worth The Love", and then my "A Bar Song (Tipsy)" remix which really took off.

Recent Rise & Momentum

Your rise has been incredibly fast, how have you experienced that growth?

A lot of it comes from work I did before releasing anything — I spent years just producing and getting better. Since then, it’s really just been consistency and treating it like a full-time job. Releasing regularly and improving each time has been the biggest driver of growth.

What moments have felt like genuine turning points in your journey?

2024 was a big one — supporting Luude and Chase & Status on tour and dropping my Nonstop album. Then in 2025, signing with Ivo Mayfield at Tealeaves and doing my first Europe tour was huge. Those moments really shifted things up a level for me.

Sound & Identity

What draws you to that high-energy, crowd-focused style of drum & bass?

I’ve always been into music that hits hard but still has emotion behind it. I like combining strong melodies and chords with sounds that really hits you in a live setting. Bringing influences from other genres into drum & bass is a big part of what keeps it interesting for me.

How has your sound evolved since you first got into production?

The core hasn’t changed too much — I’ve always liked experimenting and trying different ideas. Early on it was maybe a bit too left-field, but now I’ve learned how to make it fit better within drum & bass. It’s more about balancing originality with making tracks that actually work in sets.

Production & Creative Process

What production techniques or plugins are central to your sound?

A big thing for me is using sounds from outside drum & bass to keep things fresh. I’ve always used Xfer Serum a lot, but these days I focus more on picking the right sounds than designing everything from scratch. It’s more about what fits the track than just making the craziest bass.

How do you build drops that work both online and on big sound systems?

I try to keep the drop connected to the rest of the track by using the same chord progressions and ideas. That way it feels like a natural lift in energy instead of a random switch. It helps the track hit hard live but still feel musical.

How much of your process is instinctive versus intentional?

These days it’s mostly intentional — I usually have a clear idea and try to bring that to life. Early on it was way more trial and error, which was important for learning. Now it’s more about executing ideas properly while still leaving room for creativity.

Playing Live

How does playing live influence the way you produce?

Playing live definitely pushes me to make more energetic, DJ-friendly tracks. I think more about groove and keeping people moving the whole way through. Even the emotional parts now still have some rhythm to keep the flow going.

What have you learned from the dancefloor that you couldn’t in the studio?

What works in the studio doesn’t always work on a dancefloor. You really see how people react in real time and whether they can move to it. That’s made me focus on keeping tracks engaging from start to finish.

How has touring internationally shaped your perspective on the scene?

It made me realise how much bigger drum & bass is in places like Europe and the UK compared to Australia. There’s a much deeper culture around it. It’s also been cool seeing it grow in other parts of the world and connecting with those crowds.

"Gravity"

The drop in “Gravity” hits hard, how did you design that moment?

The drop was written by TANTRON, and I focused on the chords and intro. The main idea was to keep the same feeling from the intro and just push the energy up. That’s what makes it hit without feeling disconnected.

What was the process like working with Sophie-Grace?

Working with Sophie-Grace really gave the track direction. The “Gravity” idea came from her and it just clicked straight away. It turned the track from just a vibe into something with a clear theme.

What has the reaction been like playing “Gravity” live?

For me and Tantron, it’s tied to playing Rampage main stage to 10,000 people. That was the biggest show we’d done and a massive moment for us. Every time we hear the track now it takes us back there.

Advice

What advice would you give to producers trying to break into drum & bass?

Focus on making really good music first, but don’t ignore marketing. Try to build a sound that actually feels like you instead of just following trends. Consistency and hard work are what really move things forward.

What’s most important for building momentum as a new artist?

Consistency is everything — releasing regularly and staying visible. You need good music, but also have to push it properly and try different things. Don’t be afraid to fail early, that’s where you learn the most.

Looking Ahead

What are you most excited about for the rest of the year?

I’m in the middle of rolling out my next album, with the full 12-track project dropping at the end of May. After that I’ll be back in Europe for summer festivals. Playing Let It Roll is a big one I’m really looking forward to.

