10. February 2017 | Artists | Carl
Talk-Zone #52 Interview with Afrojockers & V1r00z
Welcome Afrojockers to this interview. Nice to meet you. Not everyone of our readers knows you, so please talk about the beginning of your DJ and producer career. What was your intention to start a career in this business?
Hi Noizefield, it’s our pleasure to have a free space to tell the readers of Noizefield about Afrojockers & V1r00z. Our name is Lapa & Magio, in real life we are brothers, born and raised in khartoum/Sudan, we are better known since 2004 by our stage name “Afrojockers”, but before we came up with this Project, We Officially performed for the first time as a duo Djs under the stage name “UMT PROJECT” in the years (2001-2003).
UMT Project was mainly based on mixing Arabic Electro House and live performance acts which was a unique style in Poland. UMT Project produced Two remixes for Amr Diab -“Feek Kull Alkalam” & Samira Said -“Eurobica” (Virus Edit) which was released by Universal poland, That time our previous manager contacted DJ Virus for Remaking the track “Eurobica” after almost 14 years we meet Jakub known now as stage name V1r00z to tell us that (Virus Edit) was made by him, what a small world !! , UMT was ranked at the 52 position in “THE DJ LIST” in the House category.
We had the opportunity to perform all around Poland many times with drum percussions played by Victor Golec one of the oldest and well known drummers in Poland. After UMT Project we started as”Afrojockers” in 2004, we fall deep in love with Electronic music and since that time we decided to produce more music like Dance, EDM and Future house tracks among them the new track “Love you anymore”, we are still playing and touring around many Clubs and open air festivals in Europe and abroad where we are enjoying our time with the fans.
Let’s us switch a bit back in time to the year 2001. That was our real integration with the DJ world, our first ever show was in August 2001 in Cracow/Poland, we started at the popular student club called “Pod Jaszczurami”. The club had two DVD players and a Mixer, it was impossible to mix music on a DVD players! but some tracks we could mix it in it’s real BPM tempo.
Few weeks later we meet our dear friend DJ Angelo (RIP) from London, a former DJ for the group “The Prodigy” before they became a worldwide famous electronic music group.
We are very thankful and grateful to Angelo, he made his best to pass us all his DJ skills and knowledge about what is a DJ life about and how we can treat it with hobby, passion and as a carrier. That was the first beginnings for us to get interested about the DJ world in it’s real meaning.
Lapa & Magio Since childhood they were into the music. Our parents and older brother Amir had a huge music collections from Funky Jazz, Boogie, Disco, reggae, african and many other music genre from the 70’s and 80’s. This collections enriched the brothers to obtain a huge history and discography about music.
We believe that a real DJ must know how all the music started, its more than just a simple mixing, it’s a history to learn.
Welcome V1r00z to this interview. Nice to meet you. Not everyone of our readers knows you, so please talk about the beginning of your DJ and producer career. What was your intention to start a career in this business?
Hi Noizefield, my name is Jakub Banaś ,I’m a Polish musician, DJ, Remixer and Record Producer, better known by my stage name as V1r00z , i was born and raised in Cracow/Poland.
I developed an interest in music at my early age and started my career as a DJ in 2000 touring around Poland and as a Producer in 2003.
V1r00z & T-Project released “See it again” In 2006, which launched me into the second place in the competition “Make your own music”, organized by the legendary Club “Energy 2000” in Poland. The track reached many clubs and cities around Europe where it was often played by Dj’s and i produced later my new single “Funeral Song”In 2008 which was very successful.
V1r00z released many new tracks which were played Live on radio stations such as RMF MAXX, Viva Channel and played by artists as Bass T and Aquagen, as well as many songs were used as a Soundtrack for some TV shows on TVP/Poland.
i worked on many projects such as Polish Rumble, Gladiator Project, Desti, Infected Bros, Lighter Than Light and collaborated with many producers from different countries, also i co-produced with many well known DJ’s as , M brother , DJ Adamus , Beattraax , T-project (Escoo) and Candy Girl.
The favourite genre of Afrojockers is Club-House music. Have you always played these styles or do you also enjoy other kinds of genres, like Dancehall, EDM or Techno?
House Music,G arage and RnB were one of the first mixing styles that the duo started to play. We were Resident Dj’s at Club Fusion and two more clubs where we played lots of RNB, HipHop and Reggaeton on vinyls. That time we were the 1st DJs who organised and introduced Hip Hop & Reggaeton to the polish crowd in Cracow city in the years 2002.
We were also touring outside the city playing only House Music & Progressive,
By the end of 2007 when RNB started to change into faster tempo almost as House, Afrojockers decided to change the style totally back again to House, Electro and today is EDM and Future House which is their favorite music on live performance.
You’re from Poland but your roots belong to the Sudan. Is there a difference between those crowds and the party-people in Africa like your homeland Sudan? I’m asking cause you’ve got much experience in DJing and live-performances in Europe and Africa.
