Cliqued Up with Kingdom

"_I had to stay in bed and drink Codeine cough syrup for two weeks. That's when I learned how to program this drum machine." Illustrations by @cumdrizzle. _It's often just one moment—a chance meeting, a mind-blowing concert, one special song—that can spark a lifetime of inspiration and motivation. In The Spark, our favourite DJs tell us about theirs. __Here's Fade to Mind label boss Kingdom telling us about bridging the gap between the European and American undergrounds.

I've always done music, but there have been turning points in my production all my life. Even when my dad bought me a shitty keyboard in, like, 1993, playing with this really crappy synth became my favorite thing to do. Once I had it I couldn't stop. Later on in 2002, I had to get my tonsils out. I was on cough syrup and had just gotten my first drum machine, which was basically a drum machine for teenagers. It had bass sounds built into it and some pre-fab shitty settings, and I had to stay in bed and drink Codeine cough syrup for two weeks. That's when I learned how to program this drum machine and that was when I fell in love with learning how to program drums and beats and stuff like that.

I just thought music was my hobby, though. I went to art school and I was working in the art world and that was just my plan. Then slowly music just kind of crept in. It was almost an accident. I was doing a little bit of DJing, and my friend had a night in New York at Happy Ending and he was like, "I want you to DJ my night." I wasn't a DJ, but he was like, "Just bring CDs and I'll show you how to do it." He showed me and I was totally not mixing, but I think it was about selection at the time and my interests were really disparate. I was into old school rave music, R&B, classic house, and old school hardcore jungle shit.

Then in 2008 I took a trip to LA and a trip to London and those experiences combined kind of made me who I am. I do it for the friendships, in a way. I met Nguzunguzu and I met Total Freedom and I met Bok Bok and I met Girl Unit and it felt like, they just get it. They get what I'm trying to talk about and that to me was the turning point. That was the signal to me: when I met people who understand music in the way I do.

"It wasn't some epic big thing. It was this really really small Mexican bar and a really intimate setting, and people were into really experimental dance music."

I went out to LA to play at a party called Moustache Mondays, which is the night that Total Freedom plays. I also came out to play their night Wildness—that club experience was definitely pivotal for me. People were playing the stuff I was: finding music from all over the world and mixing it together in their own way that was vaguely American. Nguzunguzu, especially at that time, was really raw and sounded like some really lo-fi Baltimore club-type songs with noise. They were the first people I met that did that and it wasn't some giant club. It wasn't some epic big thing. It was this really really small Mexican bar and a really intimate setting.

I actually met Bok Bok online, through Flickr. I randomly found his design work back in the day and was into him—he does all the graphics for Night Slugs. So I messaged him and then I found his music page and they were kind of on the same tip. They were drawing from a lot of UK music as well as American music, but it wasn't location-specific, really, and it was a lot about the textures and the sounds they were collecting. We basically talked online and we were both like, "I'm going to come to London and do your party and you should come to New York and do my party."

I went to London first. I remember I had Bok Bok's address and I found my way from the airport to his house in London and the first time I met or saw him ever he was poking his head out the window to make sure the door wasn't locked. It was totally, like, Internet friends meeting for the first time. Totally blind. A blind date with friends.

I played a local club in South London. I think it was called the Red Star and it wasn't even a packed night. It was just a fun night and everyone was just going wild and it was just hearing the way they mixed; it worked perfectly without even having to talk about it. That was definitely a formative experience for me. I had been a fan of UK music for a minute and to see them form it and get their take on it was really interesting. That was before really I started hanging out with Nguzunguzu and Total Freedom, but at the time there wasn't anyone in America that I was really on the same tip with.

Interestingly all these people come from art. We all either went to art school or did something with design. I don't know if that's a coincidence or if everyone in music is also into art, but we all kind of came from that world. Sometimes we like really visceral sounds, and music that sounds kind of raw and we also play hood shit and then sometimes it sounds almost like noise. It's a combination of those forces that we all kind of agreed upon.

I feel like I cobbled this together and managed to make social connections with people like Nguzunguzu and Bok Bok to form our own international scene for this sound that just wasn't there for me to go to before. Before I met those people I didn't think that music was possible for me because I wasn't interested in joining up in what was happening with music at the time.

"SXSW last year was actually kind of hell…"

2008 was like the buildup to 2010 when I started Fade to Mind as a sister label to Night Slugs. That was basically the cementing of the sense that we have this larger collective—Night Slugs and Fade to Mind. There are similarities and there are differences, but together, like when we all hang out it's clear that we all have an understanding of the same stuff.

I think that through the Internet Bok Bok, Nguzunguzu and Total Freedom did know of each other's existence, but I really was the bridge between the scenes. It's been awesome to see everyone bond and whenever anyone's in each other's cities they're hanging out. SXSW last year was actually kind of hell, but it was cool in the sense that 14 of us were in one house together—Night Slugs people and Fade to Mind people for the first time ever and it was fun as hell. It was so cool to hang out with everyone at once and everyone got along. Everyone has weird quirks, including myself, but it works and the parties went off. It was amazing.

Forming Fade to Mind was important because it gave a name to the sound we're doing and all that. It seems like more and more people are getting into it. People tell me they're hearing my songs places and it's definitely catching on. My sound is so different and it always has been pretty different, and now the club scene has changed so much. Now there's a night in every big city where they're playing underground UK Bass music alongside R&B. When I started out in 2007 that didn't exist at all.

After the whole scene formed, we met Kelela and it was great to work with her and that's been a really nice step, but that feels like a step two or step three that has goes beyond the original concept. She's in her own category, but she definitely understands the production aesthetic better than any other vocalist I've met. She really gets what we're doing.

As told to Lauren Schwartzberg. Lauren is the woman she is today because of Kanye West's Glow in the Dark Tour _-@laurschwar_