The Thirteen And A Half Lives Of Dawidu
we dive deep into Dawidu’s unique life experience, glamorous kitsch outfits and continuously mervellous selections
One thing for sure: Dawidu is a rare type. An artist who self-expresses through various means, someone who is not afraid to dress however he likes and say whatever he thinks, and ultimately a masterful selector who stays underground but doesn't shy away from playing any track or genre that fits his taste. The feeling I have when speaking to him is of someone who lived quite a few different lives already - at the same time, Dawidu’s pirate-like life journey feels like it’s only beginning with his one-of-a-kind selections getting some serious attention in the post-corona scene.
Ultimately, Dawidu is one of the selectors with whom we best reflect our style at Guerrilla Bizarre. Extremely varied, eclectic in an unpretentious way, his sets challenge your taste, at the same time keeping a core playful component always present.
Listen as you read: Dawidu’s latest mix exploring Downtempo and Trip-hop. Each Dawidu’s mix explores different sub-genres and influences:
In this chat, we go over his relationship with DJing and digging from its inception, as well as other themes that are highly relevant to him as an artist and person such as clothing and theater. I tried to bring together these different points and was delightfully surprised when it was Dawidu himself connecting the dots through his extensive answers and anecdotes. From the starting question related to his DJ background, he brings it back to the origin and gives a full spectrum of his peculiar path: "I started going out clubbing at a very young age, I was already going to underage events in Paris at Les Planches and few other places. My mom was giving me a compilation of this FM Radio called RadioFG with some more commercial-oriented dance music. I was already downloading a lot of music myself when the P2P platforms appeared, I listened to all the kinds of genres a teen can listen to, from Pop to Metal, Hip-hop and then later on more Electro stuff, with labels such as Ed Banger and similar. At 16 I started going to Rex Club a lot (I mean a loooot), like every weekend or so. A friend of mine from school had introduced me to the German minimal movement by making me a CD mixtape which I begged him to do because he was constantly with his headphones on. I knew he had lived in Berlin for a year before so I was curious what kind of music was taking up so much of his attention.”
Dawidu then started a journey to chase for the best parties and festivals all over Europe “I started travelling to different countries to party, mainly Germany, the Netherlands (for the Timewarp festivals and Robert Johnson) and London where, after a M_NUS Contact showcase, I decided to move. I spent 2 years in London, perfecting my taste for music, meeting people from all around the world which was a real mind-opener, and starting to understand the music “business” and the vibe altogether. I bought a controller and started spinning home with friends, but I quickly got into buying records around 2010. Bought my first ones at Halcyon in NY where I would go every few months to visit my girlfriend back then. The first music I was getting was this kind of laid back deep-house, with artists such as Christopher Rau, Moomin, Jus-Ed, DJ Qu and related labels. Quickly, I got into the Discogs frenzy and started buying all sorts of music genres, as I would easily get bored of playing just one kind of sound. I would order massive chunks of 40-50 records at once in the US (ranging from Breakbeat, Acid, Tech-house, Electro) and bring them back with overweight suitcases with me back to London, where I was also going to record shops like Phonica, for instance. By then, I realised I might have enough of a decent taste to pursue this new passion of DJing, but I knew for sure already then it wasn’t gonna be easy or as glam as it may seem when you first get into this world… After 2 years of jumping from clubs to afterhours in London, and finishing a short course in Music Production at SAE (which didn’t interest me back then), I needed a change of physical and musical scenery. With my 2 best friends we came across a “new” sub-genre emerging which was the Romanian minimal. We had seen A:rpia:r at Fabric and Dan Andrei & Praslea at T-Bar and instantly got curious about this new sound. We went to Sunwaves in 2011 and I decided to stay in Bucharest for the following 2 years. There I massively improved my DJ skills, playing for countless hours in friends’ studios, going out a lot for inspiration and enhancing my sense of the dancefloor. What I loved about Romania is that people who go out really take the music at heart, and so do the DJs… The set times were usually much longer compared to what I had experienced before and people were not afraid to ride 300 km for an event in a Casino or other unusual venues. Most importantly, the sound systems were always nicely set-up and I also loved the attention to detail, often featuring amazing mapped visuals on top of the musical experience.”
“I went to Belgium and England, dug through a lot of dirt and collected the first records that I then sold when the shop finally opened. We decided to sell second-hand clothes as well, which really took the vibe and offer of the store to the next level. People of all backgrounds, ages and tastes would blend very nicely in this hub I created.”
