Techno was born in the bedrooms and warehouses of Detroit in the '80s; it was the sound of the future and the sound of freedom. It was given form by young Black and brown innovators, whose communities were hit hardest by Reaganomics and the War on Drugs. It's no wonder that, two decades later, Sama' Abdulhadi would discover the freedom and expansiveness of techno as a teen and bring it back to fellow dreamers and creators in her conflict-impacted homeland of Ramallah, Palestine.

For the past decade, Abdulhadi has been building the electronic music scene in Palestine via her deeply inclusive creative collective, The Union. Her world opened up in 2018 when she became an overnight sensation with her Boiler Room debut, which currently has over 7.2 million views on YouTube and is the twelfth most viewed Boiler Room set (with the majority of the top sets posted 6 or more years ago).

As she tells GRAMMY.com, she went from getting around three bookings a month to 40 a day after Boiler Room. Then, in December 2020, while filming a set for her Beatport virtual residency highlighting DJs of the Middle East, she was arrested. The team had secured permits to film there, at Nabi Musa, a cultural site and tourist attraction that includes a mosque, yet has hosted many non-electronic music events. While the situation has yet to be resolved and has kept the rising star from being able to return home to Paris, it proved to her she's part of the international techno community and they have her back.

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Read on for a wide-ranging conversation with the techno powerhouse, who details her meteoric rise, the artists—all dear to her heart—she chose for the Beatport residency, being inspired by her activist grandmother and more.

How did you approach curating the lineup for your Beatport residency celebrating the Middle Eastern scene?

Basically, in the beginning, I was trying to think of the artists that inspired me the most throughout my life, the people that I know and I've seen [perform] and, I really think, deserve a slot in the world and are not heard at all. That's where the idea started.

The Middle East was an easy one—actually, not that easy because I had too many names and I had to remove some. I started with my teacher; he's literally my teacher, the one that taught me in uni and the one that taught me everything about DJing and everything in my life that I know in audio in general. So, that was one of, obviously, the first names.

I was also thinking of my students and the ones that also have been doing some great things and deserve a slot. So this, that, my collective, and my favorite DJ in the world is a Lebanese DJ, so those were my picks. That was mainly it. Then we were thinking of ideas behind each episode. I really wanted to do one Middle East, one North Africa, but we couldn't do that easily.

But we were thinking, "OK, we could do an episode from my collective, The Union." Sadly, we have three really major DJs from The Union that are living abroad right now, so they are not here. So we included the four that are here, and I was the fifth. Two of them [that participated] are people I've been working with, my students. I literally was preparing their set with them and helping them. It's like I'm watching my mini-me.

And the two others are DJs that I really, really look up to in Palestine. Bruno Cruz is one of my best friends from Haifa, one of the first people I met there. And SINAN, I discovered him in an expo that I hosted of DJs from Palestine to showcase for international bookers or festivals.

So this was The Union collective, the first one. The second one was the Middle East, which I talked about. The third one is friends of The Union. The Union always does parties in Palestine and invites other people to come and enjoy them. The last lineup is a mix of them; two of them are Union, but they live on the other side of the world, so it's really hard for us to even meet. The rest are friends that we have met throughout randomness of life by luck, I guess. Which is good. We still have lucky moments here in Palestine.

When you mentioned your favorite DJ, I heard you say during the last show that it's Jason Kaakoush?

Yeah, the Lebanese one. Brilliant. I've been watching him since I was 19. I've never seen him make a mistake and he plays CDJs, which is really hard not to make a mistake. He's such a vibe on stage. His smile is just amazing and he, as a person, is just one of the nicest people I've ever met. I have a lot of favorite DJs. I love a lot of DJs in Lebanon, but every time I see him I get chills and I've been seeing him for 12 years. That's a lot.

Who did you say was your teacher?

My teacher is LK, the first one that played for week two.

I'd love to hear a little bit more about the collective you formed, The Union. What was your vision for it and where are you hoping it'll go?

In the beginning, I really wanted to do a festival here [in Palestine], and I'm not [usually] here. I'm in France most of the time. So, I asked my friends that I work with here, who said, "Let's start building to make a festival one day." So I'm like, "OK, we need to create a community that would want to do that." So we started creating a safe space for everybody to come and party and be totally chill.

We do actually have collectives here in Palestine mostly in rap—some DJs, but a DJs collective that goes maybe from places is different than what we wanted to do. We wanted to create a collective that is not just DJs. We have people that were artists and wanted to do [some] painting in the location. They wanted to just help us fix the place. People that just wanted to party joined the collective.

So the collective becomes insane and the friends of the collective become bigger, and so we created this whole community and a safe space for people to literally do whatever they want, no police, no security, no nothing, but there's always mutual respect and there's always the thing of, "We are all one." For example, nobody takes more than the other. Everybody works everything, so if I'm DJing for two hours, I also would have to stand at the door and sell tickets for an hour, guard the bathroom for an hour. We are constantly all on rotation. The people helping the DJs.

The sad thing is that we have two people that studied sound engineering in the collective, so me and her—two females, too [smiles]—are always in the audio engineering department. But we also teach audio engineering to people who are interested to know how we're doing this. So now we have more audio engineers.

One of my kids, I've been teaching since he was 13. Now, he's 20 and an electrical engineer and a crazy DJ—a really incredible guy. Now he lives in Berlin. I was so sad he couldn't join us for the residency because he's in university now. He is studying this electrical engineering because he really wants to build his own speakers himself. He made a full-on light and laser system, brought it with him from Berlin, put it up in that space that we created. Before he left, he started teaching each one of us how to take it apart, how to fix the wires, and how to do the coding.

It's just sharing knowledge and being in one community. It's not competitive. We're not competing with any other community. We collaborate with all the collectives, and we're just trying to build a base so then there might be can be a bit of competitiveness where there's a little bit of money in the business. It's really cool because we grew so many new DJs that didn't think they wanted to be DJs. A lot of people made a lot of things and we created such a beautiful family that is incredible, honestly.

