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Label Spotlight #036 - We Go Deep
Jan 3, 10:51 AM
An outlet for positive vibes and emotive sounds, South African imprint We Go Deep is the brainchild of producer Luka. Home to the likes of MzJay, Maya Spector & AfroMove, the label has steadily supported and fuelled homegrown talent over the past 5 years, providing a unique platform to discover music in a vast majority of electronic genres, dipping into deep lounge, nujazz, soulful, techno, tribal, electro and more. We caught up with Luka to find out more about the label and what’s coming up next for them.
Could you give us a little bit of background on you, the label, and what your influences were and still are?
Luka is the pseudo-name and We go deep as the label. Music has been a part of my life as long as I can remember, so after my neck injury when I was faced with having to evaluate what I was going to do with my life now being in a wheelchair, music became the obvious answer. After getting my head around the whole production process I had approached a number of labels and kept being told my sound was too deep. Constantly being told that gave birth to the concept of starting my own label and calling it We go deep, that would be a fitting description of what my music would be about. My music takes inspiration from various sources like sounds of nature to construction noises and various genres like jazz, soul, urban and even traditional African music. If you allow yourself to blend all these sounds and arrangements without really thinking about being correct or traditional in your production approach by sticking to set rules you can really come up with some unique bits of music.
What have been your favorite releases from the label over the years?
Don’t have one specific one but “Common Ground” featuring Maya Spector was where it all started. I’d spent so long trying to get the song perfect that once it was out it was a great weight lifted off my shoulders and I realized I can actually put out whatever speaks to me and do it my way. Some other releases of mine I really enjoyed putting together was “No limit” featuring Jackie Queens, “Overstanding” featuring Jaidene Veda, “Sunday Flying” featuring Sarah Jannat and “Next To You” featuring Sio. Each release gives birth to a new way of doing things so each project is really special in that way.
Tell us a bit about what’s coming up for the label
Recently released a project called “Closer” featuring Sio. Where I experimented with urban, house and pop elements. It’s a totally different direction from where the label started but still captures the essence of everything music should be about which is just having fun. A lot more experimental projects will be coming out this year and over the next couple of years.
If you could have signed any record in the world for the label, what would it have been and why?
If I could sign any song to We Go Deep it would have to be “Sweeter Love” by Blue Six. That song changed everything I thought about house music in the sense that until then, house was more of a music you played at get-togethers and parties but Sweeter Love was a song you could just listen to on your own and drift off into another world. It had so much emotion in the vocal and the production. It was at that point that house became more spiritual to me than just music you listen to.
What do you look for when signing a record for We Go Deep? Any tips for budding producers looking to get signed to the label?
We go deep was actually more of an outlet for me and a few artists I collaborate with to put out the music but on the odd occasion, I do sign bits of music from certain producers who have embraced a sound of their own. If I can hear a song and feel like it’s an honest representation of the person presenting it to me I’ll have no problem backing that bit of music. If you can create music be brave enough to not worry about whether it’s fitting into a trend but rather something people listen to and have an idea of what you are going through at the time you made it long after you’re gone from this planet.
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