A huge thank you to YUSSI for taking the time to speak with us, offering insight into his journey, creative process and the ideas shaping his music.

Stay connected with Yussi, and keep an eye out for his upcoming projects.

Every DJ remembers their breakthrough set. The night everything clicked, the room responded, and someone important was watching. What nobody tells you is that moment is already fading.

It goes like this. You’ve been grinding for months, maybe years. Sending mixes into the void, playing to half-empty rooms, slowly building a following. Then something shifts, a night goes well or a promoter takes notice. The booking comes in, a real one, at a venue that matters, and you deliver. The room is with you. You walk off feeling like you’ve finally arrived.

And then you wait for the phone to ring again.

For a lot of DJs, that wait is longer than they expect. The breakthrough set opened a door, but it didn’t build a career. Understanding why and what actually builds one is the difference between a DJ who burns bright for a couple months and one who’s still getting gigs a decade later.

The Illusion of Arrival

The music industry, and club culture in particular, is very good at making moments feel like milestones. A great set at the right event feels like proof of something. And it is proof of ability, potential, and the fact that you can deliver when it counts. But promoters are not booking potential. They are booking reliability.

The DJ who got booked based on one exceptional set has demonstrated one thing: that they can have a great night. What they haven’t demonstrated is that they’ll have a great set every time. That consistency, the ability to show up and perform regardless of the room size, the sound system, the crowd, or the hour, is what separates the ones who stick around from the ones who don’t.

“The first booking is almost like an audition. We’re watching everything, not just the set (how they behave before it, how they read the room, how they handle it if something goes wrong). One great set gets you in the door. Everything else determines whether you stay.”

^{- Nathan Kershaw, London-based promoter}

What Changes After the First Gig

Before the breakthrough, your only job is to be good. There’s a freedom in obscurity — nobody has expectations of you, which means you can take risks, experiment, and find your voice without the pressure of having a reputation to protect.

After the breakthrough, the pressure increases. Suddenly you have something to lose. Promoters who’ve booked you once are watching to see if you’re consistent. DJs who came up alongside you are measuring themselves against your trajectory. The audience at your next event might have heard about you and arrived with expectations. The pressure is different, and many DJs don’t account for that shift.

Some respond by playing it safe: sticking too close to the set that worked, avoiding risk, becoming a slightly less interesting version of themselves. Others go the other way, overcorrecting into novelty, chasing a sound that feels current rather than one that feels authentic to them. Neither works particularly well.

“After my first breakthrough booking I spent about six months trying to recreate the feeling of that night, I was basically doing tribute sets to myself. It took me a while to realise that what made that night work wasn’t the track selection, it was the confidence. And I’d lost the confidence the moment I started overthinking it.”

^{- Nyxen, a Los Angeles-based DJ}

The Relationship Problem

Here’s something the “how to get booked” content online almost never addresses: the music industry runs on relationships, and relationships require maintenance.

Getting booked once means a promoter took a chance on you. Staying booked means you’ve become someone they trust, someone they want to work with again, someone they think of when a slot opens up. That doesn’t happen automatically. It requires you to show up as a person, not just as a DJ.

This sounds obvious. In practice, a surprising number of DJs are passive about it. They play the gig, do a good job, and then disappear: no follow-up, no engagement, no visible investment in the relationship. Promoters book people they know. If they don’t know you beyond one interaction, they’re less likely remember you, and you’ll be starting from scratch every time.

The DJs who keep getting booked are the ones who feel like collaborators, they come to other events, they’re invested in the scene, they recommend other DJs. The ones who only show up when they’re performing is not necessarily a dealbreaker, but it’s a signal.

This doesn’t mean being inauthentic or networking in a transactional way. It means being genuinely part of the community you want to work in. Go to the nights you want to play, support the artists you respect, and be visible in the scene as someone who cares about it, not just someone who wants something from it.

The Development Trap

One of the more counterintuitive pieces of advice for DJs building momentum is this: keep developing after the breakthrough, not just before it.

