Akkachar / Rwina Records
July 6
Not so long ago I played with Akkachar from Amsterdam's Rwina Records and had a thoroughly enjoyable time. Recently I caught up with dude and we did a bit of an interview ting on iChat, which you can find, and hopefully enjoy, below....
OK, let's start with the basics - who are you, where do you live and what do you do?
I'm Akkachar, 25 yrs old and I live in Amsterdam. I work as a social worker, I'm doing a Master in child behaviour studies, I run Rwina Records, I promote several parties in Amsterdam and I DJ.
Akkachar is a pretty unusual name (and this from someone calling themselves Baobinga!). And I guess Rwina is quite unusual too - at least from a Western European viewpoint. What's the story behind those names?
'Akkachar' was a nickname of my grandfather, it means "Big Bold Man" in Tamazight. Tamazight is a language that the Berbers in Northern Morocco speak; actually it’s one of the seven classical languages like Greek, Latin and Arabic - it has it’s own writing / script. And the word itself, Akkachar, sounds pretty abstract - I like that. 'Rwina' is a Moroccan word which means "Never Ending Chaos". I used it for my label, because I like the word - both the meaning, and how it's pronounced. Its short and in your face.
When we played together on Leipzig, you were saying something about how your family come from a long line of pirates?!?
Yeah true, basically. We are Berbers who live by the Mediterranean sea... and my family liked to rob people who were passing by on their boats, back in the days when Europeans headed to Asia pepper and rice they'd have to pass very close to Morocco, and we made it very tricky ;)
Do you get to head back to Morocco a fair bit? Still got family there?
As a matter of a fact all my family lives in Morocco. I try to visit them each year... I couldnt make it the past two years and i really regret that, because I lost my nephew who died in an accident... But yeah i booked a trip back for this summer and I'm really looking forward to it - just swimming and eating fish. I've got my own place in Morocco so maybe when I retire, I'll stay there for a longer period..
Yes man, get a studio sorted up in there and you will have all the UK dubstep heads reaching out there to finish riddims in the sun!
Sorry to hear about your nephew though... its always tricky having peoples around the globe, I've got family in South Africa and couldn't make either of my grandparents funerals.
Yeah that's heavy - and painful. I grew up with him, well we were always together when i was in Morocco. Shit, he was 26 and died 400 meters from his house.
Damn! Yeah i remember you saying about that, some kind of a freak motorbike accident?
Yeah man, he had no wounds or blood or anything. It was something internal.
Raas... we gone too deep too soon!
Heheh, its getting kind of therapeutical.
Well let's move on for a minute - so were you born in Morocco and moved over here, or were you born and raised in the Dam?
I was born in the Netherlands, near the Dam. Moved to the north of Holland, then lived for half a year in Germany in Dortmund - this was when i was 4. Back to Holland and now it's been almost 9 years in the Dam.
And repping it hard! How long has Rwina been going?
The plans were spooking in my head for a long period. I was just waiting for the right moment and tunes, but yeah 8 months exactly! Two releases are out, two are coming up, working on an album and still signing the freshest beats.
So were you doing parties for a while before getting the label going?
Well first I was all about hip-hop, NWA, Bone Thugs, WC, SCC and so on. I used to MC and produce in Music Maker and loop the end of beats with Cool Edit. From there on I moved to the 2-step and garage thing. I was a big fan of DJ EZ. Then 2-step and garage became too corny, it became too sweet and it was all about the vox and such... looking back now though, i love it! Strange. Then techno came along, the darker and grittier UK techno sound was sick. And yeah, i did a lot of techno parties in Utrecht, it was a really techno-minded city. We had people like Regis, Inigo Kennedy, Dylan Drazen, Rumenige & Loktibrada. It was all about techno with a deeper and darker edge. I played a lot of techno parties too with the likes of Oliver Ho, Steve Rachmad, James Ruskin and so on. Because of the Birmingham techno sound i came in touch with Scorn, from there on i started to play everthing in my sets - techno, dubstep, electro, just everything. Then i started to do parties with a friend of mine in the Melkweg in Amsterdam - we did these under the name Conflict. These parties were going to represent our sound when we DJ - we had people like Innasekt, NASA, Sully, Plastician, DJ Zinc, D1 so a very wide range of music. Now I'm doing a new concept in Amsterdam together with the headhoncho of Subway Recordings, Nicon. This will be strictly dubstep, the first party will be on the September 25th with Headhunter, Ikonika and Crissy Criss... I do still like everything but dubstep is more my vibe.
Ha I had no idea you were into that kind of techno, I'm gonna have to post up a link to Rue East 'Birmingham' - any excuse!
I played that tune alot! The melody is sick..
and the Ben Sims RMX for good measure:
Coco bongo!
OK, so what is the Rwina sound? What have you looked for in releases so far and what are you looking for in stuff you get sent?
Rwina music has to be edgy, thick and meaty and not sticking to the script. What the label is about: pushing the global bass music scene's boundaries further away from the center. I mean at the end of the day it's just bassmusic. The first release by Starkey was a monster and had this big impact, all the bigger jocks played it. I mean there was a period where you heard it getting dropped every weekend here in Holland.
Taz Buckfaster did the second with a wobblemonster on one side and a cooled down riddim on the flip. I got Playdoe for the third, you might know the MC through Sweat.X, this neo-electro group from South Africa - Starkey is remixing a tune of theirs on that release, its like Dr Dre meets Timbaland and they start doing acid. The fourth is by Taz and it's just straight-up anthem bizz. I got Raffertie, Kanji Kinetic and an album coming up too.
A Rwina compilation? Or an artist album?
An artist album by Taz and its going to be huge! A wide range of electronic bassheavy music. Rwina to the fullest!
