Fast Lytter: Kaddi Sawaneh

Hi Kaddi, thanks for creating this playlist! As an introduction, can you tell us a little bit about your musical background?

Growing up, I listened to so many different kinds of music. My parents threw a lot of parties when I was younger, so I was exposed to a mix of sounds, especially from West Africa and Jamaica. Gambian and Senegalese artists like Youssou N’Dour, Assane Ndiaye, Viviane Chidid, and many more were staples in my house. Bob Marley was also a big staple in our house, so much that we had the biggest portrait of Bob Marley hanging over our tv in the living room, until I moved out. That early exposure gave me a deep appreciation for diverse musical traditions. But honestly, my biggest inspiration when it comes to music growing up was my older brother and our cousin. My brother was a massive hip-hop head. He absolutely loved Jay-Z—and he was also the biggest Michael Jackson fan. I think I followed in his footsteps quite a bit, lol, since both Jay-Z and Michael Jackson became two of my favorite artists as well.

I used to watch and listen to whatever my brother and cousin were into, and I vividly remember them handing me burned CDs with the newest tracks they had downloaded from BearShare or LimeWire lol. I would blast those CDs on repeat, learning every lyric. In fact, the first song I ever memorized was Nas’s “I Can.” 

Movies like You Got Served and Honey also had a huge influence on me, both musically and culturally. I was glued to the TV, constantly watching music videos on MTV and VH1. My mom recently told me that even as a toddler, the only thing that could calm me down was music—specifically MTV!

When I hit my teenage years and started exploring music on my own, I naturally gravitated toward hip-hop, Afrobeats, and R&B as my favorite genres. If I’m not mistaken, the very first album I bought for myself was JoJo’s debut album.

How did you get into DJ’ing?

To be honest, I’ve always been that annoying person at school parties—the one constantly asking the DJ to play this or that. Funny enough, I hate it when people do that to me now, haha. But from a young age, I was almost always the one in control of the aux cord. Eventually, my close friend and I decided we couldn’t keep complaining about the music if we weren’t willing to do something about it ourselves.

At the time, we felt like there were only a handful of DJs in Copenhagen who were playing the kind of music we loved. That made us feel like we had something unique to offer and could genuinely contribute to the DJ scene.

I decided to reach out to Lisa Fosmark, who I didn’t know personally at the time, and asked if she could teach us the basics of DJing. She was so kind and invited me to her house one day, where she spent three hours walking me through the fundamentals. After that, my friend and I reached out to Rust and asked if we could borrow their decks during weekdays and in the early hours.

For about a year, we spent every Wednesday at Rust, practicing and honing our skills until we felt confident with the basics.

And lastly, can you tell us about the tracks you’ve chosen?

For more music, gigs and updates, follow Kaddi on Instagram, Soundcloud and Mixcloud