John Summit returns to Defected for the first time since his 2020 breakout hit.
Beatport’s best-selling artist of 2021, John Summit, returns to Beatport’s number one house music label, Defected, for his latest hit, “La Danza.”
The Chicago star’s new single follows a vast run of releases over the past few months, including “Human” (feat. Echoes) on FFRR, his collaborative tune with Sofi Tukker “Sun Came Up,” his remix of Purple Disco Machine’s “Dopamine,” and more.
With “La Danza,” Summit brings a high-spirited, Latin-infused vibe that incorporates his trademark infectious groove along with red-hot vocals and a butt-shaking bassline.
The established German DJ/producer Klaudia Gawlas showcases her tough-as-nails techno sound for Beatport’s Playlist of the Week.
I am so happy to be part of Beatport’s Playlist of The Week. I am a DJ and Producer from Germany. I actually started out learning to DJ in the US with the help of some hip-hop producers, but it was techno that was always my true love. I don’t think I have ever played anything else other than techno music, although I love all genres. I got hooked many years ago when I was listening to a Jeff Mills tape at the age of 13. That is still a pivotal moment in my career and always will be.
The tracks I have chosen for you in this playlist are those that make me move. Here, I have included some new releases from myself along with some classic tracks that just never get told and will always be an inspiration to me.
This is one of my new tracks with Gary Beck. We were sitting in the studio during the pandemic and produced this one. The bouncy bass is the leading part of this track. It is so energetic that it sets the dance floor on fire, and the drums support this energetic feeling.
Yves Deruyter – A Story About House [Bonzai Classics]
I am so in love with this track. It is from the ’90s, and I grew up with this music. The melody in the break is so catchy, and I love female vocals. When the synth sound comes in at the break, it sounds so amazing, and it is just mind-blowing for me.
Bastet – Behind The Life [Codex Recordings]
This track has an amazing build-up. At the beginning of the tune, you get an outlook about the later drop, with its amazing acid sound. Then the melody comes in and gets more and more intense. I love this melody so much, and the drop is fantastic.
Jens Lissat , Bonzai All Stars – The Machine [Bonzai Classics]
Bouncy bassline, very snappy drums, and a very cool and catchy arpeggiator. The aggressive lead sound in the drop is so great.
Klaudia Gawlas, Gary Beck – Partenza [Bek Audio]
This track that I made with Gary also has this excellent bouncing bass. The noisy sound effects and driving drums keep the floor on the right level. It releases some power on the floor.
Klaudia Gawlas, Gary Beck – Sakura [Bek Audio]
The atmosphere on the track carries you to another world. The pads and atmospheric sound in the background let me fly while hearing the track. It builds up very subliminal but very effective. I love to play this one.
Rephate – 66 [WarinD Rec]
When hearing this track, you automatically have to dance. The driving bassline is very pushy, and the supersaw lead makes the tune drive straightforward.
Yves Deruyter – Back to Earth [Bonzai Classics]
This track is a classic. I have so many nice memories with the sounds of this break. The bleep sound leads you right into the break, where it ensures the tension until the drop lead and the kick come in again.
Marco Ginelli, Mzperx – OMG (Schiere Remix) [Dreizehn Schallplatten]
There are so many amazing effects sound in this track that I love. For me, it feels like this track is just rolling and rolling. It’s energetic and powerful.
Slam – Bulgar [Soma Records]
I am such a fan of Slam. This one is a bit different, but the vocal is just great. I love how it slowly comes in and how it helps to build up so great. I always have an eye on tracks with vocals. It’s a good atmosphere.
Push, Joyhauser – Choir Of Spirits [Filth on Acid]
The vocal in the background is so amazing. I love this track because the melody in the break, with its shiny and plucky lead sound, brings me to another level.
Charlotte de Witte – Kail [KNTXT]
This one has a very tight driving bassline. The acid sound supports the build-up in such an impressive way. The vocal guides you through to the drop beautifully. It’s very modern and just on point. I Love it!
A.D.H.S – Raveline [Electric Ballroom]
This track by A.D.H.S. has a very great arpeggiator. I love the changes in the harmonics of the melody. The drums are basic but very effective, and the whole track pushes you on the right level.
Axel Karakasis – Timelapse [Planet Rhythm]
Alex Karakasis is always a good choice. The track is very groovy with its amazing rhythmic synth sound, which fades in with remarkable subtlety. The drums are snappy and support the groove perfectly. I also love the pad sound in the background, which beautifully enhances the build-up.
