RA Exchange

"A system that's equal doesn't benefit the people that have the power." The Rhythm Section International founder talks about creating opportunities for Black artists and entrepreneurs, Caribbean conviviality and his abiding love for Peckham. Bradley Zero, the DJ and founder of the label Rhythm Section International, is known for his commitment to his community. Zero grew up in a rich Caribbean culture in Leeds, where he and his family gathered in friends' living rooms to listen to music and eat home-cooked food. In opening Jumbi—the bar and listening space in London's Southeast neighborhood, Peckham—Zero has attempted to recreate this lively Caribbean conviviality. The venue is filled with his own personal record collection and one turntable. His style (as reflected in his imprint) celebrates house, soul, disco, funk and various shades of music from the afro-Caribbean diaspora. In this RA Exchange, he talks about how the neighborhood has changed in the time he's been based there, how and when his career exploded from local pool hall gigs to an active global touring schedule and why he decided to study for an MBA. October is British Black History Month in the UK, and in this interview, Zero also discusses ways that he hopes to empower the Black British community to start their own businesses and assert power from the top echelons of the music industry. Rhythm Section International has started a touring series of free masterclasses called Future Proof, in which Zero and his team invite guests to teach hard skills on business and label management, how to cultivate a brand and much more. Listen to the episode in full.

"There are so many different takes on reggaeton." The Latine supergroup discusses dembow, Afro-Caribbean music and more in this Playing Favourites live from C2C Festival. This week's RA Exchange revisits one of Resident Advisor's flagship live formats, Playing Favourites, where we bring guests onto the pod to walk through their musical influences and play us some tracks that have been formative in their personal and creative development. This week, we're honouring El Dia de la Raza—which happened on October 12th—an occasion that remembers the colonisation of Latin America and pays tribute to its heritage and cultural diversity. Our guest is Sangre Nueva, a trio made up of the artists DJ Python, Florentino and Kelman Duran. They all come from different backgrounds: Kelman is a Dominican multidisciplinary artist, Florentino is a musician of Colombian heritage signed to XL Recordings and DJ Python is Ecuadorian-Argentinian, releasing prolifically under a number of aliases in the worlds of ambient and club-adjacent music. Together, their style explores pan-Caribbean musical styles, especially dembow, which is experiencing a parallel renaissance in the underground and commercial dance music spheres. In this conversation, they talk to journalist Christine Kakaire from last year's C2C Festival about what it means to approach Latin music from an experimental perspective to bring an amalgamation of Caribbean and Spanish-speaking musical cultures into their work. They also reflect on the stigma that was attached to reggaeton for a long time and the songs that represent its reclamation in the world of contemporary club music culture. Listen to the episode in full.

The smartbar affiliate talks to the Fool's Gold Records founder about climbing the ranks, DJ discourse and how to exist in commercial and underground scenes simultaneously. This week's RA Exchange takes us to Chicago, where two big names—The Blessed Madonna and A-Trak—have a chat ahead of their back-to-back set at underground institution smartbar last month. These are two DJs who have been around the block. The Blessed Madonna (FKA The Black Madonna) is originally from Kentucky, but made her name in Chicago. She started out as an intern at smartbar and working at the local label Dust Trax, later becoming lead A&R and an established DJ in her own right. A-Trak is a Canadian artist who cut his teeth as head honcho of Fool's Gold Records. He's known for having developed the careers of artists like Kid Cudi and Danny Brown, and he also formed Duck Sauce with Armand Van Helden, a project synonymous with the bloghouse era. The two have a long history with Chicago, and they engage in a discussion about how they think the city looks from the outside. As one of the most segregated cities in the US, they say, what the rest of the world sees as one cohesive and unified hub for house music is instead divided by genre and area code. They also debate the complexities of existing in commercial and underground music worlds simultaneously, our collective over-fetishisation of the past, the stupidity of DJ discourse and Europe's tendency to impose its view of America—and American dance music—on the Midwest. Listen to the episode in full.

