Monthly newspaper and online publication targeting 18 to 35 year olds. The ultimate guide to the hottest parties, going out and having fun. Music, fashion, film, travel, festivals, technology, comedy, and parties! London, Barcelona, Miami and Ibiza.
Issue link: https://read.uberflip.com/i/586287
How are you? Are you well? Yeah I'm cool. It's amazing, chilling back in London, I got my girlfriend in town. You've lived in Detroit and Berlin and now here, are you excited about coming here? Are you still feeling London? Yeah, yeah I love it. Every time I come back it's just cool. Something about it is fast but slow paced and how the neighbourhoods are really neighbourhood-y, it's something that you don't really find in such a metropolitan city. It's really the centre of the world I think. How's Smokey Tails? It's ok, we're in like a point of transition. We just did Glastonbury and food at the Acid Future and now we're just trying to come up with a viable business plan that we can really make real. We've tried a couple things that haven't really worked so far, creating a stand-alone restaurant, like our hub, and we haven't been successful so we found that through time, and I'm not a businessman but I'm trying to become one or trying to fake it till I make it I guess, you just figure out things. You were born in '86 is that right? '85, '85. '85, so you were three, four years old when your parents were listening to 'Voodoo Ray'. It's a weird time when you grew up and it must have been mad interesting in Detroit, Perlon was a huge influence for you right? Yeah they started coming over with Ritchie Hawtin in like 2000, guys from Perlon, Ricardo Villalobos and the German dudes. Detroit radio when I was a kid, it was incredible to hear songs like 'Shari Vari' or 'Strings of Life', all that stuff was on all the time, everyday on the radio was all these Detroit classics. It was just normal music. Also Motown music and a lot of other great stuff, it was such an incredible experience to be born into that time of such musical heritage. You say you weren't the biggest fan of rap and I thought it was really interesting that you were fighting the image of the culture. Yeah, yeah, when I was growing up I felt like there were a lot of things I had to overcome, prejudices, being a teenage man of colour, due to the negative stereotypes portrayed in urban music. Just the other night I was watching Friday the movie, I love the movie Friday but now that I'm a bit older and more conscious and turned-on, it was at times a bit unsettling. Some of the language used in this movie, language that became catchphrases and were adopted by our cultures, that ultimately creates this very ignorant, uneducated stereotype. Through urban music and other things, some of the language used is in a way storytelling but systematically oppressing people in a way. So forever myself, I don't want to become this stereotype that I was surrounded by, so I made a real effort not to listen, and not identify with that kind of music because it wasn't identifying with the life I was living. It's big in areas where it's real life and it's big in areas like the suburbs where white suburban kids are like "this shit's so gangsta" but they have no real view or idea of the reality of those words. I knew the reality of these words, it's not just some make-believe story, this is real shit and I don't wanna associate with that shit, I'm gonna listen to this other shit like techno. That was a big decision for me, it's kind of why I'm here today in many ways because I wouldn't allow myself to be part of that. It's interesting because I wanted to ask you do you still encounter racism now being a top DJ? I have. One time at this one festival I encountered it. Day to day I don't really think so much in our industry per se but I think in society, there are things that are out there. I'll be travelling and something happens, maybe it's how I look or how me and my tour manager look, he's Cuban, like everybody else in here is being served and we're in jeans and sneakers, is it how we look? I have quite a successful business and all the same things, even though you don't need that stuff to get into places, but like why is this guy in a suit getting preferential service? I don't know if that's classism or racism or just age, there's stuff but that's just how the world is. I know you talk about diversity, and I was speaking to Carl Cox once and he said that he's really happy that when he goes out he brings people together. He might be in South Africa and because of him there might be more black people out there. Do you know how important you are for people of colour, just being that diversity in the club let alone being the DJ? Yeah, yeah it's a crazy thing. I guess I don't really think about it so much but I do realise and see that more and more of my fans are younger people of colour and it's really cool. It makes it seem possible, that's the thing when we started Tuskegee with the Martinez Brothers, it was just creating a situation where it seems possible. Often, let's say you're in the ghetto, you just need to be able to start to dream because so many times if you're poor, any colour, and so many generations before you are poor, you don't see an escape from the situation you are in and you can't really start to believe in something more. That's part of the system and it's really hard for those people to escape the system. You mentioned Tuskegee, big up for the name. Going back from my education we know about the syphilis experiment, why exactly did you choose the name? I grew up aware of all this stuff and I've always liked the name, and a long time ago I was like "that would be a sick house label name", it sounds roots-y and African. Then the Martinez Brothers and I were having this conversation about how it was really kind of weird that there was music that started predominantly from Latinos and black people in America but there were no more Latinos or blacks making house music. It was just like, not that we were mad about it, but it was an observation, and then how much this music's been able to change our lives, give us these incredible lives of travelling the world and we came from very lower middle class families, just getting by. We wanted to create a platform for other people of our kind of backgrounds to look