HARRISON HEAT

MAR. 31, 2025
#012 — HAKEEM

HAKEEM’s loose, genre-bending style is a discovery journey into deep soulful sounds across the spectrum. His crate digging loot always spawns the forgotten classic, the timeless nugget or that familiar break. Besides DJing, over the past few years HAKEEM has been active in the local scene by taking different roles at Strøm, Kune and In Situ Festival, as well as Drift Radio and his former collective, Second Nature.

I tried to do a mix that had a dreamy feel to it - like a night out. It turned out very ethereal and evocative. Like going out, you can feel tension and release throughout the mix. It was important for me to stay at an approachable tempo and play with intensity in different ways. Overall, I’d say the mix has a very groovy progressive house feel to it.

Nevertheless, expect a few spicy incursions into bouncy, cheeky and trippy moments for good measure. In terms of selection, there’s classic and more contemporary household names, tracks from the 90s until as recently as last summer, so it’s a spectrum, but I really think it comes full circle.

The million dollar question! I particularly enjoy mixing and matching different genres and playing with layers. Generally speaking, the music I play tends to reflect a lot of what I’m listening to at a particular moment in time. So, it certainly changes, but some traits remain like big synth lines, heavy percussion and fat basslines. You’ll definitely hear me play something between house, breaks, techno and bass music.

For me it all started very organically: after going out for years to listen to other DJs playing incredible dance music, I ended up spending a lot of time with a friend that had a full fledged music studio in his living room: from drum machines and synths, to guitars and records, a top notch DJ setup, a whole thing… It all seemed very fascinating and made me realize how little I knew about so many aspects of dance music, particularly playing it, let alone producing. As we spent more and more time at my friend’s place, I realized that even though I didn’t know much, learning about it brought me a lot of joy. From there, it kind of took on a life of its own: getting a first set up eventually spiraled into playing at house parties with friends, volunteering everywhere I could in the local scene, leading to first events as a DJ & promoter, and being part of a collective. Generally speaking, I get a lot of fulfillment from being involved in different projects and contribute towards giving something back. So, I try to stay curious and keep myself in the loop.

I’m in a transitional phase of my life where a lot of things are changing all at once, so I’m trying to stay open for adventures without overcommitting. That said, it’s been nice to see my party Bubbling Inside come to life earlier this year after a year of it being a mix series. I’m excited to continue working on the project and see where the journey leads.

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