Like, this is the thing we've been waiting for: an excuse to put together a lot of original music.ĭJ Fuck: And it’s done in a theatrical, fun way. So when we saw this come in, it was just immediate. it's an honor to see stuff coming from minority communities broadcasting to the world.ĭJ Trick: I think our community has, over the last few years, been working really closely on all these different projects but never really got the chance to do something of this scale together. Like think of the size of Jamaica, and then the size of the cultural impact it’s had on the rest of the world. I think also coming from a small island in the Caribbean. I think that's one of the reasons I was like, “We absolutely have to do this.” It’s based off Jamaican soundsystem culture, which I grew up listening to, so it was really personal for me. Rhea Prendergast: I'm originally from Kingston, Jamaica, so this whole type of event comes from where I'm from. What made your respective crews want to do Culture Clash?
And there ended up being a big community response because, a lot of the time, they were just listening to this music while sitting on their computer or gaming. A lot of what we were doing was providing a kind of personality to tie all that together, kind of providing a lore and canon for all this music. So in the early days, it was about trying to integrate that with what was happening in New York and give it a space. And when COVID kind of brought all that online, it really exploded. Like, these people who had never been to a club or played on CDJs before were getting really amazing at producing. There were these really fresh, new sounds coming out of the middle of nowhere, but I felt like didn’t have access to club scenes and didn't live in large major cities with these communities. I wasn’t aware of these spots, so I just started tapping into that stuff and exposed myself to it, and I saw a bunch of people with a lot of talent but who didn't really have a lot of backing, especially POC.ĭJ Trick: For me, I was really inspired by the sounds that were coming from the people all around the world who were mostly releasing stuff online. like the stuff that was going on in North Brooklyn at these places like Bossa Nova, Mood Ring and H0L0. But then I got introduced to newer dance music. I’m from South Brooklyn and my family is Caribbean, so I grew up around hip hop and Caribbean music dance. We like to find artists before they make it to the next level that are super on the come-up. Surf Allah: has always been about what’s coming next - that’s our tagline. Let’s start with the basics! Can you both tell me a little bit about how your collective?