That's so cool. I mean, I've honestly never heard of anything quite like that. It sounds very inclusive.

This is why I used to love to come to Palestine and play with The Union. I would fly from Europe to here, which would cost 2,000 euros and I would end up having $100 after all the work that we've done, but it's so worth it. Seriously, it is my favorite thing in the world—the best party ever.

Everybody knows each other. It's like how I imagine Detroit or Berlin was in the '80s. It's really heartwarming. It's way more beautiful than going to a club with a bunch of security guards around you when you're trying to talk to people, but you can't talk to people when there's the stage and the separation between the DJ and the people.

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What is the scene like in Palestine now? And what was it like back when you were a part of creating that scene?

It was a scene that is growing. Sometimes you do a gig and there are 400 people. Sometimes you do a gig and it's 10 people, literally, two gigs after that. You never know. The opinion was it was growing and growing, but we didn't know that we were living in a bubble and that people didn't know we existed until all this thing happened over in December with me going to jail.

So, now I don't know because for the past year there's been Corona so there's nothing happening. But I hope that now when we do a test run, we'll see what happens. Maybe we actually gained more fans and we have more exposure around Palestine. So it might be going well without us knowing, we can't test it.

It's like, "What is going to happen when we can all get on the dancefloor again together?" I don't think any of us can predict that.

I think everybody's just going to be moving weirdly. I'm not going to know how to talk to this many people. I'm just going to get shocked when I see 1000 people in Berlin. You're talking about 60,000, that sea of humans, but seeing 100 is just insane right now. I feel like I'm going to be weird. I'm so excited for it.

I wanted to talk a little bit more about your experience being jailed and, specifically, what the support from the larger dance community felt like for you. And what your biggest takeaway was from that difficult experience was

That was a really difficult experience. In the beginning, I didn't know there was support happening because I didn't have the chance to talk to my family, or lawyers or anything. I was in the dark completely for the first four days. On my first phone call with my brother, he's telling me that Adam Beyer and Nicole Moudaber and Roger Waters are talking about it and I just started laughing. I'm like, "Yeah, right. You're just trying to make me feel better. This is stupid. Don't say things like that, bro."

That's the thing that made me proud to be part of the techno community. Because it is a community, actually, more than it is an industry. And I've always thought that about techno and they proved it because everybody just stood with each other. I never really expected that at all. It made me so proud to be part of it. Seriously, when something happens to one of them, everybody just goes up.

That was really important for me mentally, to be OK. Because I really was thinking, "Am I doing everything wrong? Am I wrong?" [Being jailed] was really making me doubt myself, but then I was like, "Okay, no. I'm not wrong. We can't be all wrong. It can just be diversity and that is what it is. The world is diverse."

There are all kinds of music that I don't like to listen to, but other people do listen to. That doesn't mean their ears are bad, no. It's just taste. That's the beauty of music, that it is just a language and you cannot control it, it's vibrations and they're going to hit you. They either resonate with you in a good way or a bad way, and that's the cool thing about sound and frequencies, and even the sound of the wind in the trees and the birds.

It's constantly on and they will always hit you and affect you with the vibrations. If you cannot hear, you will still feel vibrations and they will still affect you in a way. That's the beauty of sound. That's why I love it.

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That was poetic. I love that. It's so true.

Thanks. [Laughs.] I used to always give workshops when I was back in Egypt. And whenever there was a film workshop, I'd give audio workshops. The film department would give me one day because the sound is always bad in Egyptian films.

I'm like, "The film has zero meaning without sound." If you turn off the screen in a horror movie, you will still be afraid of the sounds. If you turn on the screen and turn off the sound, it will become a comedy show. It will be so stupid you won't feel anything. You won't be jumpy, you won't be scared. Nothing. You might be disgusted by blood or something. Sound is very essential.

Have you thought about doing film composing or scoring?

I did do that for five years of my life. Before I became an international DJ, I was doing that. I was just DJing for fun. I was an audio engineer; a sound designer and music composer for films. That was my main job in Egypt. I used to do sound design and music scores a lot.

That was the main thing. I was DJing as a thing that I liked to do when I come back home in Palestine. I didn't even DJ in Egypt. I DJed twice there in five years. DJing wasn't my job, it was something I did for fun, and then I switched. It was a thing that I've always wanted to go into, but it was never going to happen, ever, so I just put it on the side. You can never become a big DJ. It's impossible. I still don't believe that I'm a big DJ. Whenever anybody says that I'm like, "Nah, that's stupid."

Well, you can go make music for more films. That's a good plan B, I would say.

Always, definitely. I'm actually working on a composition project now for a film, actually. And I did one, actually, for a French documentary about a French techno scene. I have three tracks in that that I made for the film, but they're techno tracks this time. Back in Egypt, I used to do orchestral compositions, jazz, alternative, Arabic, that kind of music. Now they ask me to compose techno for films.

How do you feel like that experience informs your DJing?

I add a lot of ambient sounds now in DJing, so there's a lot of cars, birds, planes and things. I just hear them subconsciously. They just cross my mind [when DJing] and I press a button and it comes out. I've tried chainsaws in a couple of times.

Yesterday, I was recording a set and in the beginning, I have ambience of the street in Pakistan where a street seller—every time I hear that dude, it's like he's rapping. Well, I have no idea what he's selling, but his voice is so good and then you hear a honk here and a motor there, and it's beautiful. So, the intro is the track playing and there's constantly this ambience of this Pakistani dude for three minutes

Do you do field recording or record random stuff when you're out and about?

Yeah, actually. My [BBC Radio 1] Essential Mix, in the beginning, it's a binaural recording, 5.1 surround sound, going from King's Cross in London to Paris. So, you hear yourself going through the metal detectors, and then you hear the announcements in the train, and then the train is moving. Then the track continues. The beat in the track drops when the train moves.

