Tai Lokun Mix
Joining us for Tapes #118 is Tai Lokun, one of the UK’s newest rising DJs.The London-based DJ has lived around the globe and brings many of her far reaching influences into her eclectic sets. Though her signature style involves gracefully weaving between genres, she finds her sweet spot in classic house, percussive drums, breaks and groovy techno. When Tai is at a festival or a rave, her core goal is to always create fun, memorable moments for all those sharing the space with her.
Despite being a newcomer, Tai has played not only within Europe but as far as Bali and Singapore. The Rinse FM resident had a busy festival-filled season in 2023 where she played shows around Europe including the new The Levels stage, in Silver Hayes at Glastonbury, Gala festival and Dutch favourite, Draaimolen. She also made her mark playing at popular European clubs such at Lofi in Amsterdam and Ibiza’s Pikes.
Thanks for getting involved in our Tapes Series! It's a pleasure to have you on. Why don't you start by introducing yourself?
I’m Tai Lokun, a dj from London. I play a mixture of music under the house and techno umbrella and like to keep a freshness to my sound by being quite eclectic and weaving through genres.
Tell us a bit about your mix. When and where did you record it? Favourite track inside?
For this mix, I veered towards a deeper mix; very measured in flow and with no sudden curveballs like I usually like to add. It is full of nice rollers with limited vocal-led tracks. As the mix progresses, it becomes a little less bright in ways, and pretty deep before circling back to a more upbeat feel and then ending on a classic. It is definitely a journey mix.
I recorded it last weekend at home and my favourite track is All Over by Revivis, forthcoming Tape Digital. The track is groovy, vibey, layered and dance floor-ready!
What’s the ideal setting to listen to it?
I think the ideal setting is probably quite personal to the listener however, I personally would listen to this while chilling at home, working, running or at an afterparty.
Talk to us about your new party ‘District Unknown’ which you’ve just started running in London - where do you see the future of the platform?
The party was started in January 2023 and we’ve had three parties thus far, with the most recent in November. For each party, the headliner is always unannounced because I really want to create a party synonymous with high quality music, energetic dance floors and good vibes, and not a party driven by the expectations of the name of the headliner. I want to eventually go on to find headliners that I believe can headline the party even if they typically would not be billed as a headliner at other parties. I also would like to use the party to provide space for new and upcoming djs that have yet to be given wide-spread attention. It is super hard to get noticed until you are noticed, so I also want to try and start creating and increasing that space for newer djs.
In 2024, I'm looking forward to further building the community of people that come to the party, sharing more new talent and more surprise headliners.
Describe your ideal club night? Is there anything you would like to see more of in London?
My ideal club night is long. I like to be taken on a journey - I’m not about instant gratification and so I would like to see more extended sets. I want to see longer sets from headliners as I feel like club nights shouldn't feel like festivals. Generally in London, I would like to see more parties with a similar ethos to what we are trying to achieve with District Unknown. Parties that are more about the trust in the promoters than the headliners, so party goers can see newer, fresher lineups and discover new artists on vibey dance floors as a result of the promoters having built a community and a trusting following. I would love to see more in-house programming by clubs like you find in venues like De School for example. I would also like to see more diversity on the dance floors, but that is the hardest challenge to tackle.
You’re quite the regular on the airwaves with residencies on Rinse FM & Refuge Worldwide - how do you approach your sets on the radio compared to playing in a club?
For me, my radio shows are a chance to be extra eclectic and share a wide range of music that I really like. My Refuge shows are a great example of this as they are mostly tilted toward non-dance floor tunes; soul, r&b, jazz, afrobeats etc. I sometimes have more fun and feel more free with these shows. For my radio shows, while the flow is important, the journey is less so - I would say that this is the biggest difference between my approach to my radio shows versus my club shows.
We’re looking forward to having you play for our 300th Origins show at Corsica Studios this month! Any other exciting gigs in the pipeline?
I am very excited for the show at Corsica! It will be my second time playing there and I’m excited to be playing in my favourite room again. This year, I will have more shows in Europe than I had last year so I’m super looking forward to that, especially some great shows planned in Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany. I love festival season and could not be more excited for my debut at Horst Festival in May.