UDUBB – Don ́t Sleep [DSR Digital]
The bass drum in this track is so hefty, saturated, and energetic that it sets the floor on fire. The monotone vocal sets me in a meditation, and the evolving acid sounds build the song up very effectively.
Sikztah – Furyan [Mad Made]
I love the melodic sound in this one so much. It plays just four tones, but the sound design is very catchy. Some sound effects in this song are so organic, while others sound very artificial. It has just a top-notch vibe.
Andreo – Cavraex [PRAVVE]
The shakers in the background, the heavy bass drum, and the awesome rumble make this track so energetic. In addition, the lead sound plays a great melody making this song unique.
T78, Greenjack – xTc [Codex Recordings]
The rumble of the bass drum in this track is groovy at the very start. The lead sound rises and evolves organically until it stops at the beginning of the break. The supersaw lead sound in the drop is like an explosion of feelings.
Disfreq – Essa Mina [Diynamic]
This track is just great for me. I love the vocals, the bassline with its killer rhythm, and the acid sound that comes in while the tune builds up.
Kai Tracid – Rave the Planet (Klaudia Gawlas Remix) [RaveThePlanet]
I was so happy to remix this original tune from the legendary Kai Tracid. And seeing as it was also for “Rave the Planet,” it was a big honor to play this remix during Berlin’s new Parade. I just love the break. I hope this one makes you also dance!
In association with Black Artist Database, Beatport meets Black Rave Culture — the Washington D.C. trio that’s championing the dynamic and vital spirit of Black dance music. John Murph sits down with the group to discuss their musical origins, the gentrification of clubland, reclaiming the electronic music scene, and more.
The three months between March and May 2020 were indisputably one of the most transformative periods of many of our lifetimes. Toward the end of March 2020, everything in the world seemed to halt because of the devastating coronavirus pandemic. Loved ones were lost. Job securities were lost. Personal relationships became more frayed. The safety of our collective and induvial wellbeing was lost.
Then on Memorial Day of that year, George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police. Witnessing the horror on film lit the fire of a ticking time bomb, fueled, in part, by pent-up frustration with the stay-at-home lockdown because of the pandemic, and the swelling resentment of the Black community, which kept witnessing numerous unarmed members of the community killed by the police without any accountability. Even prior to Floyd’s death, we were trying to recover from the senseless death of Breonna Taylor, who, in March 2020, was killed by Louisville, Kentucky police inside her home, and Ahmaud Abery, who, in February 2020, died at the hands of white vigilantes, because he was jogging in the predominately white neighborhood of Santilla Shores in Glynn County, Georgia. But after Floyd’s death, the world erupted in many Black Lives Matter-led protests. A simmering racial reckoning had exploded.
Within that timeframe – that crucible – came Black Rave Culture, a trio of Washington, D.C. maverick DJs and producers, who, within a two-year timeframe, has ascended to the forefront of underground forward-thinking electronic Black music worldwide thanks to such mesmerizing cuts as “Columbia Rd (Uptown)” “Africa 808,” and “Trip to London.”
Each member of Black Rave Culture – DJ Nativesun, Amal, and James Bangura — embody the spirit of what legendary London drum-n-bass producer Charlie Dark, once coined “Blacktronica,” the explicit acknowledgment, affirmation, and connecting the diasporic Black roots of electronic music to other genres, ranging from dub, reggae, jazz and disco to jungle, R&B, deep house, techno, garage, and any other hyphenated new-fangled genre that burbling on the streets. Blacktronica comes with the sharp edge of socio-culture protest in the face of the continued appropriation of Black culture and eventual erasure of Black people from influential genres.
As Black Rave Culture prepare for shows in Miami, Los Angeles, and New York as well as finishing production on their forthcoming third release, BRC Volume 3, the three producers spoke with Beatportal inside Washington, D.C.’s posh hotel, Eaton. They talked about their origins; their individual paths to dance music; and why Black Rave Culture is so essential to the survival of 21st-century Black music.
James Bangura: Nativesun and I had known each other prior to that via Soundcloud. We’d shared music with each other. Nativesun also played a lot of my music on a Boiler Room gig in New York. That’s how we initially met, even though we were within the same musical circles on the internet.
Amal and I met at the end of 2019. I’d seen him around D.C. at the club, Jimmy Valentine’s Lonely Hearts Club, which did a lot of dance music collectives shows. But I didn’t know who he was. I didn’t find out until later that he ran with the same group of people. We actually met at Public Records in New York City. And it was mainly because I recognized him.
