Bubblegum Club

Tag: lit

  • Bubblegum Club mix Vol 7 by K-$

    In her bio she is described as an “internet sensation” we wouldn’t argue with that. K-$ (real name Kalo Canterbury) is a young dj on the rise. We first noticed her for a carefully curated Instagram feed and her very delicious OG-streetstyle looks but its through her sound that she is really starting to make waves. Hot off the release of her mix for NON (featured on Rinse FM) we spoke to K-$ about the exclusive mix she created for us, what she is up to at the moment and the importance of the internet to her as a dj.

     

    Can you tell us a bit about the mix you’ve created for us?

    With this mix, I wanted to create something lekker and bouncy. The songs I chose are all well recognised

    classic funk and disco because they’ve been sampled so many times within more

    contemporary music, especially in hip hop. Paying homage to some of the best bands, groups and

    artists to ever do it back in the day, in a commercially successful sense. Also, each of these songs

    carry that feel-good quality. Don’t tell me you can sit through any of these songs without busting

    out a quick boogie. I also named it “Green Tea Disco” because just like green tea, it’s refreshing.

    Plus I’m always drinking green tea when I make my mixes… Maybe I should start doing that in the

    club when I spin.

     

    What exactly is LIT…and can you tell us a bit about LIT Bassment Ting?

    LIT is a squad of DJs, producers and artists based in Cape Town. Well, we’re actually more like a

    family filled with proper experienced big names like Sumo Jac and Dplanet, to those of us new to

    the game and trying to come up, like me. It’s amazing in the sense that we all learn from each

    other, regardless of our level, so we constantly grow together. We can all hold our own as artists

    and entertainers, but we’re stronger together. We’ve all got each others backs, we all want each

    other to thrive – the support and love is unconditional and the banter is never-ending.

    If I could sum it up, we just have the same idea of what good fun and good music is, and we want

    to share that with whoever is open to it. That’s why we do LIT Bassment Ting. We went from

    throwing a weekly party at Bazinga Bar, to now throwing a monthly party on First Thursdays in the

    basement of House of H on Loop, which has kinda become our headquarters. Our first one was at

    the beginning of October and holy shit, it was LIT. We’re all excited about our second one, taking

    place on the 3rd. We plan to take over Cape Town this Summer. Just watch.

     

    Something exciting seems to be brewing in Cape Town, driven in particular by young

    people of colour and also queer / non binary individuals – why do you think this is?

    There’s a very positive thing happening in Cape Town where people of colour,

    queers and non-binary people are supporting each others art, ideas and movements. This support

    system has almost created a sense of comfortability, safeness and self-acceptance, and because

    of that we’ve become blatantly unapologetic. We don’t just dala what we must, we dala whatever we want,

    however we want, whenever we want to. It’s a gorgeous thing to witness, and an honour to be a part of it.

     

    Why has Joburg never been blessed with a K-$ set?

    I actually played Joburg once back in 2014 at Kitcheners. At the time I basically knew nothing

    about DJing in a technical sense, I just wanted to play some of my favourite songs to a crowd that

    would understand the music too. Things have changed a lot since then and my skills and sound

    have evolved, so I’d love to come up to spin as often as possible now. My pops recently made the

    move to Jozi, meaning I’ll be in the city more and more, and hopefully I’ll play and make

    connections every time I visit. On top of that, Joburg homies have always showed me love whether

    they know me or not, and I know I can bring something refreshing to the table. Holla at me!!!

     

    You truly are an “internet sensation”! How important has the internet been for K-$?

    The internet is everything to me. On a personal level, I taught myself how to play instruments and

    DJ using the internet as my only resource. It opened my mind at a very formative point in my high

    school career and showed me how big the world is. I found many sources of inspiration lurking in

    various corners of the web that influenced my style, the way I think, the way I learn, the shit I like,

    my taste, the way I carry myself. I think because I respected and understood the net when I was

    young, using it as a tool just came naturally. Like my Instagram. That started as pure fun,

    pushing an aesthetic that was true to who I am and no one else, and that persona has just taken

    on a life of its own and I’ve continued to grow with it. I think it reflects in the music I play and the

    way I play it too. The internet really is a wealth of knowledge right at your fingertips, and despite

    the way many assholes abuse it, there’s so much we can gain from it.