Our father is Sudanese and our mother is Polish, we grow up in Khartoum, Our homeland roots changed us to become very open to understand the differences between many kind of music. This was a very important step in our carrier to be flexible to any genre and to be able to mix any type of beats and BPM.
Definitely there is a difference between the crowds in Africa and Europe, in Africa an Afro House Beat with Rnb or African samples would be the perfect taste of music. We are pretty sure that today EDM has spread commercially all other the globe and for sure Africa and Arabian countries has many crowds who listens to EDM and House.
We cooperate with one of the leading radio stations in Khartoum, Radio 101 Vision FM (previously Khartoum Boom Box Show ) where they play our EDM Future House sets live on air. In the beginning it was hard for them to understand us coz we were different in our style and unique, Now we are glad that we can have our EDM audience back in our homeland Khartoum.
You’ve released your new single „Love You Anymore“ in cooperation with V1r00z. It’s a real headbanging clubhit for the dancefloor. How did you get inspired to this song and this songtext?
In early 2016 V1r00z and Afrojockers met in Poland and started a new music Collaborations. we produced the track “Love you anymore” which was officially released in January 2017 by the German Record label “KHB Records”.
V1r00z had a great vision and taste of producing music and an accurate sense of producing a perfect drop to the tracks to make it sound good on the dancefloor.
“Love You Anymore” is a new collaboration between Afrojockers, V1r00z and Roxana Tutaj, one of the semifinalist of the polish music show “Must Be The Music”. Roxana fired up the track with her lovely and amazing vocals.
The inspiration for this song came up after seeing many broken relationships between the people and friends because of some’s stupidity and after all you see how one person or both suffers after the breaking up. so we came up with this idea to make a track which can release you free somehow from those bad moment and memories, It’s a fact taken from the real outside world joined with the music fantasy to create a real inspiration for the whole track.
„Love You Anymore“ has lovely vocals by Roxane. How did you come in contact to her, cause normally she’s not singing electronic music, right?
Roxana Tutaj, she is a good friend of V1r00z since years, truly she performs and sings other styles than electronic but a good vocalist has no borders or limits when it comes to music. we send her our demo version of “Love you anymore” and she liked it so much!, It’s a challenge for every vocalist we think to perform and sing to any music, Roxana has a warm and charming vocals that we are sure that in the future we will produce another tracks with her.
Which next singles, remixes or EPs could your fans expect next? Maybe there’s a plan for an album too?
Yes we have more music to come this summer, we have plans to release more EDM, and Future House even Two tracks with Tropical sounds in a different BPM. the full album yes we are planning and working on it.
The nearest plan to release a single is in May/June with another track in collaboration with V1r00z.
There will be new artists, vocalists and DJs that we will collaborate and produce together. It’s a great feeling to have an audience who is expecting our next works.That’s awesome and very motivating so please stay tuned.
Let’s talk about your studio equipment. Which studio-equipment do you use for producing your tracks? Are you working with hardware or software or a combination of both?
We are flexible with production, it depends on the tracks idea, we try always to combine both of them, it always gives that soul to the music. We work on various programs as FL Studio and on Pro Logic. we use our experience playing as a DJ to find the balance between the combination of software and hardware, it’s fun to bring sounds that you hear it in your mind and produce it in the studio.
Which one of you is responsible at the producing-process? Who’s going to do the melodies, whose programming the beats, writing the lyrics, choosing the remixers etc.?
We work as a group, but of course we divide the tasks and the process of production. Lapa is excellent in composing the drum kits, melodies, sounds and in general taking care of the session up to the music video, V1r00z is talented in preparing the drop melodies, bass lines, vocal effects and other sound FX, Magio is the one taking care of the composed melodies, chords and lyrics and the graphic designs.
To reach the perfect results we do meet together and work as a team and each one is a great support to the other.
Which equipment are you actually using for your DJ-sets? Do you also use software systems like Serato or Traktor, or are you only playing CDs?
This is a great question, since 16 years we are fans of Pioneers & Technics equipments, currently we play from Pioneer CDJ 2000 Nexus and above models using the USB drive, we remember the times when we had to carry the CDs and vinyls. We come from an era where we learned to mix music on a basic equipments like PIONEER CDJ 100 S, NO SYNC buttons ….which is now the most helpful button for new DJs. Serato,Traktor and other similar software are very helpful and comfortable but you always feel that the software is controlling your mix and not you. it will never substitute the satisfaction of matching the beats together and mixing manually to the crowd!
Now you’ve got the chance to tell our readers something that you always wanted to tell them.
Our dear family, friends & fans, we appreciate much of your time, much of your sleepless nights to find out your dancing soul. Thanks for supporting us and our music, you are our great inspiration and motivation… Together we will find the definition of House Music..the true House Music, it’s an instrument of God, if we use it wisely..it can change your soul!
Thanks you very much for your extensive interview and your time for that.
Thank you very much Noizefield for your space for us and see you soon!
Afrojockers & V1r00z.
More information Afrojockers & V1r00z :
Afrojockers
Afrojockers @ Facebook
Afrojockers @ Twitter
Afrojockers @ Soundcloud
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