Blog — PUT ME ON IT

This was our third year at Soundwave Festival in Croatia, and much like a healthy farm occasionally you need a fallow year - which meant we got to concentrate all of our energies on a six hour long beach party with no live stage to worry about.

Having never DJ'd publicly before, apart from the odd guest slot on Marshmello's morning show on NTS Radio, I was rather nervous, so Jack Prideaux and I knocked out a quick half hour selector set each before bringing in the big guns - a few people came to see what I was playing though, a mixture of tropical, bashment, brass, and some very slutty RnB and hip hop.

Chris P Cuts, who has rapidly become on of my favourite DJs in the last year (you may have heard him covering for Kutmah on NTS , he also DJs for Roots Manuva and Spoek Mathambo) was up first. I've never met someone quite so enthusiastic about DJing as Chris - who quite literally and very endearingly - cannot stop talking about it. His set travelled through time and across genres as though neither really existed; he plays old school tunes like he was actually there and weaves it in to totally different new music like it was a sample.

Brass band Riot Jazz did their annual beach takeover in the sea in the middle of the afternoon, as Kidkanevil readied his set and paced up and down waiting for them to finish.

I don't know if he was joking when he said he'd play a really chilled set, but it never happened, much to my joy and the slight chagrin of the festival organisers ("you guys can just play loads of A Tribe Called Quest and relaxed stuff at your party yeah..."). It wasn't long before we were all screw facing to Busta's "Twerk It" and loads of amazing and obscure stuff I will never know the name of.

The legendary Mr Thing arrived from a boat party for our last hour at the beach (which turned in to almost two) to go back to back with Kidkanevil.I was expecting it to get Dilla / Pete Rock / Premo heavy but they just got more hyped on new stuff with loads of bass until we were all in danger of getting permanent Yayo face. They eventually calmed it down to hand over to Tall Black Guy, but not before dropping some serious classics. Our Soundwave beach party is always one of the highlights of my year but this year it seemed even more special - huge thanks to the festival for inviting us, all of those who played, and to our crew for dancing all day.