Yeah, I do record a lot. Actually, I never knew that people were noticing the bird [sounds I put in live sets], but it's a thing. Whenever somebody whistles in the crowd, I whistle back by sending the bird. I'm like, "Ta, for you, man! Thank you." Also, when I get on a stage—especially if it's a big stage and nobody can see you—the second I get on the stage I play the first track and then I just hit this screech from the bird and I drop something cool.

I thought I was doing it for me because I thought I was the only one hearing it, but I played a really underground crazy party that they do in France. It's like the parties we're having here [in Palestine], but the only one left in France is that one. They don't tell who the DJs are, and you cannot see them. There are no lights in the place, just one tiny light next to the DJ, who's on a rooftop there. Nobody even looks up because everybody's just dancing, and they don't care who's playing as long as the music is good. It's beautiful.

I go there and I'm playing and at the beginning, I play the bird. I hear from the crowd someone yelling, "Sama!" I started noticing that maybe people know the bird, so I make it more of a signature move now.

"When I see a Palestinian flag in the crowd, I feel the ultimate goosebumps. It's really, really rewarding for me because I've always lived in war, I've always lived under occupation, and I felt I couldn't speak. Now, I can say what I want to say, and some people are hearing it."

I'm sure you've been asked this question a million times, but what does it mean to you to represent Palestine, as well as the larger Middle Eastern dance scene, on the global dance music stage?

It's overwhelming and scary because I always have to answer really, really tough questions that always have a wrong answer. Most answers can be wrong, depending on who's listening. It's tough and it's really not fun that I'm always in political talks. When Trump decided to give Israel Jerusalem as if it's his, I had interviews that same day, seven of them, and I had a huge event that night. I go to the interviews, and all the bands are getting asked about the show. But all the interviewers asked what I think about Trump.

But, at the same time, it's a huge honor to be representing Palestine because I love this country and it's always something that I wanted to do. It makes me proud being Palestinian. When I see a Palestinian flag in the crowd, I feel the ultimate goosebumps. It's really, really rewarding for me because I've always lived in war, I've always lived under occupation, and I felt I couldn't speak. Now, I can say what I want to say, and some people are hearing it.

People are learning what the meaning of the word Palestine is. They don't even know it's a country. Some people are like, "You say Palestine. What does it mean?" I don't know what to tell them. It's a really random question, but I didn't know that there is a human that doesn't know what the word. I thought it was in the Bible. It's like, "You know Bethlehem, you know Nazareth, but you don't know the word Palestine. Wow." It's weird.

Some people also think that these are fictional places, they're just in the Bible, so when I just say, "Bethlehem," in a conversation, they're like, "Wait, that's a real place?" How, how?! I guess ignorance is bliss and they're living the ultimate bliss, honestly.

To follow it with a slightly political question and, to your point, I think that there's a lot of ignorance around what's going on in Palestine. What do you feel foreigners need to know about the humanitarian crisis in Palestine? And what can we do to help or to learn more?

Well, especially for the U.S., it's like, "Don't pay taxes," but you can't [do that]. That is the sad part, is that everybody in the U.S. ends up paying Israel without even knowing it. It's like here [in Palestine], it's also not optional, we have to pay for Israel because they tax us for everything that we do.

But [you can] call your representatives and tell them, "We don't want to pay for Israel's military war. You can pay for Israel's schools, but not bombs." I always wear this [on a] necklace, it's a bomb safe clip, they are literally all around Palestine. You can find them on the ground because of how many bombs [are detonated].

Israel takes three-quarters of the water that we get from rainfall, and they give us a quarter of the water that falls in the West Bank. It's [water from] the West Bank, not Israel. That's free for them. We're not allowed to travel. We're not allowed to import and export what we want. It's chosen by them, everything that we can do. We're not allowed to move between our own cities; between two Palestinian cities, there's the Israeli Army in the middle stopping you.

It's so much. They have so many political prisoners that shouldn't be in prison. My friend's mom has been a Minister since we were kids. She's been in jail for three years now in Israel and it's not the first time. I've seen that woman go to jail since I was 10 years old, she's been going to jail every couple of years. My other friend hasn't seen his dad since he was nine years old because his dad's a political prisoner.

At the same time, you have children every day getting imprisoned, 12-year-olds, 10-year-olds. As a Palestinian, you’re not allowed to ride in certain buses, not allowed to drive or walk on certain streets. It’s proper apartheid.

The thing is, [the conflict] started so early on. Between 1948 and '76, we've had many massacres around Palestine. Millions of people were pushed out, millions of people were killed and then [the land is] Israel's. It's life, I guess. It's happened in other places, so we're just hoping it doesn't happen to us and they don't manage to completely remove us.

I wanted to ask about your grandmother because I read in your New York Times interview that she was an activist and a feminist. How do you think she influenced who you are?

I think she influenced I think my whole family, not just me. My parents too, and that's the way they raised me, that there is no difference between men and women. You can do whatever you want, you keep fighting for that thing, and you just keep saying what's on your mind. She was so strong, so powerful, so wise. She was the spokeswoman of Palestine PLO and the women's rights organization and she only finished high school. And she spoke fluent English.

Even later, she was just this incredibly strong woman, and she never just took no for an answer. She fought to the last minute in a crazy way. When she would protest against somebody, when Israel used to go and demolish things in Nablus, back in the war in Nablus in '67, she would demonstrate and sit in front of the bulldozer. My grandpa would go and pick her up and be like, "Don't be crazy. We have kids at kid." She's like, "But they can't do this."

And when they were holding people in Gaza and killing God knows how many thousands of people, she held a strike in Bethlehem where she created the Women's Organization. She got all these young women that really wanted to fight and that were so strong and so courageous, and brought them in with her and kept going.

When she stopped agreeing with what the PLO was doing, she just left the PLO the next day. That really inspired me. Also, back when I was a kid, she always told me to go for whatever I wanted to do. "Don't let anybody tell you you're not allowed to, especially if they follow it with because you're a girl. That's when you know you can do that and they're wrong."

