Welcome to Trove. A series where we chat to our favourite music purveyors about five tracks that have hit differently recently and how each one came into their lives.
The inaugural treasures come courtesy of SAIDAH (Zoe Saidah), a UKG-focused DJ hailing from South East London who now calls Amsterdam home.
Music has been a constant thread throughout Zoe’s life. As a young girl, she fondly recalls “riding around in the car with mum listening to garage compilations blaring through the speakers.”
Zoe’s sets are based on whatever gets her moving in the club. That simple. Luckily, when she started mixing her head was full of an almighty catalogue of old-school UKG music. If you’re a fan of heaving basslines paired with sweet female vocals, then a SAIDAH set will be up right up your alley! Always keeping audiences on their dancing toes, Zoe sprinkles her time at the controls with amapiano, house, r&b and afrobeat flavours. Recently, Zoe has supported dons including Fred again and Pink Pantheress, so you know she’s going about things the right way.
So without further adieu, let’s get into her IDs.
Matt Jam Lamont is a stalwart in the garage scene and it’s so cool to see him collaborating with newer producers and putting out fresh music rather than being relegated to just ‘old school’. I was digging into some of his older music on YouTube when this gem appeared and I noticed it was something recent. I love the long soft introduction that steadily leads you into something bassy. Opening a set with this track helps perfectly set the tone for what’s to come.
It’s hard to pick one from this entire album but Coochie takes the top spot for me. Shygirl and I were at school together so I’ve followed her journey and it’s amazing to see her going places, but regardless of that, her music is sick and makes you feel like a bad b*tch listening to it. I saw her perform at Melkweg in Amsterdam a few months ago and took special pleasure in the entire crowd singing a cute song while screaming “COOCHIE!” to the stage.
For the past few years, I’ve spent some time in South Africa and I love listening to the radio when I’m in a new place to get a taste of the local flavour. This song is Kwaito, a genre that originates from the townships in Joburg that I first heard on the radio during my last visit, and this song title loosely translates as “We will be there”. I was driving around a bend in Cape Town with beautiful mountain views and blazing sunshine when this song came on. Pure joy.
FS Green has fast become one of my favourite producers, with everything he touches there’s this smooth, slick sound that makes every track so easy on the ear. He debuted this one on his Radio Radio FM show which is where I first heard it. The next time I heard it was Moxie & Elias Mazian B2B at De School’s ADE day party – as soon as it came on everyone was grooving hard, and every time I’ve played it out since, it has the same effect.
With these two heavy hitters teaming up, this was destined to be a certified banger. Conducta and his label Kiwi Records have been putting out the best in NUKG in recent times, and following “BOTA’s” success I started watching Interplanetary Criminal’s next moves. I first heard this during his Mixlab set (the whole thing is amazing) and I ran straight to Bandcamp. The bass hits hard while those sweet vocals that I love so much make this song catchy and memorable.