"Our collaboration is greater than the sum of its parts." Kai Campos and Dominic Maker discuss their new album on Warp and what it felt like to work together again after years apart. British outfit Mount Kimbie first made their mark with their 2010 release Crooks and Lovers, inspired by contemporaries like James Blake and King Krule. The group's two primary members, Kai Campos and Dominic Maker, met at London South Bank University, where they simultaneously became enamoured with the '00s dubstep scene and the intersection it paved between commercial stardom and the underground, illuminating an alternative path for artists, producers and selectors on a global scale. Together, they became synonymous with hazy electronics and lo-fi indie pop throughout the mid-'10s. Over the last few years, Maker and Campos have pursued different paths: Maker moved to Los Angeles, where he's produced for hip-hop giants like Travis Scott and Jay-Z, while Campos explored the world of DJing and electronic music, releasing a number of mixes geared towards the club. But they reunited for the first time in years on their newest album, The Sunset Violent, which came out on Warp Records in April. In this RA Exchange, the duo talk about the recording process and what it felt like to work together again after spending so much time on independent projects. They also unpack the power of making art for art's sake and how their respective experiences in art and in life have taught them to be better creative partners. Listen to the episode in full.

House music pioneer Vince Lawrence and law professor Dr. Olufunmilayo Arewa unpack how record companies have undermined Black musicians—and what we can do to enact change. This past week, Resident Advisor screened and distributed a new, award-winning documentary called Taking Back the Groove. It tells the story of Bronx-born disco legend Richie Weeks, whose song "Rock Your World" with Weeks & Co. climbed to #1 on the dance charts in the 1980s. Like many Black artists throughout American recording history, his talent was strip-mined to enrich corporate record labels. In the movie, Weeks and Still Music label owner Jerome Derradji narrate the story of how they clawed back the rights to Weeks' tracks, as well as the ongoing battle he's had to wage to restore his legacy and ownership over his creative work. This story is, sadly, perennial, especially for artists of colour and otherwise marginalised musicians who continue to be sidelined by major players in the music industry. In this RA Exchange, Vince Lawrence—a Chicago-based house music producer and original founder of Trax Records—speaks with Washington DC-based guest Dr. Funmi Arewa, a graduate of Harvard Law School and UC Berkeley, and a current professor at George Mason University, where she teaches business law in the creative industries. The two engage in a fascinating discussion about the history of the recording industry and the exploitation of marginalised artists that runs through its fabric. How do we make it easier for artists to claim things that are rightfully theirs? What if we could create incentives to create fairness at the core of how record labels function? Listen to their thoughts on these questions in the full episode.

"I fell in love with the piano again." The DJ and composer discusses the vulnerability of the creative process, returning to acoustic instruments and touring her latest album. Laurel Halo has been circling around the club music world for a number of years, but she's only recently entered the echelons of jazz and contemporary classical. Originally from Michigan, she went to music school in Ann Arbor before moving to Berlin, and now Los Angeles, where she composed her album, Atlas—a release that's been met with widespread critical acclaim. She also played alongside Moritz von Oswald in his jazz outfit the Moritz von Oswald Trio, and released a number of eclectic, UK-tinged dance floor records on underground giants like Hyperdub and Livity Sound. In this RA Exchange, Laurel Halo discusses the new direction of her music and what it's been like to tour it live with cellist Leila Bordreuil. She also talks about her creative inspiration (namely, the Thai filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and books by surrealist writers like Ursula K. Le Guin and Italo Calvino), the practice of aesthetic minimalism more generally and the methods she uses to create subtle variations in pieces that are slow to evolve. Listen to the episode in full.

"They were wild and crazy years." The Spanish techno icon discusses his early years in Madrid, running record labels and staying true to his sound for more than 30 years. Spanish DJ and producer Oscar Mulero is a legend of underground techno. Since starting to play parties and make music more than 30 years ago, he's earned a reputation as an anti-conformist tastemaker who's adamantly stuck to his guns. While his trajectory began with Madrid's goth and punk clubs in the '90s, he eventually found techno in the early '00s and started two labels, PoleGroup and Warm Up, as homes for the hypnotic, spaced-out sound that's become his signature. In this RA Exchange, Mulero reflects on the early days of the Spanish techno scene and how it's evolved, as well as his own roots and influences. Today, the artist is as active as he's ever been, he discusses how he's maintained longevity as an artist in the face of changing trend, as well as his best practices for making music at home and on the road. Listen to the episode in full.

