DJ U-Cef

Artist Description

"The thing with music is that no matter where you are from, from a cosmopolitan place or being well-advanced in your mind, it doesn't matter. It's only the music that matters."
-DJ U-CEF 

U-cef always knew that at some point he wanted to go back to what he calls "halal" music, the Moroccan sounds he was brought up with, so naturally he named his first album "Halalium". A composer, producer and DJ, U-cef says "I try musically to bring things together so they don't feel alien to each other - traditional music with urban beat London or New York hip-hop. Maybe somebody who is from somewhere dedicated to one thing will say "This is rubbish", but my belief is that nobody is made of one stuff."
U-cef goes on, "I remember when live bands played, the whole youth would be there - whatever they played, it had the beat, and we just danced and had fun" and he reckons his first interest in performing himself came from dancing at parties and getting into beats. After a brief attempt at doing "a proper job", U-cef moved to New York to really try and make it as a musician, and moving to London 10 years ago was similarly all about the music.
"It takes a lot of courage to try and create a new style. It's easy to talk about ideas, but carrying them through to success is a miracle. I wanted to put Morocco on the map of the world just as Talvin Singh put India on the map in London" he says. But fusing cultures isn't always easy. "People whose culture I've shared ask me about Islam, suicide bombers, but I don't want to be pro-American imperialist nor fundamentalist.
Ultimately though, with rave reviews from the Telegraph to DJ magazine, for U-cef it's really about the music.