at and see it's achievable, these guys are cool, they're doing it, we're really positive, we're trying to make change and spread that light and that idea. We were like "yeah let's create a label where we focus on finding artists who are unknown or starting to get known with our same backgrounds, and promoting them", not in a racist way, just like why not? There's a label from Germany with only German people, by chance, but nobody's talking about that. I'm not sure if you witnessed it, we watched the transition through hardcore to drum and bass to jungle, there was a really interesting time in London where that music got crazy diverse and it was a 50/50 black and white thing. That's what it's all about. By no means are we trying to separate people, it's more about bringing people together and showing that we have a lot of similarities, and that we all contribute to the arts, to music and to society. Ultimately the more people that come together the better, that's the point, that's when it's the best. A dancefloor, mixed crowd, gay, straight, all different colours of people, it's sick. Where do you find that the most? I don't know where it's happening, I guess Fabric there's a mix, sometimes Panorama Bar. Detroit Music Festival, it's a good mix. You're like a 3-40k a night kinda guy. This is a long way from three of you sleeping on a futon in Berlin, so what's the best part of that journey? I think the craziest thing is, as to the fact that I come from really nothing, is being able to take care of my family and also knowing what it's like being totally skint, like skint, skint, skint. So if you know what it's like being skint, when you start to get money you don't really waste it. I just helped build a well for a tribe in the Amazon, I'm trying to build them a school, that stuff's cool, it makes you feel kinda good. I just had a meeting today with a financial planner telling me to plan, a lot of people make money, like rappers, and then they lose it all. When your skint it's not like we're taught money management because nobody's got money, it's like you just gotta figure it out. It's pretty crazy that someone pays the money that they pay DJs to play records, but it makes sense because it's drawing people to a place, people pay to get there, the club's making money. DJs should make a fair share of bringing people to clubs, I really believe in that, it's just fair business but overall it's a crazy experience. It's nice to get to eat what I want and go on vacation when I want but it's also like constantly hustling. You've always said you have to put in 110% to make it, are you still putting in that 110%? Yeah maybe even more these days. It's nice to make it but it's pretty bad to lose it, so it's quite a lot of pressure I would say, you gotta stay on. And also for yourself, you wanna grow, you wanna become better, we should all want these things. I think you dealt with being number one DJ in the world really well. Do you think you're gonna cope with coming back from that spot as well? Yeah I've stayed in the top five which is cool. I think the year I became number one I played music in a way that I wasn't really happy and I was playing kinda bullshit stuff and a lot of effects, and it was cool but now I'm playing music I really love. I'm going to the record store a lot, I'm playing feeling like I'm becoming a better DJ, like a real, real DJ, rather than a lights and show DJ, so it's cool, I'm comfortable. I don't really care anymore. Awards don't mean much, when you're a big DJ you have fans whose lives you change, important shit, so for you what are you most proud of that you've achieved? I'm not really satisfied but as you said with the fans, sometimes I meet people and they're so happy, telling you stories and stuff, that's inspiring, I don't know how to describe the feeling. You guys are here asking me questions and I'm just a guy hanging out in his living room. I'm making it up as I go. This is really interesting because you said your biggest dream could be your worst nightmare, when you get success, you've achieved the goals and things you've dreamt of, and then you're there so you have to have new goals. So what are your new goals now? It's true. I think next year I'm going to take less gigs and focus on the things I've already got with the labels and trying to make those bigger and better, and work on the restaurant. Those are the big things. I know you're gonna achieve this, this is a given, you are going to have a very successful restaurant. I do not want to count that as one of the things you want to achieve. I guess the thing after that is a family. Family's big for me. I got this whole plan, I'm gonna do this for ten more years and then become like ghost dad. Yeah I think family is a big thing, it's something that I've always wanted, something I want to experience. I think love is one of the biggest experiences. You gotta experience love. You're in a relationship now, and I'm glad because I hear that sometimes when you're not your sets are all fucked up. Yeah it's true, I got too much to worry about, thinking about getting it. My girlfriend's here, been together almost a year now, and it's really cool. She works in finance, she's a City girl and I do this, we're so different but so alike in our goals and what we want in life. You did say that sometimes it's hard having relationships on the road but I put to you that sometimes absence makes the heart grow fonder, blah, blah, blah, but also if you have a girlfriend out on the road, sometimes you meet other girls and are like "hey I know she's right", you know you're not interested. That is one thing that the road does show you is women you don't want to be with [laughs] especially in clubs. It does, it's amazing, every time we're together it becomes like this event, we have this countdown period and this whole thing. 7 27 Issue 80 / 2015 HOUSE/ tEcHnO guestlist.net I'm very happy to be here with the mum and the creepy uncle of house music. The darling of the Detroit scene booked Magda at 15, his first European tour was to play Panorama Bar, he's played every club that means anything and residencies at all the important venues, and he's been numbers four, three, two and one on the world's best DJ lists "A dancefloor, mixed crowd, gay, straight, all different colours of people, it's sick "