“Those 2 years really taught me a lot. With that experience, in 2013 I decided to come back to Paris to share it in the form of a record shop. With the help of my dear mother, I went to Belgium and England, dug through a lot of dirt and collected the first records that I then sold when the shop finally opened. I had it for 5 years, during which I started playing out more and more in Paris and abroad, really defining my own style and started digging a lot of different music to open a web-radio, which happened in 2015. In the last 2 years of the store, my ex-girlfriend Cornelia and I decided to sell second-hand clothes, which really took the vibe and offer of the store to the next level. We would organise streamed sets while doing photoshoots in the store. People of all backgrounds, ages and tastes would blend very nicely in this hub I created. I decided to close in 2018 (saying this with a bit of nostalgia!) as I needed to spend more time focusing on my DJ career. I felt like I really brought my stone to the building but needed to start polishing my own castle. That’s when I decided to move to Berlin, a city I always loved and wanted to live in at some point in my life, but only felt ready then because as much as it can lift you up artistically, without a strong mindset and goals to hold on to, it can do the exact opposite.”
We then arrive at current times: “Corona happened quite soon afterwards and I took this time to compile my music in the best way, record a lot of podcasts rather than buying new music all the time. Which was a winning bet as it gave me a spotlight when clubs and festivals got to re-open. Now here we are, in these in-between times when you don’t know for sure if your next gig will happen. But I keep on preparing for the next things to come, rather than dwell over what can’t be at the moment (it hasn’t been easy during the lockdowns, they were times when you kind of lose your sense of purpose, which was challenging mentally). During these last couple years, the focus has been mainly on my DJ career which I needed, but of course, I’m interested in various things and art forms so the idea is to combine them all as much as possible.”
“I’m rather sure of my picks and this fil-rouge I created over the years also allows me to broaden people’s tastes because it will be introduced in a way that will make dancers or listeners realise the added musical value of this or that track, whatever genre it is”
The list of genres Dawidu puts together under a selector’s taste is impressive, but at the same time, I feel like behind this vast range of genres there’s a precise taste in picking each record that gets played. “It’s hard to describe my fil-rouge but there is one. In 2 seconds I can tell if a song doesn’t fit, but it might take a bit more time to know if I do like it. A few listens, in different states, sometimes feedback from friends as my taste sometimes tends to be too-eccentric. But most of the time, I’m rather sure of my picks and this fil-rouge I created over the years also allows me to broaden people’s tastes because it will be introduced in a way that will make dancers or listeners realise the added musical value of this or that track, whatever genre it is. I’ve always been very keen on eclecticism in general and set my mind for discovering as many genres or sub-genres as possible, and finding the sounds, the chords, the keys and the sequencing which defines my sound best. Also, thanks to the DJing, taste-knowing and taste-making (if I may say) skills I acquired over the years, I realised there is music for every moment, for everyone and there are ways to please as many people as possible without compromising your choices.”
Dawidu’s podcasts feel like a recipe for the unexpected: mellow trip-hop, spacey techno, disco, Hip-hop and even Drum and bass - each took the role of protagonist in one of his mixes: “As for the podcast crafting process, it first depends if I am about to record a “danceable” podcast or more easy listening one. I always try to find a theme for them (more and more even over time), which doesn’t have to be a specific genre, of course, it’s often a mixture of them but always with cues to one another. For example the Mudd Show’s ones, I wanted to have a funky touch and insist on the universality component, so people not used to standard club music would also be able to enjoy them. More recently I had to record one in a wine bar in Berlin (Motif Wein), so I started digging my hard drive for Ambient and Downtempo songs which kind of all have this noise you make if you rub your wet finger on a crystal glass: that was the theme. Sometimes I focus on emotions, like hope or melancholy… And I also like imposed themes. For this one that I did for my friend Maxime DB (excellent DJ by the way) on his new ClubSoba input, he was aiming for a post-rock/post-funk vibe. What I did was compile only records with riffs of guitar inside. For the YAY one, the one for Drum’n’Bass you mentioned, I simply used iTunes smart playlist to narrow down the playlist of my library to only songs with a range of BPM from 80 to 90 and 160 to 190 (cause sometimes the BPM’s are halved or doubled) and dug through this.”
“I’ve always been very keen on eclecticism in general and set my mind for discovering as many genres or sub-genres as possible, and finding the sounds, the chords, the keys and the sequencing which defines my sound best."
