![]() In South Africa, the kids in Durban, they’re trying to make house Afro-house, but at the end of the day, it’s house. It was called grimey garage before it was called grime. “ So youngins are trying to make garage but didn’t have the supplies, didn’t have the equipment, didn’t have the facilities and it was this grimey sound. “ Someone might disagree with me but my theory is that grime came from by people being shut out of trying to make UK garage,” Scratcha begins, connecting the dots. This sentiment, the outsider mentality that pushed him towards grime, is also what Scratcha saw in gqom. “ I like all kinds of music and in the past it’s been to my detriment,” Scratcha admits of his gnarly, potpourri sound. ![]() Just outside the mainstream, with a taste too eclectic to fit neatly in the UK Funky, Grime or Tech House trends. Though despite being on major projects like Wiley’s Playtime’s Over, Scratcha’s career is that of a maverick. Pushing the boundaries, slicing up some rhythm & grime like on the landmark The Voice of Grime compilation that put women’s voices front and center or producing genre-bending cult classics like “ Kurb Krawl”. And how they’re making it.” Scratcha has had his hands in the grime machine for decades now. The gqom that the kids are making in Durban, it just reminds me of grime. Like the same things happening in two different places. “ That was my grime era,” Scratcha says with a smile, “ and I feel that how grime developed in the UK is how gqom developed. Slap on Dominwoe’s “ Africa’s Cry”, track 1 off the first Gqom Oh! The Sound of Durban compilation from back in 2016, and you’ll get the same dark, evil-tech feeling of Scratcha’s “ Reach the Sun” opener from his 2012 Pretty Ugly. I’m here to dissect the gqom, grime connection. The party is already a’rumble with bass and faraway woops and wolps. He leads me to the nearest table and folding chairs and pours us both a tall plastic cup of tequila. He’s wearing a big black jacket and dark cap. Scratcha appears from behind the barrier with a neon wristband in one hand and a bottle of Patron in the other. A security guard puts his hand on my chest as I try to enter backstage. My mind is a jumble with Scratcha’s chaotic productions tracks with samples that feel like they’re thrown together from different corners of a small room, artifacts from far away places crashing against a wall marked with a child’s growing height. I’ve been listening to the former’s catalog for days. Scratcha is here to do a b2b with gqom pioneer, Nyege Nyege signee and Durban native Menzi Shabane. “wya?” reads a text from Scratcha DVA aka Scratcha aka Scratchclart. A wide-open hanger with two stages eats the early mass of bodies seeking release, heavy beats and pushy cameos. The club is filling out with fishnets and dark eyeliner. It’s Boiler Room Festival Day 1 on a cold Amsterdam night. The throaty howl punched throughout “Flex”.
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