The unlikeliest of geographic sources – the grim, grimy British town of Croydon in South London – gave birth to the dubstep genre in the early/mid-2000s. Before the sound even had a name coined for it, one of its torchbearers was the Croydon-raised DJ and producer Mala, initially as one half of the dubstep duo Digital Mystikz, and one quarter of the crew behind the hugely influential DMZ club-nights. Now based in Antwerp, Belgium, Mala makes his UAE debut in Dubai on Thursday (March 24) at Karak Beats, accompanied by his longtime friend and collaborator Sgt Pokes.
What have you got planned for your set in Dubai?
I don’t know where people are at with the music there, so it’s nice to be able to bring stuff that is old and maybe considered to be classic, so to speak, from over the past decade. And also I’m going to bring a lot of dubplates that I’m pretty sure nobody is going to have heard before – stuff that isn’t available online. Doing this for so long, I’ve got such a deep bag to be able to draw from musically. I’m very much looking forward to it.
The British rap genre grime has enjoyed something of a renaissance. It has gone back to the sound of its roots in the past year or so. Do you think something similar might happen to dubstep?
I think everything works in cycles, musically. Thinking about dubstep, one minute it was a London scene, then nationwide, European, worldwide, then all of a sudden you’ve got [fellow Croydon alumni] Magnetic Man playing the massive festivals; then you have the whole American side of dubstep, which people call “brostep”. When a music resonates at a certain time, a certain frequency, where it captivates a wide audience, that also starts influencing and inspiring other producers to incorporate that music in what they’re doing. And I think that’s what’s happening with grime at the minute, for some reason. Now it’s all finally all out there for everyone to see.
You mention “brostep”, which is a less-subtle, more-aggressive American take on dubstep. Your music always seems to have more-chilled-out undercurrents. Do you feel any affinity with “brostep”?
Yeah and no. I wouldn't say that what I do is necessarily relaxed. Somebody like [Mala's co-producer in Digital Mystikz] Coki can or should be credited with a lot of that type of sound getting as big as it did. Coki was coming with those mad, LFO, modulated basslines – you go back to [2006 Digital Mystikz record] DMZ007, and a little bit before that, and you're hearing that kind of vibe in his tunes. Back then, the response that music like that got in the raves...it wasn't a relaxed vibe; it was a tear-out, hyper vibe. A lot of people want that reaction in a club. I can't say I listen to some of that music, and I don't feel like I relate to it in that way – I don't get invited to play at those type of events. But that's not to say that I'm against it. It's just not my frequency.
You released your first proper album, Mala in Cuba, four years ago, after travelling to Havana to gather the sounds of the island. Do you have plans for anything similar in the future?
Yeah, I have. We're just about to announce it actually – I don't know what I can and can't say at the minute, but I am releasing another album this year, probably around summertime. I guess it's a continuation somewhat – it's not Mala in..., but it's definitely going to experience a time and place and space somewhere, and trying to incorporate that world with the world I come from. I'm releasing it with Gilles [Peterson, the British radio presenter and DJ] again, [on his label] Brownswood.
DMZ celebrated its 10th anniversary last year. Are you proud of its influence?
I’m not really a proud man as such, but I feel very, very honoured and very privileged that I was able to be a part of it, and make a worthwhile contribution to something that I really, truly stood for and cared about. And it’s great to think that there were other like-minded people who also had the same passion and care for sound as we did.
How did Croydon influence your sound?
I don’t think you can ever take your roots out of you. It’s changed over the years, but it’s also still the same. Anybody who knows Croydon, knows Croydon. It allowed us to learn a certain type of hustle and a certain type of resilience to life, so there’s definitely things that were beneficial by growing up there. Also the grey concrete on the floor, and the grey buildings and the grey sky meant you had to dream and imagine, and when it came to working a really dead, boring job that you hated doing, surrounded by all that greyness, making music was where I found real solace and meditation. Had I grown up somewhere in the Caribbean by the beachfront, I would no way make the type of music that I do now. So it’s part of my roots, and I’m not ashamed to say so.
Are you planning any new Digital Mystikz material?
Maybe not necessarily right now. We haven’t been in the studio for a while together. We play a lot of shows together, which is always great, but everyone gets older, and different commitments, and we spread out from where we live, so things become a little bit more complicated. But whether it’s just me or just Coki, I always feel like we’re kind of one spirit in that respect. No matter what I’m doing or what he’s doing, I’m still representing the rest of my people.
What’s next?
Deep Medi [Musik, Mala’s label] celebrates 10 years this year, so we’ve got a lot of stuff coming out from a lot of different artists on the label. I’m lucky that I get sent so much music on a weekly basis, and I’m always cutting dubplates, always trying to introduce new tunes in my sets. I’ve got no real goals, or things that I want to achieve, apart from continue to do what I do with the same intent.
• Mala and Sgt Pokes play on Thursday (March 24), at Karak Beats at Velocity, J W Marriott Marquis Hotel Dubai. 9pm to 3am, Dh100 on the door
aworkman@thenational.ae