Moods 51: SABETYE

Moods 51 bring us the honorable SABETYE (@sayl3m) to the decks. They navigate from Feist to Bow Wow to Hideki Naganuma, they take us on the Grand Tour of Moods Mixes and show us how it's done.

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Tracklist

jesus be a fence around me - fred hammond & radical for christ
hollaback girl - gwen stafani
hot in herre - nelly
i like the way you move - outkast ft. sleepy brown
get it shawty - lloyd
slow jamz - twista, kanye west + jamie foxx
let me hold you - bow wow ft. omarion
green light - john legend
that girl - pharrell ft. snoop dogg + charlie wilson
kick push - lupe fiasco
fall in love - phantogram
inside and out - feist
so sad so sad - varsity
newgate - toxie
when you sleep - my bloody valentine
some special - bratmobile
deceptacon - le tigre
tell ‘em - sleigh bells
primadonna girl - marina and the diamonds
undercover martyn - two door cinema club
say that - toro y moi
steamroller - domo genesis ft. hodge beats + tyler the creator
sam is dead - odd future
analog 2 - odd future
i wish - skee lo
bonita applebum - a tribe called quest
tea leaf dancers - flying lotus
fancy - drake ft. ti & swizz beats
fight night - migos
whispering rock - peter mcconnell
bootown - soichi tereda
bootown 2 - soichi terada
teknopathetic - hideki naganuma
witching hour - xxyyxx
bad idea - yuna
crush - cierra
crush on you (studio rehearsal rip) - the jets
funkin for jamaica - tom browne
the world is crowded - unknown mortal orchestra
tyden flyver - boom clap bachelors
quick canal - atlas sound
oh happy day - the edwin hawkins singers

QnA

(1) Where did you grow up? Was it a single place or many places? How did this influence the songs you listened to?

I was born in Detroit and lived in Detroit until we lost our house in the ‘08 foreclosure crisis. Between then and 2018 we bounced all around the Metro at least every 1-2 years , and when I moved out in 2018 on my own I came back to Detroit. I would say that I grew up equal parts nomad and on the internet, and in that way the songs that I listened to were a place of home, freedom, and expression in the midst of physical chaos.

(2) Can you pick one song in the mix and explain where you first listened to it?

I feel like the lines are a bit easier to see with the hip hop, rap, pop, funk, and gospel songs, but I don’t think many people know about my love affair with femme-led alt pop and punk bands. The first time I listened to Newgate by Toxie, I remember being deep in a music hole online. I think I was 13 or 14. It felt like I found the soundtrack to my life: soft yet dark, easygoing yet complex. Punk has become a secret weapon for my emotional processing ever since. I love it.

(3) Who “introduced” you to these songs? Was it a person, a radio station, a CD, or something else?

I would say a big part of my introduction to music was through both my online communities and my communities around me growing up. Old CDs from my parents, WJLB, my brother’s video game soundtracks, Tumblr, speakers at the skate park: they were all my introductions to finding something that I connected to. I’d like to think that I am constantly reintroducing myself back to the music as well.

(4) Where and when did you first hear techno? What drew you to it? Who did it sound like it was for?

Being from Detroit, techno has always been around me- even before I was able to identify it as techno. It’s a part of my heritage here. My mom is a house head/jazz buff, and we listened to the radio constantly. There’s no beginning point that I can really identify. It has become for me, a vital through line in my life. I mean, when I was young they playing Timeline as a backing track for the weather and traffic segments on WJLB and 92.3. They played Rainforest on v98.7 almost every night on our way back from Fairlane Mall. The presence of the music of Detroit—the spirit of it—was everywhere. It really was omnipresent. And I knew it was just for us.

(5) You’ve got the microphone. What do you want to say to the techno community?

This is Black, radical, experimental music. It holds both the encryption of our heritage and our revolution. Techno-logy is beyond capitalism and oppression. Proceed with caution. Act accordingly.

Artwork

We've paired their mix with a puzzle collage from Kent Rogowski, who takes multiple existing puzzles and places naturally fitting pieces together to build an overlapping collage of chaos.

For more on SABETYE, follow them here: www.instagram.com/sabetyeee/

For more on Kent, follow his work here: www.kentrogowski.photography/