How Bok Bok Got His Groove

Illustrations by Nathaniel Flagg

It's often just one moment—a chance meeting, a mind-blowing concert, one special song—that can spark a lifetime of inspiration and motivation. In The Spark, our favorite DJs tell us about theirs. Here's Night Slugs label boss Bok Bok telling us about how he learned to stop worrying and love the bass:

I had decks and I was kind of DJing some records, but I didn't really know what I was doing—whether it was really for me or something I just did in my spare time. When you start off DJing, or you start off making tracks in your house or whatever, most people don't think it's gonna turn into anything.

I must've been about 18 when a friend of mine got me into listening to the London pirate stations. I don't know if you've ever listened to pirate stations, but there are sometimes these funny ads, and a lot of the time the stations would advertise events that they're involved with. I noticed ads on Rinse FM for FWD>>, which was kind of like a "real heads" sort of thing, but listening to the tunes that they played underneath the ad I was like, Hold on a second, what's that? It sounded different from everything that was on the station.

Sometimes, especially at night, they would play a more instrumental kind of style. I noticed the tracks were a bit dubbier or that the sound designer was really interested in the space and whatnot. Eventually I was able to discern that this was the new sound coming out of this new club night called FWD>>. It was only really a matter of time until I went down there.

The first time I went was more for a grime thing. You know the Roll Deep Crew? Wiley's old crew and Dizzy Rascal's old crew? They were performing down there so I went down to check it out because I was a real grime head at that point. They were really good and then after they finished there was another DJ. Nowadays he's called Plastician, but at the time he was called Plastic Man. That was when I was kind of like oh, OK—so this music does really work instrumental as well.
I went with another friend who was also getting into the grime scene and he was hearing it in the club for the first time more or less, like me, and I could just tell that it wasn't clicking for him. But for me, I just wanted to go in and dance. It was somehow the most effective music I'd ever heard. I was just like—yes, this is for me.

FWD>> took place in a club that was actually legendary in London called Plastic People. When you go down there it's kind of like whoever designed it got it wrong, but in a good way. It's a tiny room with low ceilings and a curtain that would separate the bar from the dance floor. About 100 people fit inside comfortably. The system is actually way way bigger than that, but was somehow balanced really really well, so you kind of got this real physical feeling from the subs. The effect is almost being underwater or going on a roller coaster. It's totally visceral, totally physical. Also, it's very dark so it's almost like a sensual deprivation.

That feeling? You don't get that in most other clubs. It's pretty special. To be honest, I've played on a lot of good sound systems, I've listened to a lot of good sound systems, but there's never been anything quite like it.

Since it was really dark you could kind of do whatever you want. Everyone just let each other be, really. That's why I now try to make my club nights as dark as possible. I feel like once you do that, especially with new music, people can really respond to it in a way that's physical, and they work it out—new drum patterns, new rhythms and stuff like that. They could work them out more with their body and just react to it in the spot rather than feel like someone's looking at them or they're being judged or anything like that.

I used to go a lot on my own. When I was younger I was totally into the idea of doing that. I would go on a Thursday night and I would know a ton of people down there already. I mean, it wasn't really a social night. You can go and socialize and every other night, but if I brought someone down there and they wanted to talk to me the whole night I would get so annoyed because I really am there to immerse myself.

What I really love about it—and this is kind of a big part of London music in general—is in terms of ethnic and cultural backgrounds and stuff like that, is it's so mixed. Especially in London, where people are from everywhere and it's kind of diverse. You got a feeling for that down there.

Guys were usually in their tracksuit, which is UK for sweatpants and a hoody, and girls would probably dress up a bit more. All sorts of people came down there. Sometimes you'd get some really freaky people just because I think music on the instrumental side could kind of touch people from a lot of different backgrounds. Like certain guys who were definitely doing drugs mid-week in the early evening and just going the fuck in on the dance floor.

At that point in 2004, it was just coming out, so I was there almost as it was turning into something concrete. I felt like I was a part of something really new and exciting. It's not like it was there all along and I just needed to discover it—it was really on the cusp.

"My ears were fucked to the point that I couldn't really stand and keep my balance." 

I started going all the time as soon as I discovered it, but there was a point at which it was monthly, and then it went every two weeks. I think that was my favorite period because it felt like there was a certain tipping point. In between the two weeks I would mostly get ready for the next one by keeping up with all the new tracks on Rinse FM, so you anticipate the big ones that coming week.

I remember getting totally sick after one of them. It was Kode9 playing all night and I think he might've overdid it a little bit and my ears were not just fucked, but like, fucked to the point that I couldn't really stand and keep my balance.

FWD>> and the whole scene that was connected to it—various stations and DJs and the producers that were involved—made me look at where I was living again. I felt like there was a reason I was living in London. I felt like there was a reason I was here instead of in another city or another country or wherever. It just felt like there was a context for me to start doing something and start putting myself into that.

I was studying art, I didn't have a career in music, but the values of that place and just everything about the way it was presented totally profoundly affected me and does till this day. I feel like I went there to learn from the DJs, like that was my school. There was a huge emphasis on engineering tunes a certain way so that they can kind of sound spacious and detailed with really really big subs. That's my aesthetic. My whole production aesthetic and my whole label's production aesthetic is completely formed by going to that club as a younger guy and listening—training my ears essentially.

"Here I am on the other side, behind the decks."

Nowadays, FWD>> is still happening. It's in a new venue and it's gone through quite a lot of different permeations. One day I found myself in the position of being able to play there. I was like, Wow, ok. There's a certain something that's been achieved for me here.

This was definitely a foundation for me and I had so much respect for it, and here I am on the other side, behind the decks. There was a sense of arrival when that day came. It definitely felt like there was some kind of a waypoint in my life that had been reached because this was something that had influenced me so profoundly and I had aspired to it and there it was. I think I've played it six or seven times now.

A couple of times a year, they'll invite me down, which is really cool. I started off listening to Rinse as a teenager, being like, holy shit this is changing my life, and FWD>> is a Rinse FM night, so there's a certain amount of psychic stuff that's happening and a circle, because I did manage to make it into that scene somehow. I tapped into the underground that was influencing me so much.

As for Plastic People, that place went through quite a lot of changes of it's own and unfortunately it was affected by some pretty bullshitty gentrification stuff. An area's cool, people with money move in and then they don't like the noise. Basically there were noise complaints and then a drug crackdown. They swabbed the booth and the toilets and they found traces of cocaine. Can you fucking believe that? They were gonna shut it down, but instead of that they had to basically scale down the system quite dramatically, so the things that made it magical were taken away from it a little bit.

One day I'll open my own club and it'll be like that.

As told to Lauren Schwartzberg. Lauren is the woman she is today because of Kanye West's Glow in the Dark Tour -@laurschwar