Amal and I initially started working on music via Splice. He moved back to Maryland from New York City to live with his parents. And I was here in D.C. I realized his parents lived down the street from me. Then Nativesun started coming over to my house. We just started hanging out. There were no plans of making a group. It was just us hanging out, maybe pouring a glass or two of wine, and just sharing ideas and making music for fun.
You all joined forces during the beginning of the pandemic. Talk about the effects the pandemic had on you all’s career at the time and on being creative in spite of it.
Nativesun: The pandemic forced a lot of creatives to move differently and think differently – especially for me because I was DJing. A lot of money that I was making was through DJing. But I had always been talking about making time for production. So, the pandemic gave me that space and time to free up my DJing stuff to really start production, which put me aligned with these two dudes.
I got hip to dudes who were producing tracks for a compilation on an all-Black record label in New York called Haus of Altr. The compilation basically showcased Black artists within the electronic music scene. So, I was part of that as well as James and Amal. We all noticed that we were all on it together, but we submitted individual tracks.
For the second compilation, we all submitted individual tracks. Then the third compilation came about we said, “Hey, we’re all from D.C. Why not represent D.C., come together, and make a track?”
We met at Amal’s crib, and we all worked on a track. What blew my mind was how quickly we made that track and how well we all meshed together. We were all on the same page. There were no egos. There were no weird feelings. We just respected each other’s individual styles and the way each of us worked.
Talk about collaborating on that one track for the compilation.
Amal: To be completely honest, it was super last minute. We knocked it out the night before it was due. I had chopped up an old XIB go-go song, “Whooh Lawd.”
Then Nativesun came over, and we turned into more of a club song. I wasn’t really 100 percent sure of how it was going to be received. It got picked up for us do an interview about it. And I think that’s when we started seeing what we really had.
Nativesun: A lot of our music comes out from a sense of having fun. A lot of our first BRC songs were joke tracks. But people loved them.The way we go about production is like musical chairs. We all have our own strengths. But it’s like we are putting together puzzle pieces. We will sit down, and someone would start something and when they feel like that get to a stopping point, they’ll say, “OK, who wants to jump on?”
Who came up with the name Black Rave Culture?
Amal: Technically, it was a track that Nativesun and I were working on. I think it was the second track that Tim and I collaborated on. When we were building a bulk of music and we had to think about the name of the project, I was like, “Why not call it Black Rave Culture.” The name had more meaning to it as we grew as a group.
The pandemic really gave us a chance to come together. Creatively, I’m grateful for it because it really slowed me down and taught me a lot of things in terms of production skills. I learned that it was as important for me to allocate enough time to developing my production skills as it was developing my DJing skills. The pandemic taught me a few life lessons – musically. I took a lot of hits financially from not DJing, but it has opened up a new door just working with these dudes. It closed one door and opened up another one.
Bangura: We needed each other. I needed those guys because there were a lot of things that I was going through at that time. I was in the U.S. army. A lot of things that were going on at the beginning of 2020 and down to the George Floyd incident made me reassess what my relationship was with the military and my identity as a Black man coming out of that and coming back into civilian life. I realized that I wasn’t a soldier anymore; I’m another Black man out on the streets. The fact that I’m a military veteran didn’t matter. I easily could have been George Floyd.
I had to cut off a lot of ties that I had in the military because of what was going on with Black people in America. That was like a death in almost an iconoclastic way. Losing a friendship is almost like that. But I gained friends, including – Amal and Nativesun. And that’s what I needed because, coming out of the military, I’m still navigating how to be a regular person and just exist.
Amal: The pandemic really opened up the world of dance music to me as a young Black artist. I wasn’t that involved with dance music before the pandemic. But I came out of the pandemic with a career in dance music. It was a very interesting time for people to ponder about who they are and to learn new things about themselves.
So, what music were you involved with prior to 2020?
Amal: I come from the worlds of hip-hop and rap. I was a music engineer; I also played in a bunch of punk bands. I was mostly DJing for rappers. I was doing house parties and college shows. I went to Howard University before I dropped out. I really got my chops from DJing at Howard, where I would play whatever diasporic Black dance music, whether it be rap, twerk music, or house.
Nativesun: I move around a lot with my DJ career. Growing up in the D.C. and Maryland area, my dad was a DJ. I grew up playing in go-go bands. I got into DJing a little before college. I did a lot of parties around D.C. then I started playing a lot in New York and on the West Coast. I played in London and at a lot of other places overseas. I had a residency at Velvet Lounge. I played in a go-go band called Indecent Exposure.