That first experience was the football [a.k.a. soccer] thing. I was seven years old when we moved to Palestine from Jordan when we were able to come back, and I used to play football in Jordan. When I came to Palestine I went to school and the principal told me, "You're not allowed to play football because you're a girl." I was seven and that didn't translate [for me].

So, I went to my grandma, and she took me by the hand and walked with me back to school. The principal's a woman and my grandma graduated from that same school too, so her picture's on the wall, it was cute. She walked in and she was like, "How would you tell a seven-year-old girl to not do something because she's a girl? Do you know what that is for her to grow up learning that? That is the most wrong thing and you're a woman and you shouldn't do that." And the principal was like, "But no girls want to play football. It's just for her future," and so my grandma went crazier on her.

So, the principal says, "Fine. Let her find girls that want to play football, put their names on a paper and then I'll start a football team." She thought there were no girls who wanted to play. I made a sign-up paper, 20 girls signed up, and she opened a football team. That's why we had the best football team. It's small things like that. Whenever somebody tells me, "But you're a girl," I'm like, "What? You're a boy. Who cares?"

I don't know if you've checked recently, but your Boiler Room has over 7 million views, which is crazy.

No way! It was at four million the last time I saw.

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So, yeah. You're a big deal. The internet says so. That Boiler Room was obviously a massive point in your career, especially for exposing you to the global scene. What has your DJ career felt like for you since that moment?

It went insane. It just went, "Zoooo," it just flew like a rocket. We were going together, working on each other, me and my DJ career. Then it just went like that and I've been just running after it trying to figure out what's happening, keeping up with everything.

But yeah, it was really rewarding because after working [as a DJ] from 2008 to 2017, that's nine years. In 2018, it was 10 years of me playing techno and nobody had heard it. Then, all of a sudden, I'm getting messages from every corner of the world, [from people in] countries I've never heard of are messaging me. I'm like, "What the hell is going on?"

And even that day [of the Boiler Room], after, we went to the after-party in a house and it was like, "Yay!" A friend was like, "Some of your numbers are going crazy," and I'm like, "Ha, ha. Nice one. That's a joke." Everybody was telling me that, but I thought they were just joking with me or telling me that I did a good job.

When I got home, my cousin opens her phone and I look at the number [on the YouTube video] and it's like, "What the hell is going on?" That weekend, my booker calls me and he's like, "Sama, what happened? Why do I have 40 bookings for you in a day? I used to barely get you three bookings a month." I'm like, "Boiler Room happened." He's like, "Oh, sh*t." And now I have no idea what's happening. The fastest jump in life, I think.

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That must be crazy. Do you feel like you've caught up with it now that things slowed down?

No. [Laughs.] Because also, the me-going-to-jail thing just gave it another boost that was even scarier. I think I'd just like to pace myself a bit, but it's cool. It's good that we had the year break. I'm sad there was corona, but I'm glad I got a break that made me become human again.

Do you think there are any lessons or practices from this last year that you'll bring with you going forward to stay sane?

Hmm, stay sane. That's important. Yes. Back then, I had 20 gigs a month, so I was barely able to sleep. But now, I think, everything will be more regulated. Even me and my team, we fixed all the days now, everything is clear, everything is calm.

I spent the first six months in Paris fixing my new house because I had moved, and I hadn't even gotten my things out because I didn't have time to. I built my [home] studio finally. Now I have a home that is nice. I visited my family. It was good. I'm hoping to be more stable later and not having this crazy roller coaster thing. It was fun though. I like roller coasters, the adrenaline rush.

That was really a great conversation and I appreciate everything you're doing. Hopefully, sometime in the near future, I get to see you in real life on the dancefloor.

I'm coming to L.A. soon, I hope. I was supposed to do Coachella last year, so that is next year [now]. But I'm going to be at III Points in Miami in October and supposed to pass by L.A. It's [going to be] my first time in the U.S. I've just been there once in my life, 14 years ago for a doctor's appointment in Houston, Texas, where my uncle lives.

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Curtis Jones is a dance music legend, whose multiple monikers only begin to demonstrate his deep and varied influence in the genre.

Jones has been active as a producer and DJ for decades, and is among a cadre of dance music acts forging a connection between the genre's origins and its modern iterations. Crucially, he  joined Chicago house legends Honey Dijon and Terry Hunter on Beyoncé's house-infused RENAISSANCE, providing a sample for "Cozy." He’s also produced tracks with house favorites Chris Lake and Oliver Heldens, and DJed with Dom Dolla and John Summit.

Jones contributed to the aforementioned collaborations, young and old, as Green Velvet. He’s been releasing dance hits like "Flash" and "Answering Machine" under that name since the mid- '90s. He is also currently a staple of the live circuit, his signature green mohawk vibing in clubs and festivals around the globe — including at his own La La Land parties in Los Angeles, Denver, Orlando, and elsewhere.

Green Velvet is appropriately braggadocious, even releasing the popular "Bigger Than Prince" in 2013. But by the time Jones had released the heavy-grooving tech house track, his artistry had been percolating for decades as Cajmere.

Where Green Velvet releases lean into acid house and Detroit techno, Cajmere is all about the traditional house sound of Jones’ hometown of Chicago. When Jones first debuted Cajmere in 1991, Chicago’s now-historic reputation for house music was still developing. Decades after the original release, Cajmere tracks like "Percolator,” have sustained the Windy City sound via remixes by prominent house artists like Will Clarke, Jamie Jones, and Claude VonStroke.

"I love doing music under both of my aliases, so it’s great when fans discover the truth,” Jones tells GRAMMY.com over email. Often, Jones performs as Cajmere to open his La La Land parties, and closes as Green Velvet. 

