He has around two decades of experience as a DJ and music producer but Suketu Radia doesn’t play “gigs” or “concerts”. A torchbearer in the Bollywood remix culture that took over TVs and radios in the early 2000s, DJ Suketu calls his shows ‘parties’.
Indicating what his upcoming party at The Slate Hotel next week is about, he begins, “I want them (people) to listen to the new stuff I’m dropping.”
Suketu recently worked with a music streaming app to release Bollywood remixes and is still on top of the DJing game — he says he plays at about 125 shows a year! Fresh from his New Year’s Eve party in Goa — “really good vibes and a great setup” — the DJ opens up to Weekend about his plans for 2018 and the electronic music scene in India. Excerpts:
What does 2018 look like for you?
It’s started off well – this weekend I’ll be in Delhi, next week in Chennai, then after that I’m in Muscat and Hong Kong back to back, on January 26 and 27. It’s looking good for the year ahead as well, since we have some new releases coming up. We’re doing this project called Wynk Beatz — we’re going to be dropping a couple of those new tracks in Chennai.
How do you keep DJing interesting for yourself?
There are so many new sounds, new genres – I would never have imagined that dubstep would become so big and that people in India would accept these new genres. You’re always on your toes to be updated and keep your set as interesting as the international DJs do.
Technology has made it so much easier for bedroom producers to churn out music. Please comment.
Every situation has two sides to it. I remember I had demos before I made remixes and I had to run around and send them to labels. Today, I can just upload it to Soundcloud and send the links. If you don’t keep at it, you might go unnoticed.
The flipside of it is that there’s a lot of riff-raff, so you have to spend time to identify what is good and what is not. Producing music has become so easy. I remember music companies used to pay good money to do remixes. Now you can produce songs from your bedroom and people work for free. So when people ask me, ‘Why haven’t you released anything new?’ I just tell them, ‘if I haven’t been paid for my creativity, then what’s the point? I might as well play them live, which is what I’m doing.’
At Studio, The Slate Hotel, on January 10, from 8 pm onwards. Details: 9500777700
