Announcing the newest force in reggae, dancehall and urban sounds! Get acquainted with Taxim Sound, a group of four music buffs with a love for Caribbean music and a passion for a good party. Check them out next on the 13th of September in Nayah. Meanwhile, I caught up with Taxim Sound DJ Jojo Banton to talk about the concept of Taxim Sound and what you can expect from the group in the coming months.
Let’s start with the basics. What is Taxim Sound?
Taxim Sound is a group of DJs and musicians offering an eclectic quality soundtrack for any party. It is a cross-genre performance dedicated to music loosely defined as bass music. Its idea is based on the Jamaican sound system and while reggae and dancehall are definitely the backbone of our set, we mix it with everything with a bassline, from rap to dubstep to moombathon to soca to glitch and to other mash-ups of all sorts. It is entertainment that interacts with the audience as well, so live elements and MCing are an essential part of the show.
Who’s behind Taxim Sound?
Each of us who makes up Taxim Sound has been active in the music scene for years and with a different background and experience in terms of musical influences. We share the love for the off-beat and a bassline and we all have a similar idea of what a good performance involves. Joining forces seemed like a logical step. Moree is DJing and MCing and comes from a hip-hop and bashment dancehall background, including urban bass sounds, whereas Kaze is a prolific sound engineer who has worked with a lot of big names in the Turkish music industry and produces mostly dubstep and glitch material. Da Proff is known for his live reggae performances and has an exceptional stage presence. I have been playing reggae and dancehall for over 10 years and MC’ed for almost everyone who was active in Istanbul’s bass music community. In Taxim Sound, we’re all meshing together our ideas and styles.
Why the name Taxim Sound?
The name was pretty random – it just felt right for a lot of reasons. Mostly when we go out to listen to music on the weekends, we go to Taksim. Taksim has multiple symbolical meanings that we all can identify with. It’s a nightlife area, a cultural hub, a meeting point and a destination for demonstrations, both historically and recently. If you want to take it further, Taksim’s etymological meaning as a distribution point for water is pretty cool too. Or even in musical terms, taqsim refers to the instrumental intro-improvisation of classical Middle Eastern music. Any one of those reasons may have influenced us subconsciously, but maybe we chose it because it is short, easy and super relevant.
The idea to get together as Taxim Sound stems from the concept of the Jamaican Soundsystem. Even though we do not plan to build our own speakers, it is reggae music we are playing in the end. To perform under one name, we’re able to bring out individual ideas together and become more versatile and diverse overall.
Can we look at Taxim Sound as an expat project? Where do you see yourself in Istanbul’s or Turkey’s musical landscape?
I don’t really think expat is an adequate term here. Where you are from shouldn’t be important these days, especially in the world of music, where no such definitions apply. When we MC to address the crowd, we mostly speak in English but depending on the audience we switch to or add Turkish. Since the music is at the center of the performance, in my view it should be universally comprehensible. It is true, however, that the type of music we play appeals to a small scene in Turkey. Internationally, the scene is more vibrant and the mainstream and crossover potential is generally higher, but this might be just the motivation we had to bring it together like this.
I see Turkey’s musical landscape as quite fragmented and a bit limited in terms of alternative and non-mainstream music. I can go to a minimal house party and appreciate it if the music is good quality and the DJ plays music with some kind of concept in mind. It might not be my cup of tea, but I like to see an idea behind the performance and if the place, people and atmosphere are positive, then it’s all good. I think people in Istanbul should just get more open minded about music and try to think outside their box a little.
What are your current projects and what can we expect from you in the future?
The monthly party called, “Yard Vibes” that I started as Jojo Banton some years ago at Nayah will from now on be played by Taxim Sound and continue to focus on reggae and dancehall. I already teamed up with Moree for Yard Vibes about a year ago. We are adding a second regular called “Nuff Styles”, where everything pretty much goes and you will hear the whole spectrum of our repertoire. We are ready and open to play at other venues anytime too.
We are preparing a little promo mix to give an overview of our styles for the official launch party of Nuff Styles in September. Additionally we are working on our own productions, remixes and dubs and will gradually include and improve our live performance with them. We’re throwing around a lot of ideas like a radio show or podcast to reach more people too. Bringing other artists, DJs and sounds from abroad to Istanbul could be another thing for the future. I know that this is very difficult to achieve in Istanbul due to the lack of promoters and the niche scene, but we’re going to try to make it happen. For now, it’s about the music, the performance and the audience.
Next dates:
13.09 Yard Vibes Special: Taxim Sound launching Party @Nayah
27.09 Nuff Styles @Nayah