But beyond a few scattered performances and new tracks, Cajmere has remained dormant while Green Velvet became a worldwide headliner, topping bills in Mexico City, Toronto, Bogotá and other international dance destinations. He’s only shared two original releases as Cajmere since 2016: "Baby Talk,” and "Love Foundation,” a co-production with fellow veteran Chicago producer/DJ Gene Farris.

This year, Jones is reviving Cajmere to headliner status with his new live event series, Legends. First held in March in Miami, Jones' Legends aims to highlight other dance music legends, from Detroit techno pioneers Stacey Pullen and Carl Craig, to Chicago house maven Marshall Jefferson. 

"My intention is to shine a light on those who sacrificed so much to keep house music alive," Jones writes. "The sad reality is that most of the legendary artists aren’t celebrated or compensated as well as they should be."

Given that dance music came into the popular music zeitgeist relatively recently, the originators of the genre — like the artists Jones booked for his Legends party — are still in their prime. Giving them space to perform allows them to apply the same innovation they had in the early '90s in 2024.

Jones says the Miami Legends launch was an amazing success."Seeing the passion everyone, young and old, displayed was so inspiring."

Curtis Jones, center, DJs at the Miami Legends party ┃Courtesy of the artist

The first Legends party also served as a celebration of Cajual Records, the label Jones launched in 1992 as a home for his Cajmere music. Over the past three decades, Cajual has also released tracks from dance music veterans such as Riva Starr, as well as contemporary tastemakers like Sonny Fodera and DJ E-Clyps. 

Furthermore, Jones’ partnership with revered singers such as Russoul and Dajae (the latter of whom still performs with him to this day) on Cajual releases like "Say U Will” and "Waterfall” helped to define the vocal-house style.

Like the Cajmere project, Cajual Records has been moving slower in recent years. The label has only shared four releases since 2018. True to form, though, Jones started another label; Relief Records, the home of Green Velvet's music, shared 10 releases in 2023 alone.

Jones says he's been particularly prolific as Green Velvet because "the genres of tech house and techno have allowed me the creative freedom I require as an artist."

Now Jones is making "loads of music” as Cajmere again and recently signed a new distribution deal for Cajual Records. The true sound of Chicago is resonating with audiences in 2024, Jones says, adding "it's nice that house is making a comeback."

Jones remembers when house music was especially unpopular. He used to call radio stations in the '80s to play tracks like Jamie Principle's underground classic "Waiting On My Angel,” only to be told they didn’t play house music whatsoever. In 2024, house music records like FISHER’s "Losing It” were certified gold, and received nominations for Best Dance Recording at the 66th GRAMMY Awards. Jones is embracing this popularity with open arms.

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"The new audience it’s attracting is excited to hear unique underground-style house records now. This is perfect for my Cajmere sets,” Jones says. "I never saw Green Velvet being more popular than Cajmere, and both sounds being as popular as they are even today.” 

While Jones is finding success in his own artistic endeavors, he points to a general lack of appreciation for Black dance artists in festival bookings. Looking at the run-of-show for ARC Festival, a festival in Chicago dedicated to house and techno music, legendary artists play some of the earliest slots. 

For the 2023 edition, Carl Craig played at 3 p.m on Saturday while the young, white John Summit, closed the festival the same night. In 2021, the acid house inventor, Chicago’s DJ Pierre, played the opening set at 2 p.m. on Saturday, while FISHER, another younger white artist, was the headliner.

In 2020, Marshall Jefferson penned an op-ed in Mixmag about the losing battle he is fighting as a Black DJ from the '90s. He mentions that younger white artists often receive upwards of $250,000 for one gig, whereas he receives around $2,000, despite the fact that he still DJs to packed crowds 30 years after he started.

Jones is doing his part to even the playing field with Legends, and according to him, things are going well after the first edition. "Seeing how much respect the fans have for the Legends was so special,” Jones says. "Hopefully they become trendy again.” 

The story of Curtis Jones is already one of legend, but it is far from over. "I feel it’s my duty to continue to make creative and innovative tracks as well as musical events. I love shining the light on new upcoming and emerging artists as well as giving the originators their proper dues,” Jones says. 

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Since Nia Archives came on the scene in 2020, she has been making noise.

The 24-year-old native of Northern England produces jungle — the dance subgenre known for its loud, raucous breakbeats — and her achievements in her short career (figuratively) match the volume of her chosen style.

Over four years, Nia Archives has released tracks with tens of millions of Spotify streams like "Headz Gone West" and "Sober Feelz," started her own event series, Up Ya Archives, and become friends with the jungle originator Goldie. Nia also closed a stage at Coachella 2023, and opened for Beyoncé during the London RENAISSANCE tour show.

Nia’s also made significant strides for equality in dance music. In 2022, she wrote a letter to Britain’s MOBO (Music Of Black Origin) Awards imploring them to include a dance and electronic music category. In response, not only did they add the category that same year, but Nia won it.

For as much noise as she’s made in recent years, Nia always makes room in her life for contrast. Out April 12, Nia Archives' debut album, Silence Is Loud, the singer, producer, and DJ shows that there is just as much power in the quiet.

"Silence can be weakness for some people: You didn't say what you wanted to say; you were too weak to make noise," Nia tells GRAMMY.com. "But it can also be powerful. Keeping your silence. Holding your tongue and not saying what might not have been beneficial." 

This contrast is central to Nia’s music, and sees new heights on Silence. Her sweet, ringing voice counters the heaviness of jungle beats, while lighter genres are layered over fast-moving breaks. On tracks "Cards On The Table" and "Out of Options," the melodic foundation is built on Britpop-esque acoustic guitar chords. On the album's title track, Nia contrasts massive kick drums and high-pitched squeals, with softer, heartfelt lyrics detailing her dependence on her little brother.

GRAMMY.com spoke to Nia Archives about finding balance in contrast, her writing process, and making noise in the near-silent U.S. jungle scene.

This interview has been edited for clarity.

The hallmark of jungle music is busy breakbeats. How do you incorporate the concept of silence into the genre?