Bangura: I didn’t really get into DJing and dance music heavily until 2003. I was living in Newark, New Jersey, at the time. That’s when I got into Jersey club music. We used to go to Branch Brook Park, which had a skating rink. Kids would dance inside the skating rink. I actually moved from Fort Payne Alabama to Newark to live with my mom. That opened me up to a whole different world. After living there for a year and a half, I moved back to Alabama to live with my grandmother for a little bit. Then I got into hard techno music and the rave scene. I was about 16 or 17 years old at the time. A lot of people don’t realize that the southeast [in the U.S.] has a real healthy rave community.
There was a forum on the internet – Glowsticking.com. I got into that heavily because I was a dancer. Around 2004, I moved to California. I lived in Riverside. The population is mainly Mexican. So, I got a chance to experience a lot of Mexican DJs. Around 2006 or 2007, that’s when the whole Bloghouse thing started happening. And a lot of early European DJs started coming over. I promoted parties until 2010. That’s when I joined the military.
I was into breakdancing. My mom was a dancer and my uncle was a dancer. My mom put me in tap dancing when I was three. So, I come from the dance realm. I had no intentions of becoming a DJ. A lot of my inspirations come from my dancing background. When I’m making music, I’m thinking about dancing and how my body is going to respond to it.
Thanks to Beyonce’s new album, Renaissance and Drake’s new album, Honestly, Nevermind, mainstream culture is reacquainting itself with deep house music. But it never really left Washington, D.C. Still, the gentrification of the city has impacted it dramatically in the last two decades. It was once called Chocolate City not just because of its majority Black population but the agency in which Black people held on a political, social, cultural and economic level. What effects have you seen gentrification on the current club scene in D.C.?
Nativesun: There were a lot of scenes in the late-’90s that were funkier. But the generation that I was coming up within were going to different parties at different venues. I was going to places like Flash that had a certain kind of crowd and vibe. I was always sitting there thinking, “Why we ain’t in here?” The crowd was predominately white. I kept thinking, “Why aren’t we in some of these bigger clubs or so-called cool clubs?
I was listening to the music that these cats were spinning and see these super EDM cats playing Baltimore club music or Jersey club music. And I was like, “Wait a minute. The cats that make this music are Black. Why aren’t they on these stages?” It just started to ring a bell to me through traveling and seeing the same thing in other cities.
For many of the club owners and event producers, it was more about selling tickets, getting the big numbers, and wanting to keep their crowds a certain way. Some club owners would tell me, “Oh, we don’t want to play that type of music on the weekends. We want a certain style.”
Bangura: It really is that idea of marketability and accessibility. This has been happening all over the United States. A lot of these venues, especially in California, are charging people between $60 and $80 to go to a nightclub. I remember in 2004, I was paying $80 to go to a three-day festival. You have to be naïve to not know that for these platforms, they don’t feel like Black artists are marketable. It’s very evident. If you do a side-by-side comparison of marketing for a lot of these club owners and concert producers, they want a certain aesthetic. And it’s always a visual aesthetic. But the music never hits the bar that it needs to.
Every time we’ve played in spaces that were predominately white, the owners are shocked, because they didn’t expect that many people to attend, or they never heard any Black DJ play music like that. Well, the fact of the matter is that they were usually bringing in artists that weren’t hitting that high level of music quality. The artists that they were usually bringing in were hitting two things – marketability and the fact that people are going to pay a premium to see themselves in front of them. And that springs another conversation about what people want out of a dance music experience. Do they want to listen to music? Or do they want it as background noise and be around so-called beautiful people?
Amal: Right now, we are in a time where everything seems to be aesthetically driven – it’s more about how it looks than how it sounds. I think they use Black talent as a picture board and try to insert Black aesthetics without any feeling or direction in these spaces where people mimic what we do where they feel space. That’s a big problem in D.C. because it doesn’t give a lot of Black talent any visibility for younger people coming up. There are a bunch of kids who are younger than me who want to know about drum-n-bass. There are a bunch of Black kids making music around D.C. and Maryland and they don’t get to play at any shows. They’re not getting their songs played at Fabric or on these huge playlists.
Growing up, I didn’t know if was even safe for me to explore electronic music or make it myself. I didn’t even know if that was a place for me until I saw Nativesun DJ. When I saw him, I was 16. He introduced me to footwork and drum-n-bass. I used to call it Adult Swim music because that was the only time I would hear it. The first time I played at a proper rave, it was with Nativesun. That goes to show you how little we have regarding that.
But mainstream Black culture can also be confining, especially if it veers away from hip-hop. Talk about the struggles of navigating the mainstream Black nightlife scene.