"I'm a noodler." The vaunted experimental producer and DJ discusses his playful approach to engaging with philosophy and making art live at Atonal's OPENLESS in Berlin. British artist Lee Gamble has long been captivating listeners with high concept dance music. A loyal affiliate of Kode9's Hyperdub label, Gamble—whose work sits somewhere at the intersection of philosophy, computer music and sound art—has been building weird and wonderful musical worlds that have shot him to experimental stardom since the early 2010s. In this RA Exchange recorded live from Hard Wax (at the one-off weekender Atonal OPENLESS), Gamble meditates on his penchant for eschewing conventions, beginning with growing up in the countercultural, working class hub of Birmingham. Gamble reflects on the first time he experienced what's called "future shock", a reference to a book by the same name written by sci-fi author Alvin Toffler. It set him on the pursuit of finding and making music that had a similarly bizarre quality. Gamble isn't just a producer but an avid admirer and connoisseur of critical theory, and he also discusses the thinkers who have informed his production (and even his approach to DJing), as well as his recent interest in the ethics and applications of AI and deep fakes, which he explores in a touching full-length, Models. Listen to the episode in full.

"I always find inspiration from my city." The DJ and producer talks about her love of Naples, moving from the underground to the mainstream and her new audiovisual show. If you've ever gone to big room techno hubs like Time Warp, DC-10, Awakenings or Rotterdam Rave, then Anfisa Letyago's name should be familiar to you. But Letyago actually comes from underground roots; before she played to thousands of people from the beaches of Ibiza, she was releasing on legacy labels like Hotflush, Kompakt, Nervous Records and Rekids, and collaborating with old guard artists like DJ Pierre. In this RA Exchange, the Naples-based DJ and producer talks about the strategy she employed to make it to the top. Having become enamoured with Carl Cox during her first days of raving in Naples as a university student, she flew to one of his gigs and stood outside his hotel with her tracks on a USB. She was delighted when he took them and played them in his set that night. Shortly thereafter, Cox booked Letyago to play his curated stage at Ultra Music Festival and has since acted as a close mentor, teacher and friend. Today, Letyago is preparing a live audiovisual show, Partenope, which straddles the boundary of techno and vocal-led pop. She also started her own label, NSDA—an homage to a volcanic island near Naples—and is preparing her first full-length album to be released on a sub-label of Sony Music. She also reveals some facts that fans may not know about her despite the intimate moments from her life she shares online. Listen to the episode in full.

The annual Caribbean street parade Notting Hill Carnival has taken place in London since 1966 to celebrate the influx of immigrants brought to the UK during Windrush. Carnival is a celebration of the rich and multifaceted artistic heritage that came with them, especially in the form of Afro-Caribbean music, dance and sound system culture. The South London-born poet, producer and NTS Radio host James Massiah is one of a generation of musicians who has been influenced by the city's Afro-Caribbean cultural legacy. In this interview, he talks to Errol Anderson of the South London-based curatorial platform Touching Bass about his connection to London's sound systems and his own artistic evolution. His output centres around hedonism and what he calls "joyful living"—a reaction to the church community he grew up in. Many of the lyrics on his most recent EPs, like True Romance, paint a picture of drugs, partying, sex, addiction and heartbreak (he's even gone on to name his recurring poetry night Adult Entertainment). Music, he reflects, has provided a powerful and cathartic means to express himself and open up. In his youth, Massiah wasn't just shaped by his church, he says, but by the Afro-Caribbean genres circulating through his neighborhood: '80s funk, raga, garage, grime and a form of Jamaican dancehall called Yardie. Later, as he was exposed to popular rock and house music, he took the sensibilities he heard in pop acts like Fleetwood Mac and applied them to a Caribbean musical framework. His sound palette is an uncanny amalgamation of Stevie Nicks' ethereal voice with the stylings of soca—a sub-genre that fuses calypso, reggae and Caribbean zouk. Listen to the episode in full.

"Dancing has always been visceral to me." The DJ and producer talks about bringing movement into her music practice and the role mythology and meditation plays in art and life. The Italian-French DJ, producer and dancer Giulia Fournier-Mercadante—AKA GiGi FM—has had a varied, multidisciplinary career. Originally a dancer, Fournier-Mercadante received a scholarship for the New York City Ballet and the contemporary dance outfit Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater as a teenager. Finding the dancing world difficult to navigate, especially in its approach to body image, she graduated and moved to London to focus on music. It was there that she discovered techno and its capacity to heal. She started hosting a regular show on NTS, getting booked locally and then touring around the world. Today, Fournier-Mercadante has integrated dance into her productions, which use motion sensors to transform physical movement into MIDI. Her use of her body as her basic instrument has led to a unique, kinetic sound palette that defines all of her tracks. In this Exchange, she unpacks how she's worked with this technique and rediscovered her love of dancing, as well as how spirituality, dream states and astrology inform her life and work. Listen to the episode in full.