Jungle is so chaotic and intense. That's one of the things I've always loved about the music — the hectic drum patterns. But in my music, the songwriting is always quite emotional with a lot of meaning in it. Bringing the two together always makes something quite interesting. 

With this project, I really wanted to focus on songwriting. I took the time to research the great songwriters from the Beatles to Amy Winehouse, Radiohead, Blur. Kings of Leon were a huge inspiration to me throughout this project as well. 

In the past, a lot of music I was writing was quite surface-level. I wasn't going as inward as I could; maybe out of fear. The process of this project was different. 

I'd write the songs in bed in the morning, and then make the drum patterns on my laptop. I’d take my little demo [to my friend and producer Ethan P. Flynn] and we’d make the song in like three hours. That process really worked for me because it meant I could really get deep. 

I'd write loads of sh-t lyrics before I got to the good lyrics. In studios, it’s hard to get all the rubbish thoughts in your head and say them in front of people. So I quite enjoyed the privacy of writing in bed and taking it to Ethan. We’d just have fun and bang out all the tunes. 

How did the work of the Beatles and Radiohead manifest when you were making the album?

I've got really eclectic taste in music. I love jungle, that's my bread and butter, but I’ve always found fun in fusing genres together to make something new. 

I really enjoy deep-diving into the Beatles, Blur or Radiohead, [and] listening to the structures and the instrument choices. There are certain things that make them what they are, especially Blur with Britpop. I was listening to the Ronettes and a lot of Motown. I went to Detroit last year, and I got to go to the Motown Museum. I found that really inspiring; those productions, it's crazy what they did with what they had.

I'll never be able to make music how the people that I listen to make it — especially when you bring in jungle beats and 170 BPM. It's always gonna be a slightly off-kilter version of the original inspiration. But I think that makes something quite fun and unique.

Blur's Damon Albarn also leads Gorillaz, opening him up to all manner of collaborations. What would you think about being on a Gorillaz track at some point?

It'd be a dream come true! If there's anybody that I'm trying to get to listen to my album. It's definitely Damon Albarn. I'm actually gonna send him an unsolicited vinyl just because I really love his music. He's an incredible musician, artist, everything. He's a big inspiration to me.

You’ve said in previous interviews that jungle is "anything over a breakbeat." Why do you think contrasting sounds can fit so well over a breakbeat?

I think jungle, especially in the '90s, was so futuristic. The breaks themselves, depending on how you construct them, are so versatile. The breaks have so much room to go in whatever direction you want. You can go really heavy, or you can go really light and atmospheric. 

All of the original junglists have their own style. They weren't all trying to be the same. They were very strong in their identity, which is one of the other things I love about it.

What kind of modern music are you excited about integrating into jungle?

I quite like a lot of happy hardcore stuff, which is not new. I really enjoy those melodies [and you don't really hear that sound as much. I really love disco; I'd like to do something like that. 

You’re one of the only artists, if not the only jungle artist of this generation who has built an audience in the U.S. You’ve played Coachella and headlined U.S. tours. How does it feel to be a driving force in introducing jungle to America?

Older generations know about jungle. But I feel like a lot of the young kids in the U.S. are definitely discovering it, which is super exciting. It's really cool to build community in America as well. Every time I've played in America I get the proper ravers down. 

A big part of jungle is the culture and the community that comes with it. We have such a rich culture in the UK; we're kind of spoiled. Whereas in America it feels like people who like that music, they're still building [community].

I love playing in New York cause they've got a lot of new-gen junglists. There's a few new producers who are like 20-21 [years old] who I always hang out with when I go to New York. It's really cool to see their take on jungle, 'cause the American producers that I know have a different view of it.

In the UK we have so many jungle nights and so many raves constantly. In America, those jungle nights feel quite special and one-off. I feel really excited to keep coming back and keep building that community in America. I'm excited to see all the new producers that come up in the next couple of years, as well.

Have you supported any new American junglists by inviting them to perform at an Up Ya Archives party or playing out their tracks live?

There's a kid called Dazegxd. I got him on my Lot Radio takeover for Up Ya Archives. Then he actually played at the Knockdown Center [in Queens, NY] for me which was amazing.

I've booked him to play his first London show at an Up Ya Archives party. That's a really meaningful connection to me 'cause he's quite young and he's so excited about the music; he's proper geeking out about jungle. I love people like that because I'm also a geek of this music.

I'm looking forward to meeting more people like that. I love creating friendships and relationships with people and getting them to play my parties. 

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Where do you see your career, and jungle as a whole, going in the future?

I'd love to keep building on what I'm doing. My album, I'm hoping, is my flag in the sand moment for who I am as an album artist. There's a lot of fusions, and I'm hoping that people can hear it and understand where I'm trying to go.

I hope to make more albums and keep traveling the world. I've got a lot of exciting touring coming up this year. If I can do what I'm doing now, but a bit better in five years, I'll be a very happy person. 

My goal in life, similar to Goldie, is to do what I'm doing for the rest of my life. They've been doing it for 30 years. People come and go, but they've held it down for as long as they have, and they're still as relevant as they were 30 years ago.

That's what I want in my career. To still be able to play music and make music when I'm like 50. That is the real goal.

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The album cover photo for Mount Kimbie’s fourth LP, The Sunset Violent, captures a mundane yet curious slice of life: A car nearly tipped over and abandoned on the side of a road lined with towering cornfields. According to members Kai Campos and Dom Maker, it was taken by photographer T-Bone Fletcher as part of a project documenting his travels across the U.S. 

"There was something so peculiar about the whole scene," Maker tells GRAMMY.com, "and just kind of oddly unsettling whilst being quite peaceful at the same time." Adds Campos, "It's just such a great start to a story as well."

