After four-plus decades of DJing and with a incredible list of releases — much of it produced with longtime partner Kenny “Dope” Gonzalez as Masters At Work — the pioneering Louie Vega would seem to have little to prove. Yet he’s working harder than ever, with the same energy he had as a young [...]
While live shows remain the biggest source of income for most DJs surveyed, 85 per cent would rather spend their time making music. Nearly half of DJs find that securing gigs has become more challenging and less lucrative in the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, according to the 2024 IMS Business Report. The annual [...]
Uncle Waffles' international success represents an exhilarating era for southern African music. As her groundbreaking career continues its ascent, the Eswatini DJ, producer and performer speaks to Natty Kasambala about the ancestral power of log drums, the universal language of dancing, and touching grass It’s impossible to think of amapiano on the global stage without [...]
“We’ve had enough time for the whole ‘All the boats rise’ argument to see they don’t all rise.” Did you know that Trent Reznor helped to build Apple’s music streaming service? The Nine Inch Nails frontman once worked as an executive for Beats and later at Apple, and it most certainly opened his eyes to the difficulties that face artists [...]
While most clubbing films centre contextless euphoria, 120 BPM, Millennium Mambo and Aftersun remind us that the dance floor is both a personal and political space. Cinemas and nightclubs are cousins. Both are dark rooms filled with strangers, primed to simultaneously overwhelm and deliver sensory deprivation. Both are common sites of transformative personal experiences related [...]
On one level, Anané’s new EP, ‘Take A Ride’, is a playful throwback to the musical opulence of the disco era. But it cuts deeper than that. As the vocalist and songwriter explains, it’s also an ode to unity, freedom, and her own sense of confidence There’s an attention-grabbing point at the four-and-a-half-minute mark [...]
In this extract from DJ Paulette's memoir, out later this month, she confronts the discrimination she and other women faced—and celebrates some of the scene's unsung heroines. I have long been aware that there is a marked difference in the way that Black women are allowed to occupy space in the workplace, and how [...]
A mix of RA staff and contributors—including Elijah, Joe Delon and journalist Delilah Friedler—unpack some of the year's key trends and themes. The fascinating thing about so-called underground electronic music spreading its tentacles further around the world is how the culture morphs and takes on new meaning. Every raver, worker or business owner in this [...]
“Most of the great writers I learnt stay away from writing too much on an instrument. They just hear the melody and then everything else kind of comes from that.” In a new interview, former collaborators of ’80s disco pioneer Giorgio Moroder discuss what it’s like working for the legend himself as well as [...]
A new survey by Pirate reveals that 30% of artists use AI for songwriting and composition A new study has found that ChatGPT is the favoured artificial intelligence (AI) tool for musicians with 30% of artists using AI for songwriting and composition. In a new survey carried out by Pirate, it asked 1000 musicians on their top 10 AI [...]