  • Hypeology [The terminology of the turn-up]

    List the components of a flawless party night and it will probably read something like this: floor-shaking sound, a stellar line-up on the decks, the perfect venue, big sponsors. On to aesthetics and atmospherics and we might add: the crowd; the colours; the threads; the kicks; the lexicon of intoxications we inhale, imbibe and ingest; the moves we make with and towards others. What is very unlikely to make the list is all the talk that circulates around parties.

    We often forget that a significant part of our nightclub cultures come from how we speak about them. We utter the hype into existence as talk takes on the role of festive foreplay. It’s our dancefloor dialect; our pre-game parlance; our jive jargon; our night-time nomenclature. All these speech acts are a significant site for young people’s creative production. Through talk/type/emoji we inject the words of our music into real times and places. We engage in local-global exchanges. We manufacture a mood — sculpting the ways that parties are lived, remembered and imagined. To testify to the terminology of the turn up, and document the dialect of our night times and spaces, we’ve put together this small catalogue of party phraseology.

    1. Turn Up/ Turnt

    First appears in Urban Dictionary in May 2013.

    Tonight we’re gonna turn up; It’s time to turn up! (verb) 

    Meaning: It’s time to get loose, go wild, have fun, get hyped, party.

    May also connote getting drunk/high. 

     Last night was turnt (adjective) To describe the state of a person/party as having been crazy/wild/next level.

    That party was a turn up (noun) The ‘turn up’ in its noun form is yet to be acknowledged by Urban Dictionary, but is fully a thing (as evidenced in its twitter usage).

    TURN UP2

    To turn up/ be ‘turnt’ operates implicitly as a prefix. It’s a call and a solicitation, gesturing towards multiple possibilities for what might need to ‘turn up’: Turn up the volume, turn up the heat, turn on, to be turned on. It implies the activation of a different register — that one enters a higher frequency. To ‘turn up’ suggests that we switch on, implying that we take on a particular mode of performance that is enhanced, flamboyant, confident.

    But what is wonderfully complex about the term ‘turn up’ is that it simultaneously evokes performance and genuineness. Consider this: In its flattened, traditional usage, to ‘turn up’ simply means to arrive, to show face, usually in the most casual terms. Embedded, then, in the re-imagining of the word ‘turn up’ is a provocation: ‘Why turn up if you aren’t going to turn all the way up?’ ‘If you came, but didn’t TURN UP, were you ever really here?’ By inviting someone to ‘turn up’, we ask them to be fully present, to give their all, to show themselves as they truly are.

    TURN UP1

    In a beautiful and powerful paragraph, the Crunk Feminist Collective captures the multiple connotations of ‘turn up’ as follows:

    “Turn up is both a moment and a call, both a verb and a noun. It is both anticipatory and complete. It is thricely incantation, invitation, and inculcation. To Live. To Move. To Have –as in to possess– one’s being. The turn up is process, posture, and performance — as in when 2Chainz says “I walk in, then I turn up” or Soulja Boy says, “Hop up in the morning, turn my swag on.” Yet it holds within it the potential for authenticity beyond the merely performative.   It points to an alternative register of expression, that turns  up to be the most authentic register, because it is who we be, when we are being for ourselves and for us, and not for nobody else, especially them”.

    With this in mind, Lil John and DJ Snake’s club banger ‘Turn Down For What?’ is charged with existential meaning. Everyday life is so often infused with an imperative to turn down, self-regulate and self-censor — particularly if we are young, or women or black (or a potent combination). As Crunk Feminists suggest,  ‘Turn Down For What?’ asks ‘Why?’ ‘For whom?’ ‘To what effect?’ More so, it pummels this question through our chests on the dancefloors of our every-night lives, imploring us to explode our full expressive selves.

    The relationship between ‘turning up’ and being 100 percent authentic may explain why the ‘100’ emoticon regularly accompanies our type-hype online.

    100_emoji

    [Speak]er Box

    Lupe Fiasco  — Turnt up (2009)

    Soulja Boy– All The Way Turnt Up (2010)

    Beyonce/ Dream/ 2Chainz —  ‘Turnt’ (2013)

    Lecrae —  ‘I’m Turnt’ (2013)

    Ciara — Super Turnt Up (2013)

    DJ Snake & Lil John — ‘Turn Down for What?’ (2014)

    Cassper Nyovest — Turn Up Gang (2015)

    2: Lit

    First appears in Urban Dictionary in May 2015.