No doubt. How do you find it running a label that's so international? I mean, you're based in Amsterdam, ST Holdings (they do your distro right?) is London, Taz is Glasgow I think, Starkey is Philly - do you spend a fair amount of time online, or running up a big phonebill?
Distro is done by both TripleVision and ST Holdings... And yeah I do spend a bit of time online. That's no hassle for me, i generally find one hour a day is more than enough. But then sometimes you know, you go from one tune to another, to a mix, to some mails, to an AIM session, and then bam you've been on the net for 5 hours straight.
Looking at people like Taz, or Kanji, they are definitely pushing that full-on sound really hard... How do you feel about the talk of a split in dubstep? Do you reckon the heavy stuff can get much heavier? Is there anything you hear that you're like - nah that's TOO much? Or do you think the more minimal deeper stuff is basically just dull music for Basic Channel-fetishists?
Well, as a matter of fact i will release some deeper stuff. I love the deeper stuff, so many vibes to it... I don't see it as a split or whatever, not at all. It just depends on your vibe - sometimes I can't stand a harsh pure wobble tune and sometimes I need to sleep when i hear the deeper stuff. Its not necessary that the heavy stuff gets heavier, if it gets heavier and its still good then that's cool by me, if it gets worse then that's also cool by me. Some of the heavy stuff is produced so well, when you play it the crowd goes bzzrrkkk. It depens on what kind of heavy stuff and how good the mixdown of it is, you dig? Regarding the deeper stuff, shit some of the stuff that comes out is really brilliant, labels like Hessle, Applepips, Berkane Sol, 7even and Hotflush are killing it at the moment. The more soulful deeper sound by boys like Anti Social is big as well.
Yeah good answer to a fairly leading question heheh... It's definitely too easy to analyse music into 'everything like this is good, everything like that is bad'. Its not a team sport, you don't have to take sides and divide it all up.
Speaking of dividing stuff up, how much of your day is taken up with Rwina, and how much with your day job?
It's like 95% job and the regular stuff and 5% Rwina. To be honest, I don't really keep track of the time that I use for Rwina, it just hapens or not.
Do you find the Rwina stuff a good way to switch off from your day job? From what you were telling me, it gets pretty intense some of the stuff you deal with...
Yeah, music is not the only aspect to my life or something. Life = life and Rwina is a part of it just like music. Its more like a space where I can go to without the boundaries and restrictions you have to deal with in your regular life; it has its own boundaries and restrictions, but still it's not the same. It still feels good, so I'm still going strong :) I start to love this side of the music more and more. You can push it a certain direction, I like to push it a lot of various directions! But yeah, jobwise, the stuff that i deal with is pretty heavy, sometimes life can be heavy...
So what is it you do in the day job?
I coach families whom have problems with their children or children who have problems with their families. It can get pretty intense because of the sort of problems - sometimes it's prostitution, sometimes a really depressed child - a range of issues.
Do you get training to deal with that kind of stuff? Like, if you have to go into a family where they're pimping their kids, how do you switch that off when you finish? And have you seen situations like that?
Yeah man I'm trained, I studied to do this and I'm still studying. Basically it's just an on/off switch that I use. Sometimes it gets to me when I'm back home, because I'm only human, and then I try to switch it off asap! And yeah man, I coached a girl who was 13 and a working prostitute, shit is real.
What's the positive side of your job? What makes you keep coming back to it, given that it must get pretty depressing at times...
When a family or kid is out of their / his / her problems and you see them downtown a year later and they are doing well, greet you and thank you for your effort, that's a quality feeling. And there's been occasions where I've helped people get enrolled in a music production course, and then found out years down the line that they are releasing music and have turned their shit around - things like that are great.
Yeah definitely... And it links together both aspects of what you do I guess.
Aight well I guess that's a pretty good place to leave this man, thank you so much bro!
Yeah man, thank you too! It was fun to do!
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And cos I'm a demanding so-and-so, I also got Akkachar to break down the releases so far...
RWINA001: STARKEY
A: JUST A
808 rework of Biz Markie's Just A Friend, with this sick whiney synth!
B: MILLION
A millie, a millie, a millie... This tune killed a lot of dancefloors around the globe.RWINA002: TAZ BUCKFASTER
A: INSIDE JOB
Mid range wobble terror tune with this 4x4 switch lead by an anthem synth.
B: KINGSTON BRIDGE
Smoke to this one, nuff said!RWINA003: PLAYDOE
A: FREEZE STEP (STARKEY REMIX)
Wooow this remix is just too sick. I love it big time. The vox fit the remix so well and those synths, 2048 bizz!
B1: FREEZE STEP
The original is so quirky and so bad.
B2: FRONT SEAT
Neo dancehall trip.
A: JUST A
808 rework of Biz Markie's Just A Friend, with this sick whiney synth!
B: MILLION
A millie, a millie, a millie... This tune killed a lot of dancefloors around the globe.RWINA002: TAZ BUCKFASTER
A: INSIDE JOB
Mid range wobble terror tune with this 4x4 switch lead by an anthem synth.
B: KINGSTON BRIDGE
Smoke to this one, nuff said!RWINA003: PLAYDOE
A: FREEZE STEP (STARKEY REMIX)
Wooow this remix is just too sick. I love it big time. The vox fit the remix so well and those synths, 2048 bizz!
B1: FREEZE STEP
The original is so quirky and so bad.
B2: FRONT SEAT
Neo dancehall trip.
*********************
That's pretty much everything, if you want to check out some mixes by the man himself, head to Latest tracks by akkachar
Biggups and big thanks to Akkachar :)
Sam Bao.
Posted by bassmusic