His surprising range of approaches to provide something original and different every time don’t end here: “I have also been using MixedInKey for a while which allows you to display the keys of each tune for more harmonic mixing, it helps me to make the order of the track-list although, of course, I don’t rely solely on this but first and foremost on what my ears tell me and the story I wanna create. I usually group the tracks in 3 phases (beginning/middle/end), do my own order and then adjust it with the info of the software. I also use this technique for my vinyl podcasts, pre-recording everything at the chosen BPM as keys fluctuate with pitch shifting. That’s the recipe that’s been working for me, it also allows you to know your tracks in a deeper sense, and enhance your harmonic mixing skills.” And what about mixing live on the dancefloor? “Of course on the dancefloor, there’s a lot more room for spontaneity, which sometimes will create unusual mixes, even disharmonic at times but which can be pleasant anyway. Also on the dancefloor, I will sometimes go through different themes in a single set. But then again the knowledge gained with this harmonic mixing is very valuable once being the decks at a party.”
“There’s a similarity in the way I look for music or clothes: it’s either in a huge dirty warehouse far in Eastern Europe or either in the deepest or shallowest part of the internet.”
On and off the dancefloor, you’ll find Dawidu shining with peculiar style in the way he dresses (just have a look at his IG) - his style is various, it doesn’t fit any fixed fashion category and instead breaks the rules with a playful attitude. The feeling is fashion goes together with the rest of his activity and artform to shape his 360° expression as an artist and in everyday life: “Fashion has always been one of my stronger interests, and it’s my other best way of expressing myself after music. There’s a similarity in the way I look for music or clothes: it’s either in a huge dirty warehouse far in Eastern Europe or either in the deepest or shallowest part of the internet. I like to think it fits with my music in the sense that I always try to expand people’s horizons and perception of taste in general. I’ve never minded the strange looks I would get walking in the streets riding an e-scooter dressed like a drag queen or totally in fluorescent colours. And having stepped back on this (I have been dressing eccentrically from a very young age), it has now arrived to the point of liking people looking at me mainly for “helping” them reflect on themselves, on society or on what’s customarily agreed. I’ve always been kind of a rebel so this always felt natural.
“Usually the parties I enjoy the most in this sense are the queer parties. Because there’s self-confidence and you can truly see the art form of not giving a f**k which I relate to.”
I then asked Dawidu regarding ‘self-expression’ concerning dance scenes - as much as I feel there’s an emphasis on self-expression, I wonder if the unwritten outfit rules and style requirements could end up limiting self-expression: “Well, I tend to agree and disagree at the same time. I still find it appreciable that some people are “forced” to put a little effort in dressing up as they wouldn’t otherwise. On the dancefloor, I like to see people wearing colours, accessories, etc. and not their everyday outfits. But at the same time, it doesn’t push you to do it outside of the party, it just remains that thing that you do once in a while. But in some cases, maybe it can still bring out this interest in them so it’s worth a shot and better than everyone looking dressed like fast-fashion with the same H&M shirt and pair of Nike’s. The key is to listen to your gut and if you like something just try it out! Maybe not everyone will like it but if you do, you might make them: this rule applies to everything.” What are the parties you enjoy the most fashion-wise? “Usually the parties I enjoy the most in this sense are the queer parties. Because there’s self-confidence and you can truly see the art form of not giving a f**k which I relate to. Everyone is welcome as they are of course but it’ll be extra valued if you put some time and thought into participation to the overall visual experience.”
Other than fashion, another theme that I learned was present in one of the many lives of Dawidu, is theater: “I was taking theater classes as I grew up in Paris, for 7 years exactly. it was always a great output for me to express my emotions, and get a deeper understanding of psychology as well. Frankly, if I hadn’t pursued a career in music that’s the other art form I would have chosen. Theater is now present in my life as what I call “everyday theater”, through the clothes and attitude of my everyday life. But I also have projects of shooting a few movie clips which would bring back the theater even more in my current life.”
Closing the interview, I ask Dawidu for his wishes for 2022 - as clichè as this sounds, during this weird time I want to hear what I feel a true artist like him wishes to manifest: “There are several and on different levels, but mostly I wanna feel like people are enjoying life, at least at times, so making them dance and forget about the week’s worries is a good way to keep doing so. For me self-expression is also a very good way of empowering oneself, it worked for me and on many others so if I can help others even a tiny bit more towards that direction, this would be satisfactory.”