Most DJs treat development as a pre-career activity. You learn, you practice, you build, and then you arrive. But the DJs with the longest careers are the ones who never stop treating themselves as a work in progress. They’re still digging for tunes, still experimenting with structure, and still adapting to what’s happening in their scene.

The ones who stagnate are often the ones who found a formula that worked and stopped there. And here’s the uncomfortable truth about formulas: they have a shelf life, the sound that got you booked will eventually feel dated. What made your sets distinctive will get absorbed into the broader culture and stop being distinctive. If your development stopped when your career started, you’ll find yourself defending a sound rather than evolving one.

“Every six or so months I try to play something that scares me a little, not in a random way, it has to be honest, it has to feel like the next natural step. But if I’m not slightly uncomfortable, I feel like I’m standing still.”

^{- Juno Mark, a Stockholm-based DJ}

What Promoters Actually Want

Talk to promoters long enough and a consistent picture emerges of what they’re really looking for in a DJ they book repeatedly and very little of it is about the music alone.

They want someone who is easy to communicate with. Responds to messages, confirms details, arrives on time. These things sound basic, and they are, but they’re also apparently rare enough that they’re mentioned unprompted by almost every promoter who books regularly.

They want someone who understands the context of the booking. A DJ who can read what kind of event it is, what the audience needs at that specific point in the night, and adjust accordingly, rather than playing the same set regardless of circumstances.

They want someone who contributes to the event’s energy away from the booth as well as behind it. Who talks to people, who supports the other acts on the bill, who treats the event as something to invest in rather than a transaction to complete.

And they want someone who is progressing. A DJ whose sets this year sound better than their sets last year, who is visibly growing rather than coasting. Because booking a DJ is also a statement about the promoter’s taste. If you stagnate, it reflects on them too.

Building the Career

The DJs who build sustainable careers, not just hot streaks, but actual longevity tend to share a few characteristics that have little to do with raw talent.

They are consistent without being too predictable. They show up at the same level every time, but they find ways to keep their mixes feeling alive and personal. They have a point of view that develops over time rather than one that starts to feel tired.

They invest in community, they are part of something bigger than their own career. This could be a label, a collective, a scene, and that investment pays dividends in visibility, loyalty, and bookings that come from relationships rather than cold pitches.

They treat the business side seriously without letting it consume the creative side. They understand their value, communicate professionally, and build the kind of reputation that makes promoters feel confident putting their name on a flyer.

And perhaps most importantly, they play the long game. They don’t measure success by the size of the next booking, but by the direction of travel. A smaller event this month is fine, if it’s the right event. A bigger booking is great, if it’s one you’re ready for.

The set that got you booked was important because it got you in the door. But the career is everything that happens after: the choices you make, the relationships you build, the DJ you continue to become.

The door is open. What you do next is up to you.

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Ask a DJ what they play these days and most of them will pause. That pause is telling you something.

Not long ago, the answer came easy. You played house. You played drum & bass. You played techno. The genre was your identity, your community, your booking category. It told promoters where to slot you, told fans what to expect, and told the industry how to market you. Genre was infrastructure.

However, something has shifted. Talk to DJs and producers in 2026 and you’ll hear the same thing, phrased a hundred different ways: the genre label doesn’t fit anymore. The music they’re making doesn’t sit in one box and increasingly, they’re not sure they want it to.

Where Genre Came From

Genre labels in dance music were never really about the music, they were about logistics.

When record shops needed to organise shelves, when clubs needed to describe their nights, when distributors needed to file releases, genre provided the filing system. House went here, techno went there, etc... The categories were rough and often contested, ask anyone who argued about whether something was house or garage in 1993, but they were functional, they moved product, and they filled rooms.

The internet didn’t destroy genre. For a while, it made it more precise. Sub-genres multiplied: minimal techno, deep house, melodic techno, afro house, liquid drum & bass, neurofunk. Discogs became a cathedral of classification, music journalists competed to be the first to name a new micro-scene. Genre got more granular, not less.

But then algorithms arrived and it changed the game completely.

