LEADING THE WAY
We’ve got garage maestro Conducta on the cover this month, whose ‘Ladbroke Grove’ track with AJ Tracey from last year is officially the biggest selling UKG track of all time, beating all those big hits and No.1s from around 20 years ago. With a whole load of new producers now lining up alongside the garage veterans, it’s as sure a sign as any that UKG is bound 4 da reload (as Oxide & Neutrino might say).
Conducta gives us a really honest interview about his career to date in our cover story (page 28), and there’s plenty more goodness in this issue too. We talk to researchers and music industry experts about the future of city clubbing on page 42, and I had the pleasure of interviewing disco queen Róisín Murphy about her new album (p57). We hook up with Leftwing : Kody at their home studio (p63), talk to drill spitter V9 on page 77, and tonnes more besides.
Meanwhile, the global pandemic doesn’t seem to have dented the enthusiasm for the biggest music poll in the world — Top 100 DJs. Votes have been pouring in, and there’s still time to nominate your faves by heading to top100djs.com right now.
Recognising that the poll has been dominated by EDM DJs in recent years, we’ve been running the Alternative Top 100 DJs poll in tandem for the past three years, where we can shine a light on the biggest and best house and techno spinners in the scene. So if you favour more underground jocks, don’t feel that your vote is going to be wasted. Get to it.
Women and Black DJs have been severely under-represented in the Top 100 poll in recent years, so this year I’d encourage you to bear that in mind when casting your votes. Even during the coronavirus crisis, our global scene should be triumphantly celebrating its diversity.
CARL LOBEN
Editor