The making of The Sunset Violent could be its own arthouse film. In 2021, the two Brits drove to the California desert at the height of summer. Their AirBnB, with its cornhole board and ping-pong table, possessed the energy of an old frat house. The horizons were endless; entertainment options were less so, which provided the focus they needed to create. Six weeks of melting heat, arid landscapes, and wandering imaginations became sun-baked into the album’s nine tracks  — a collection of surrealist short stories, hazy guitars, and indie-rock textures that feel vast, almost exposing, and deeply rooted in its space.

"I think when you see the horizon just go on forever, it does something to your brain that creates space for ideas," Campos says. "It's definitely the most American record we've made."

Those Yucca Valley creations seem a world away from the London dubstep scene in which Maker and Campos launched Mount Kimbie. Their 2010 debut LP Crooks & Lovers pushed genre boundaries through delicate and intricate electronic compositions more suited for headphones than subwoofer-rattling. Their next two albums incorporated live instruments, original vocals, and more traditional song structure, and with live shows a bigger focus, they recruited drummer Marc Pell and keyboardist Andrea Balency-Béarn for their touring band. 

Maker and Campos' paths even diverged for a time. Maker relocated to Los Angeles in 2016 and produced for James Blake, Jay-Z, Travis Scott, and others, while Campos turned to DJing. On their 2022 double album MK 3.5: Die Cuts | City Planning, each worked on his half independently of the other, building two worlds inhabited by separate sonic ecosystems.

Their desert reunion showed them the way forward, together, to a sound and style they "want to keep doing more of, which we haven't really had before," Maker says. That included Pell and Balency-Béarn officially joining Mount Kimbie, and Maker returning to London.

Ahead of the album’s April 5 release, Maker and Campos sat down with GRAMMY.com to chronicle their "inevitable" journey to The Sunset Violent.

This Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.

Dom, it’s funny that you made this album, one so rooted in California, right before moving back to London. Is it me or are California albums a rite of passage for bands these days?

Dom Maker: It’s quite strange because we didn't really attach that much to the trip to California when we were out there. But in retrospect, and in actually speaking about this record in interviews and with friends, we started to realize how much that experience really bled into it; sort of the end of an era there for me. So it felt good to come away with a document of that period of time in my life.

Kai Campos: Like Dom said, we hadn't really considered how American in aesthetic it was. I think when you grow up in the UK and other parts of the world, you kind of inherit a lot of American culture at the same time, so you're always having this slightly removed relationship with it. The guitar music that I listened to when I was thinking about this album was mostly American, and it was just an interesting place to think about writing from. Over the last 10 years or longer, [we have] been so associated with London, so it was interesting to remove ourselves from that familiar situation in some ways.

That area of California in particular, so close to L.A., is very accessible and you can be there in a couple of hours in the car. At the same time, it feels really remote and unique and special, the landscapes and stuff like that. 

Can you tell me more about the guitar music you were listening to while making this album?

Campos: Sometimes there's songs or bands that I’ll hear one time, years and years before, and it'll always be in my head that I'm going to try and take whatever experience I had from listening to that and try and make some work. So there's all these little bits and pieces that collect over the years until there's enough of a space where I feel like, okay, I feel like I have a voice in this. Sometimes it's just one song from a band. There’s a track called "Rena" by Sonic Youth that I heard more than a decade ago that’s always been in the back of my head: One day, I'm going to try and rip that off.

Then there's other things to do with the sound of the guitars. There's a band called Land of Talk that has this super flat, compressed guitar sound that just sparked something in my head. And then more jam band, almost comical American guitar music, like NRBQ. All of these things just sit around in the soup in your brain until you find a way to articulate them yourself. I think the record in general is the friction between being British and how you interact with American culture in general.

Can you expand on that?

Campos: When you're a kid in the UK — I'm thinking early to mid-'90s — America is a bit of a fairytale, and it seems so shiny and exciting. Obviously, because it's a real place, it's way more complicated than that. And so there's a little bit of the fairytale kind of crumbling. At the same time [there's] Dom's perspective as somebody who had been living there for a long time. So it wasn't a conscious thing, but when we reflected on the record, we realized that there may be a theme here.

Maker: For me it was skating. All the skate stuff that I watched was from the States and it was like, oh my god, it's sunny all the time there. And that alone was amazing. 

I thought that America would be way more similar to where I'm from, the way things worked and the people I would be around. And that's completely not the case. That kind of friction, I found, was quite juicy as inspiration — not necessarily friction in a negative sense, but just that abrasiveness between my understanding of the world and the world around me. Even more so when you go to the desert  — the deepest, darkest like Yucca Valley in California  — that really made a lot of this record flourish.

The Sunset Violent is a lyric from your song "Dumb Guitar." It’s a visceral phrase that stirs me even if I can't quite grasp what it means. How do you interpret it, and how does that inform the record?

Maker: Honestly, that's kind of exactly how I feel, the way you feel about it. We picked out a few lyrics that we liked; it’s really not really a well-thought-out sort of title or anything. It just felt fitting for the sound and for that slight friction: The peacefulness of a sunset, and then the violence doesn't seem to fit, but it kind of does in a weird way. 

A big part of the record in general for us, especially for me with the lyric writing, was trying to set a scene that was a little bit unorthodox and maybe even slightly comical. So yeah, "the sunset violent" just felt like the one line that really stuck out. I love it more and more every time I think about it.

Is there a lyrical thread throughout the album, or is each song its own chapter?

Maker: I think each song is definitely its own short story. Some of my favorite writing that I've ever read is by Roald Dahl. A lot of his adult writing is brilliant because each story just casts a spell on you and takes you to a completely different place. With this album, I wanted to really tap into my love of short stories and writing that's very much fiction. It has some grounding in reality, but there's that fictional feel to it. 

I suppose it’s a new thing for me because I've really never written lyrics for this project. There's never been any sort of lead vocal from the band internally. So it was quite difficult for me initially to try and figure out what I wanted to say. Then I was like, well, actually I don't really want to say anything, and that was quite freeing in itself. 