The Algorithm Doesn’t Care What You Call It

Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube algorithms don’t organise music the way a record shop does. They organise it by behaviour: what people listen to together, what they skip, what they save, how long they stay. The system learns that if you listen to a certain track, you might like these other tracks and it doesn’t need genre to do that. Genre becomes a loose suggestion at best.

For listeners, this has had a liberating effect because discovery no longer follows genre lines. A house fan finds themselves deep in a UK garage rabbit hole. A drum & bass listener gets recommended something that sounds closer to ambient techno. Tastes are messier, more eclectic, and more personal than the old filing system could accommodate.

For artists, the effect has been more complicated.

“I stopped putting genre tags on my releases about two years ago, I’d spent so long trying to figure out which box I fit in, and the honest answer was none of them. So I just stopped. And weirdly, my music found a wider audience than it ever had.”

^{- Modulux, a London-based Producer}

The Artists Pushing Back

The artists who’ve gained the most traction in recent years are often the ones who’ve most aggressively refused categorisation. They move between tempos, blend references, resist the elevator pitch. When you try to describe what they do, you end up listing influences rather than genres.

This is partly aesthetic, a genuine evolution in how dance music sounds, but it’s also strategic. In a saturated market, being uncategorisable can be a competitive advantage. You don’t belong to one scene, which means you’re not limited to one audience. You can play a techno night in Berlin and a festival stage in Barcelona and a UK club in the same month, and each booking makes sense on its own terms.

“Genre used to protect you, it gave you a lane, but now it can trap you. If you get tagged as a certain sound and that sound falls out of fashion, where does that leave you?”

^{- Selva, a Barcelona-based producer / DJ}

Where it leaves you is scrambling to re-label yourself, which is its own kind of exhausting.

What Promoters Are Dealing With

The collapse of clean genre categories has created real headaches for promoters, especially those who built their brand around a specific sound.

A night that positioned itself as a pure UK garage night three years ago now faces a dilemma: the artists it wants to book don’t play pure UK garage anymore, and the audience it built expects a certain sound. Do you follow the artists, or protect the brand? Several well-known club nights have quietly expanded their descriptions in recent months, “electronic music” replacing more specific labels on social media bios, SoundCloud uploads, and booking pages.

Not every promoter is comfortable with that. For smaller or newer nights, genre specificity still functions as a signal, it tells a potential audience that this night is for them. Losing that clarity can mean losing the niche that made you distinctive in the first place.

The Identity Problem

Genre has always been about more than music. It’s been about community, identity, and belonging. The community you joined when you decided you were a drum & bass person, or a house person was a social structure, a shared set of references, values, nights out, and record crates.

When genre becomes fluid, that community can fragment and some see this as a loss. The underground scenes that produced the most lasting music: Chicago house, Detroit techno, UK jungle were tight communities defined by shared geography, shared struggles, and shared aesthetics. Genre was the glue.

Others argue that the fragmentation is creating something new rather than destroying something old. Online communities have formed around curators, labels, and individual artists rather than genres. Thecommunity has become “people who follow this particular label” or “people who trust this DJ’s taste.” Genre is being replaced by curation as the primary organising principle of music.

So Is Genre Dead?

Not quite. Genre still has utility, it still moves the logistics of the industry, still appears on Beatport, still structures festival lineups into stages. It will be a long time before it disappears entirely, and it probably never will.

But as a cultural force, as a source of identity, community, and meaning in dance music it is weakening. The artists who are building the most interesting careers right now are often doing so outside of genre boxes. The nights that feel most vital are often the ones that have stopped trying to describe themselves as one thing.

What’s replacing genre isn’t chaos. It’s something more subtle: a shift from category-based identity to curator-based identity. You don’t need to know what kind of music you’re going to hear, you just need to trust the person putting the night together.

That requires more from the artists and promoters who want your trust. They have to prove the feeling, not just name it.

The pause when you ask a DJ what they play? That’s not confusion. That’s the sound of someone who’s stopped trying to fit inside a box that was never really built for them.

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There’s a moment that didn’t used to be there.

Or at least you don’t remember it being there in the same way.

