Wild City #250: Stick No Bills

All around the world in dance music, the South Asian diaspora is carving a space for the culture they have carried from their roots to their adopted new homes. One of the leading forces among them: Stick No Bills. The Dubai-rooted collective started as a party spearheaded by Jeftin James aka DJ Jeff and GT, and immediately became a home for people who wanted to celebrate their desi sound and aesthetics proudly.

"Growing up in Dubai, there were South Asian parties, and there were “cool” nights — but rarely anything that did both well," the collective tells us as they made their way to Mumbai for BUDX NBA House to perform as well as discuss the push for South Asian representation on global stages. "If you wanted to hear your sound, you had to compromise on production or setting. If you wanted the aesthetics and energy of a good party, you had to leave parts of yourself at the door."

Consequently, the collective tapped into that hunger in themselves and people like them to create parties that didn't make them choose between experience and identity, accruing a community that included film and fashion into the fold just as seamlessly as the musicians of Stick No Bills combine global hip-hop and even pop sounds from their nostalgia of South Asian culture. The edits, flips and sets by Stick No Bills merge amapiano with Tamil samples, Jersey club beats with Punjabi vocals and classic film melodies with pumping grooves.

"Dubai is a paradox. It’s hyper-global but locally fragmented. You can hear 20 languages in a mall, but still feel like your culture doesn’t have a platform. That in-between-ness shaped everything about us — because we are the in-between," the collective explains us. "We don’t mix genres for novelty — we do it because that’s how we grew up hearing the world."

The collectives' Wild City mix reflects this as the visceral bass of Skrillex, Fred Again and Flowdan's 'Rumble' combines with the 1999 Bollywood number 'Ramta Jogi' or 2014's 'Patakha Gudi' soon flows out of the flutes running over Future's 'Mask Off'. The mix taps into pop moments as fleeting samples to create its own moments of recognition, choosing energy over cleanliness as it keeps the subs rumbling through hip-hop, dubstep and breaks.

"This mix is a snapshot of what’s been shaping our sound lately — a blend of global bass textures layered with the subtle influence of South Asia. Some tracks carry that influence loudly; others hold it in the percussion, in a vocal sample, in the mood.

We’ve included edits from producers we admire — artists who, like us, are building bridges across cultures without flattening their roots. None of this is about genre-hopping for the sake of it. It’s about following feeling, tension, memory — the things that move a dancefloor beyond just rhythm." – Stick No Bills

Direct Download Wild City #250: Stick No Bills

Tracklisting

DILIP & yungboi - Pistol
Lokestra - Indian mask
Hamdi - Counting (Taiki Nulight Remix)
Rohaan - Easy for them
Oppidan - Wake and break (Lizdek Remix)
Doja - Lovesome
Flux Pavilion - Bass canon (LYNY Flip)
jpky - tape1
Alka Yagnik, Sukhwinder Singh - Ramta Jogi (LitNoiz’s Future Dub Bootleg)
JID - Surround sound (DENNET Remix)
LUMBERJVCK/DIALYUP - Earworm
Missy Elliot ft Ciara & Fatman Scoop - Lose control (Phrva Flip)
Sidhu x Fred Again - Rumble 0 to 100(Teej Edit)
Gentlemen's Club/MPH - Good 4 U
Jarreua Vandal - Mura Masa ‘Lotus eater’ (Vandalized Edit)
borne/Alexis B - Hush
Push Flip - FLY
Levity/Dem Jointz/Justin Jay/Don Jamal - Flip it
Skrillex/Naisha - GULAB XX
Raaja Beats - Jallantha Pt. 2
LALALA
Full Crate x Jarreau Vandal - WICKED [Grapoe Edit]
J. Balvin, Skrillex - In Da Getto (VIRX FLIP)
Cesco - Up The Place
A K U - Naina Warge
Megan The Stallion, Yuki Chiba - Mamushi (Refilled & ZEEMUFFIN Remix)
Max9k & Ticklish - Family ties
RICH FLEX X LIKE THAT - (MATTHEWVILLE EDIT)
Kuldeep Mana - GT Road (Kalzi Remix)
Chase & Status - Baddadan (feat. IRAH, Flowdan, Trigga & Takura)
Chase & Status - Baddadan x Naag (MK Edit)_Master
Raf Saperra - Snake_Charmer (Jayhaan, DJ Priya, Alemanic, Saikat Remix)