I read about how the Pixies wrote "Where is My Mind?" — I was like, where are these f—ing insane lyrics from? — and he's like, "Oh, I was snorkeling in the Bahamas and I was just writing about a fish that I saw." The idea of just letting go of trying to write about something was really, really good for me. Absorbing surroundings and trying to feed some of the visuals that I was seeing into the writing was the main thing I wanted to do.

What specific visuals stand out?

Maker: I think the world of "Dumb Guitar": The idea of this slowly degrading, failing relationship and it all kind of coming to a head in this weird resort in China on a beach. I've never been to a beach in China, but I imagine everything's a bit artificial. 

What song would you say became the core of the album? The track where you realized, yes, this is the direction that we should go?

Campos: Yeah, there's a few different moments. You need that initial thing to happen where you get really excited and have enough of a vision to move in a certain direction, and that probably was "Dumb Guitar." 

There were maybe a couple of false starts before that. But ["Dumb Guitar"] was the first one that in terms of the songwriting made me a bit uncomfortable. You try to take that as a good sign [that] you're doing something new to you. To me that was more conventional songwriting, which I would never have done in the past. Even something as simple as a chord that leads into the chorus: It makes the human monkey brain feel good.

That was one of the first ones that Dom had written, and that was such an exciting moment to hear the lyrics and song really come to life. Writing [instrumentation] with vocals in mind is so much more freeing. The vocals are doing so much that you don't have to; you can work in a more subtle way and not try and demand everyone's attention all the time with the music. 

I think "Fish Brain" was another one that really came together. That was probably the one that we worked with Andrea very closely in finishing the song and it really helped us push it to another level. 

How would you say The Sunset Violent evolves Mount Kimbie’s sound from your 2017 album Love What Survives?

Campos: [Our goal was to] write in a way that was more direct. Obviously that can mean lots of different things, but whatever the shortest route for an idea to get executed was what I thought would be interesting to do. I guess that really means [being] more accessible. 

But obviously it wasn't a shot at commercial success. It just so happened that the idea of writing songs that were catchy— just really as simple as they could be, while still being interesting and having quality. That was the major difference from the work that we've done in the past… You can kind of see the evolution of the band through the records. To me, this one feels quite fundamentally different in the way that the songs are written.

In what way?

Campos: I think just the simplicity, or the feeling of simplicity. What I realized over the years was that the pop music that I really enjoyed, or the songwriting that I really enjoyed, sounded simple. And then when you dig into it and try to deconstruct it, you realize there's actually these very important nuances to it that make it work, but from the listener's perspective, it just feels right. 

So it was just trying to do that: have these songs that make you feel something in your gut, but you don't necessarily need to understand why. 

Your music has evolved so much since Crooks & Lovers. Looking back, are you surprised where you've ended up? Or do you feel it was inevitable?

Maker: Oddly, I was thinking about this today. I think it was actually inevitable because we were just really interested in and excited by a certain style and scene in music when we first moved to London when we were younger; 2009, 2010, that era. It was a fascination that really is in just a place and time. 

A lot of that reminds me of growing up, us figuring out London, moving from small towns to the big city, and everything about it being exciting. But I think the fact that we immediately were like, we need to play this live said a lot. Through the years that's been a huge thing, the live show, and trying to approach these songs live has always been something we've really enjoyed doing, and we've got so many amazing memories doing it.It sort of naturally has landed us in this scenario where the sound that we have at the moment feels like something that we want to keep doing more of, which we haven't really had before. We've made records and it's been a long process making them, then when you get to the end, it's sort of like, we should find something new. But, this time, we finished the record and immediately there's still this burning energy to keep going with this sound and writing style. It feels really good and exciting, and I'm glad that the road led us to where we're at now. 

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Updated Friday Oct. 13, 2023 to include info about Kendrick Lamar's most recent GRAMMY wins, as of the 2023 GRAMMYs.

A GRAMMY veteran these days, Kendrick Lamar has won 17 GRAMMYs and has received 47 GRAMMY nominations overall. A sizable chunk of his trophies came from the 58th annual GRAMMY Awards in 2016, when he walked away with five — including his first-ever win in the Best Rap Album category.

This installment of GRAMMY Rewind turns back the clock to 2016, revisiting Lamar's acceptance speech upon winning Best Rap Album for To Pimp A Butterfly. Though Lamar was alone on stage, he made it clear that he wouldn't be at the top of his game without the help of a broad support system. 

"First off, all glory to God, that's for sure," he said, kicking off a speech that went on to thank his parents, who he described as his "those who gave me the responsibility of knowing, of accepting the good with the bad."

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He also extended his love and gratitude to his fiancée, Whitney Alford, and shouted out his Top Dawg Entertainment labelmates. Lamar specifically praised Top Dawg's CEO, Anthony Tiffith, for finding and developing raw talent that might not otherwise get the chance to pursue their musical dreams.

"We'd never forget that: Taking these kids out of the projects, out of Compton, and putting them right here on this stage, to be the best that they can be," Lamar — a Compton native himself — continued, leading into an impassioned conclusion spotlighting some of the cornerstone rap albums that came before To Pimp a Butterfly.

"Hip-hop. Ice Cube. This is for hip-hop," he said. "This is for Snoop Dogg, Doggystyle. This is for Illmatic, this is for Nas. We will live forever. Believe that."

To Pimp a Butterfly singles "Alright" and "These Walls" earned Lamar three more GRAMMYs that night, the former winning Best Rap Performance and Best Rap Song and the latter taking Best Rap/Sung Collaboration (the song features Bilal, Anna Wise and Thundercat). He also won Best Music Video for the remix of Taylor Swift's "Bad Blood." 

Lamar has since won Best Rap Album two more times, taking home the golden gramophone in 2018 for his blockbuster LP DAMN., and in 2023 for his bold fifth album, Mr. Morale & the Big Steppers.

Watch Lamar's full acceptance speech above, and check back at GRAMMY.com every Friday for more GRAMMY Rewind episodes. 

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