You’re on a dancefloor. The music’s good. You’re moving without thinking about it and then, for a second, you become aware of yourself.

Not the music.
Not the room.

Just… how you look.

It passes quickly. You go back to the music. But once you’ve noticed it, it’s hard to ignore.

If you’ve been out recently, have you felt it? even if only for a second.

It Wasn’t Always Like This

Or maybe it was, just less noticeable.

You used to be able to disappear into a night more easily. Not because everything was better, or purer, or more “underground”, only because there was less pulling you out of it.

Less awareness of yourself.

You didn’t check how you were dancing. You didn’t think about where you were standing. You weren’t aware of how you might look from the outside.

You were just in it.

Now, every so often, something interrupts that.

Not enough to ruin the night. Just enough to shift it slightly.

It’s Not Hard to See What’s Changed

Some of it is obvious.

Phones are part of the room now. Even when they’re not directly in front of you, they’re there, in people’s hands, in the corners of your vision, in the possibility of being recorded.

And it’s not just the devices themselves.

It’s what comes with them.

The idea that a moment might be captured.
That it might exist somewhere else.
That it might be seen again later.

That changes how a space feels, even if you’re not actively thinking about it.

Social media doesn’t need to be in your hand to be in the room.

The Shift Isn’t Dramatic

That’s the thing.

This isn’t a dramatic change. It doesn’t take over the night. Most of the time, you don’t think about it at all.

But it’s there.

A kind of low-level awareness that surfaces at certain moments; usually when something draws your attention away from the music, even briefly.

You adjust slightly. You become aware of how you’re moving. Not fully, just enough.

And then it fades again.

The Split Second

It doesn’t take much.

A glance around.
A moment where the crowd feels slightly still.
A drop where people react, but not quite how you expected.

And suddenly you’re aware of yourself again.

Not in a dramatic way, just enough to step outside of what you were feeling.

You’re still dancing. But you’re also watching yourself do it.

That’s the difference.

You Still Enjoy It, Just Differently

This isn’t about saying people aren’t enjoying themselves.

They are.

Rooms are full. The energy is there. Nights still build into something that feels real and worth staying for.

But the experience feels slightly more divided.

Part of you is in the music.

And part of you is just aware that you’re there.

That you’re visible.

That you exist inside the space, not just inside the sound.

Some Spaces Still Lose It Completely

And then there are nights where none of this happens.

You don’t think about how you look.
You don’t notice who’s watching.
You don’t step outside yourself at all.

You just move.

Those moments still exist, and when they happen, they feel different straight away. Not bigger, not louder, just more complete.

Like something has dropped away.

You realise afterwards that you weren’t thinking about anything at all.

And that’s kind of the point.

You notice it more in spaces where phones aren’t part of the room, nights where they’re covered, banned, or just not really used. Not because that automatically makes everything better, but because there’s less pulling you out of the moment.

Less to be aware of.

It’s Subtle, But It Sticks

Nothing has been completely replaced.

It’s more like something has been added.

A quiet layer of awareness that sits underneath everything else. Most of the time it stays in the background. Occasionally it surfaces.

Just enough to be noticed.

And once you notice it, you start keep noticing it.

You Notice It When It Disappears

The easiest way to recognise it is when it’s gone.

When a room feels completely locked in. When no one seems to be looking around. When the energy isn’t being observed, it’s just happening.

Those moments feel rare in a way that’s hard to explain.

Not because they never happen. But because when they do, they feel almost surprising.

Like you weren’t expecting to lose yourself that completely.

Maybe It’s Just Harder to Forget Yourself

Not enough has changed to stop people going out.

Not enough to change what a rave is.

Just enough to change how it feels from the inside.

You still go. You still dance. You still have those moments where everything lines up.

But every now and then, there’s that brief interruption.

That second where you become aware of yourself again.

And once you’ve noticed it, it’s difficult not to wonder when it started.

Final Thought

It’s not that the dancefloor has become something else.

It’s that, sometimes, it’s a little harder to disappear into it completely.

And when you do manage to, even for a few minutes, it stands out more than it used to.

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