"Soundscapes reveal a lot about how people think and behave." The field recordist and musician talks about listening culture, repatriating African sounds and his new album with The Bug. Today's conversation moves away from the dance floor, focusing instead on the soft, ambient soundscapes of the Berlin-based musician Joseph Kamaru—AKA KMRU—whose work has been featured at festivals like CTM, Mutek, Atonal, Horst Music and Arts, Dekmantel, and Unsound; concert halls like The Barbican; and major galleries and site-specific installations around the world. Kamaru moved to Europe from Nairobi, where he first became interested in music production, and field recordings specifically. As a graduate student in the sonic arts, he learned that the majority of the discourse around sound art practices is specific to Western Eurocentric or occidental ways of thinking. He's since embarked on a mission to use field recording as a means of repatriating African identities that are often left out of institutional archives and grapple with the legacy of colonialism. In this RA Exchange, Kamaru reflects on the sociopolitical angle of his work, and his observation that listening, by its very nature, is never neutral. He also talks about how civilisation and technology has changed our collective listening habits; how sound sources beyond the human hearing range make their way into his work with the use of electromagnetic microphones; and his new album, Disconnect, made with the musician Kevin Richard Martin (AKA The Bug). Listen to the episode in full.

"We used to roll up socks in our shoes to give us an extra inch." The childhood friends talk about coming of age in Belfast and their label and event series, CHROMA. Bicep—the Irish duo Andrew Ferguson and Matthew McBriar—have been winning over the hearts of fans with trance-inflected, melancholic dance music since 2009. In this interview with RA editor Gabriel Szatan, the childhood friends talk about how they got where they are, unpacking their creative process and the abiding musical influence of their hometown, Belfast, a city where emotional trance reigned supreme. They also discuss their ongoing multidisciplinary project, CHROMA—a record label, event series and evolving live audiovisual show. Ferguson and McBriar say that the idea for CHROMA came from a sense that their DJ sets were becoming too "sugary," so they buckled down with a renewed focus on creating dynamic new productions made specifically for the dance floor and their sets. The result is a string of hard-hitting EPs which you can find online now. Listen to the episode in full.

"I started in the clubs, and that's where my heart is." The British singer-songwriter and RA's newest cover star talks about her new album, BRAT, live from AVA London. This week's Exchange is with Resident Advisor's latest cover star: Charli xcx. The British singer-songwriter has garnered a reputation as one of the most unpredictable and boundary-pushing pop artists of her generation, collaborating with contemporaries like A. G. Cook, Yaeji and the late SOPHIE. And she's now on the heels of her most recent album, BRAT, which came out in June and has already been lauded as one of the best albums of the year. In this conversation recorded live at AVA London with journalist Chal Ravens, Charli xcx dives into the making of the album. She calls it a club record—that, she says, is "where her heart is." After posting songs on MySpace around 2008, she was asked to DJ at warehouse parties when she was still in her teens. She felt alive in that space, she remembers, doing crazy, embarrassing things. Now in a different chapter of her life and career, she contemplates her desire to make challenging music that still appeals to a broad audience. It's a pendulum that swings radically in both ways, and she finds herself reinventing herself within the pop space and navigating that tension again and again. Listen to the episode in full.

"It's a dream to share a passion with your best friend." The German duo talk about life on the road and writing their first album in six years. Together, Felix Wagner and Aaron Röbig make up the dynamic duo FJAAK. As one of Germany's best-known nightlife exports, they've earned a reputation for being techno's "boy band," gracing the stages of festivals and clubs all over the world for the last ten-plus years. Wagner and Röbig met in Spandau, an area just outside of Berlin, when they were both still in school. Equally interested in music (especially hip-hop), they started working on beats together alongside two other friends. The four-person group turned into FJAAK, and when they all moved to the city centre together after finishing their studies, they started living collectively and touring the project, achieving traction quickly. FJAAK is now just a duo—the group dwindled from four people to three, and then, in 2019, to just Röbig and Wagner. They claim they're closer to soulmates than friends; they know everything about each other and seem so in tune as to be almost telepathic. "The super power we've evolved over the years is to live a harmonic life together," Wagner said. In this RA Exchange, Röbig and Wagner talk about navigating through life with someone by their side, their thoughts on equality and meritocracy in the music industry, how they work together in the studio, their record label and their new album, FJAAK THE SYSTEM, which came out in May. Listen to the episode in full. This episode was recorded and filmed at Pirate Studios.