    This party is lit (adjective). Meaning: The party is live, amazing, hyped.

    The lituation (noun) Equivalent of ‘the party’/ ‘the turn up’

    Regularly accompanied or supplemented by the flame emoji.

    LIT

    ‘Lit’ is a derivative of much of the fire terminology that surrounds parties. ‘That party was fire’; ‘The DJ brought flames last night’; ‘We gonna burn up the dancefloor’. To be ‘lit’ connotes being alight or ignited. It’s no wonder that fire imagery is so often projected into nightclub cultures, given its symbolic potency as a place for ritual gathering, trance, music and dance. We associate fire with passion, sexuality, action, and the untamed. Heat and flame ignite much of our party phraseology, with terms like ‘Siyasha’, ‘Siyashisa’, or ‘DJ brought the heat’ frequently captioning our online club catalogues.

    LITUATION

    [Speak]er Box

    ASAP Rocky — Get Lit (2011)

    Young Futura — We get Lit (2015)

    Ludacris — Get Lit (2015)

    BenchMarq ft Tweezy (2015)

    K2 ‘Lit’ (2015). Includes the lyrics:  ‘My Situation is a Lituation’

    3: H.A.M.

    First appears in Urban Dictionary in April 2008

    Tonight we’re going h.a.m. (adverb, pronounced ham) Accronym for hard as a motherfucker.

    Meaning: To go balistic, wild, or be super hyped.

    H.A

    [Speak]er Box

    Gucci Mane- Go Ham on Em (2008)

    Kanye and JZ  – H.A.M (2011)

    4: The Jump

    Last night was a jump/ That place is The Jump (noun)

    This party ‘bout to jump (verb)

    Describing a party as ‘jumpin’ or ‘a jump’ dates back to the nineties, perhaps speaking to a burgeoning nineties nostalgia in contemporary youth culture. Contributing to the term’s current popularity among Jozi youth is the Yfm show #TheJump. ‘iJumpile Boy!’

    A JUMP

    JUMP2

     [Speak]er Box

    Kriss Kross — Jump (1992)

    Destiny’s Child — Jumpin’ Jumpin’ (1999)

    Busta Rhymes — Pass the Courvousier Part 2 (2001)

    Anatii and Cassper Nyovest — Jump (2016)

    5: Going in

    First appears in Urban Dictionary in September 2008.

    Tonight, we’re going in/ That party went in/ I went in on the dancefloor last night (verb).

    Meaning: to enter an activity with maximum enthusiasm, hype or energy.

    GOING IN

    Related in the lexicon to phrases like #S[i]yabangena, loosely translated as ‘We’re going in’/ ‘It’s going down’/’I’m ready’.

    SIYABANGENA

    6. Make a Movie

    Appears in Urban Dictionary December 2011.

    Tonight’s gonna be a movie (noun).

    Tonight we ’bout to make a movie (verb)

    Meaning: It’s going to be/we’re going to make it a big night. This usually involves drawing attention to oneself (whether positive or negative), particularly in a nightclub context.

    Genealogy most likely related to phrases like ‘tonight is gonna be epic’. If tonight can be ‘epic’, then it can surely be on the scale of a cinema epic. ‘Sishaya ama movie!’

    A MOVIE

    [Speak]er Box

    Neyo — Makin’ a Movie (2010)

    Riky Rick  ft. Okmalumkoolkat — Amantombazane (2013), includes the lyric ‘Sishaya ama movie’

    7: #Habashwe

    Directly translates to ‘let them die’/ ‘let them be defeated’. Chimes with DJ SPEEDSTA’s repeated refrain: ‘You’re killin’ em son!’

    HABASHWE2

    Yfm listeners (2014) translate #Habashwe as ‘time to rock’, ‘let the good times roll’, ‘lets do this’, ‘let’s get it’.

    HABASHWE 3

    Whereas much of our turn-up terminology is a derivative of American hip-hop, ‘habashwe’ is most often associated with the South African house and kwaito scenes. Radio shows undoubtedly deserve a shout-out for the role they have played in shaping our music/dance/party lexicon. S/O to Yfm, Metrofm and TransAfricaRadio in particular.

    HABASHWE

    [Speak]er Chronology

    Flipside – Habashwe (2012)

    Ntukza ft Red Button  – Habashwe (2016)