“ 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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