Nativesun: In D.C., I’m in an interesting space. One minute I could be doing Black Rave Culture shit, and the next minute I could have a residency at one of the Top 40 clubs. It was always a struggle. I had a residency at Velvet Lounge on Saturday night. You’d get everybody walking into that joint. For me, it was like, “How can I make these motherfuckers love dance music in that way that I love it?” I had to mix it in with the regular Top 40 shit but in a special way at a certain time of the night.
DJ Underdog and I would do that with footwork. Footwork was not popular in D.C. like that, because it’s really fast; it’s like 160 BPM. We would play that shit at a party we called, OkayAfrica, where we played African music. We had to get people up to that point where we could sneak that shit in, where they trusted us. It was an uphill battle.
I would play house music, and my own brothers and sisters would look at me and say, “What’s this shit you’re playing? Play something that we can dance to?” I’m like, “If you listen to it, you’d be able to dance to it because house music has the same rhythm as your heartbeat.”
Bangura: The beautiful thing about this is you that can’t really avoid that. Even within our own spaces, there will be a point of education. And it’s also about relationships. It’s about the trust built between the DJs and the crowd. It’s about slowly feeding them this music instead of just throwing it at them.
Growing up and listening to dance music at an early age, I was always the super nerdy kid. I was listening to jungle music. One of my first jungle CDs was a sampler from URB magazine; it was DJ Craze. That was in 2001. I was the only black kid in our crowd listening to jungle. I was listening to hardstyle, trance. We are making sure that folks understand that Black people aren’t a monolith.
Amal: We are reclaiming our space in electronic music in the present tense. It’s more of a mission for me right now to show people that this is the new generation of kids who know what’s going on. We are educating our peers. So, you’re either on this train, or you’re not. There’s more room for us to now only reclaim but reallocate resources to take fuller control of what we’ve made. Besides the big music industry that we have to tussle with, we have the power right now. We need to shift the narrative because we are the narrative.
Black Artist Database is a community-based entity, centred around their artists’ database, which hosts a wealth of Black-owned record labels, artists, producers and bands. In addition to the database, B.A.D. undertakes various projects and initiatives to uplift Black voices within the electronic music community & industry. Black Artist Database also recently launched a Creative Database hosting an even broader range of Black creative professionals across various disciplines. Find them on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
John Murph is a Washington, D.C.-based music journalist who has written for TIDAL, NPR Music, Washington Post, JazzTimes, Down Beat, and The Atlantic. He’s also a DJ. Find him on Twitter.
There is no lack of accolades to speak of between these two dance floor icons. Van Helden’s storied 30-year career has treated us to chart-topping hits like “U Don’t Know Me,” “My My My,” “I Want Your Soul,” and so many others, not to mention his festival headlining project Duck Sauce with A-Trak. As the leader of one of Beatport’s all-time top-selling labels, Toolroom, the venerated Mark Knight is one of the scene’s most prolific DJs and producers. With a dizzying amount of tracks to his name, some of his more recent successes include his Mason collaboration “Givin’ Up,” his Darius Syrossian link-up “Get This Feeling,” and “I Can’t Go For That” with Gene Farris.
Even though both of these artists have worked with almost every renowned act in clubland, “The Music Began To Play” is this pair’s debut collaboration, and trust us when we tell you that it’s a match made in house music heaven. Listen below.
Centered around a priceless disco sample from the 1979 T.J.M record “I Don’t Need No Music,” Mark and Armand’s love for classic cuts shines brilliantly throughout the track, accompanied by a euphoric groove, a tireless bassline, and rock-solid drum work. The result is a timeless dance floor tune in the making from two of house music’s best and brightest.
Armand Van Helden and Mark Knight’s joint single “The Music Began To Play” is out now via Toolroom. Buy it on Beatport.
The British house music star puts a modern dance floor spin on an R&B classic.
The widely-admired DJ/producer Hot Since 82 returns to his Knee Deep In Sound label with a slick tech house rework of Bell Biv DeVoe’s debut ’90s hit, “Poison.”
This latest dance floor offering is the third original single from the UK artist this year, following up his driving “Heater” on Circus Recordings and “Out The Door” on Knee Deep In Sound, which also released a six-track remix EP of his immense 2018 track, “Buggin’.“
With its ear-catching and instantly recognizable vocal, Hot Since 82’s “Poison” comes in hot for the summer season with electrifying kicks, a vivacious bassline, and a groove that just won’t quit. Listen below.
Speaking on the track, he says: “Poison is a straight-up club tool I’ve been playing lately, and the reaction has been overwhelming!”
Hot Since 82’s new “Poison” single is out now via Knee Deep In Sound. Buy it on Beatport.
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