Name: Bakey

Where He’s From: London-born, Bristol-based

When He Started: “I used to mess about on GarageBand when I was, like, 10 or 11—nothing serious, just seeing what I could make. Then, towards the end of secondary school, around 16 or 17, I started taking it a bit more seriously. I’d spend time in the music lab after lessons making beats. That’s probably when I realised it was something I properly wanted to do.”

Genre: Garage/Bass/Breaks

File Next To: Main Phase, Special Request, Y U QT

Sounds Like: “My sound takes bits from different corners of UK dance music—mainly garage, breaks, and drum & bass. It’s pretty bass-heavy and rhythm-led, which probably comes from me playing drums before I got into producing. There’s definitely that soundsystem influence too, especially in how the low-end moves. Some tunes have a slightly more soulful side in the melodics, but it’s subtle—just enough to balance things out, I’d say.”

First Music That Inspired Him: “It’s hard to pick one track that got me into making dance music. A lot of the More Than A Lot stuff from Chase & Status definitely played a part; those tunes just had something about them that made me want to mess around and see how it all worked. I remember my older brother playing me “LK” by DJ Marky, XRS & Stamina MC too, and that one really stuck with me—a proper eye-opener.”

Possessed with a voracious appetite for music almost from birth, UK producer Bakey’s youth was spent soaking up funk and soul classics from his parents’ stereo. “Stevie Wonder, Erykah Badu, Bill Withers, Earth, Wind & Fire—all that,” he tells TRENCH. “That’s the kind of stuff that was playing at home when I was a kid. I think it definitely played a part in me wanting to make music, even if you wouldn’t really hear it in what I make now.” In the immediate sense, he might be right, but the idea of making music to be felt on a physical level is a definite throughline to the low-end speaker shakers he specialises in today.

When Bakey started to make music of his own, there was no doubt some of the funk and grooves of those classics steering him subconsciously, but on a conscious level, it was the intersection of dubstep, garage, breaks and drum & bass that steered him as a budding producer. He points to Breakage’s 2010 album, Foundation, as a project that resonated with him the most. “I’ve always rated how Breakage keeps things so stripped back,” he explains. “There’s such a nice balance in his tunes—clean, but still heavy and detailed, and never overdone. That approach has definitely shaped how I look at my own production. The way he works with drums and space, it feels like nothing’s forced. It’s music that sounds good loud, but still has depth, which is something I’ve always tried to keep in mind.”

In the creation of his recent album, Tribute, Bakey carried a lot of those lessons with him and the title says it all. In its nine tracks, the album pays homage to the late ‘90s and early aughts pirate radio, raves, club nights and soundsystem scenes that raised him as a budding raver. But Bakey is far from a peddler of nostalgia and ‘remember-whens’—he’s just as concerned with pushing things forward as he is making sure the past is remembered. “The next goal is to just keep things moving,” he says. “I want to keep experimenting with different styles and try a few new directions, production-wise. I’ve been enjoying collaborating more lately, too, so just expanding on that and working with people from different scenes. Playing more shows is definitely in the mix, but I’m not trying to rush anything. I just want to keep building naturally and see where it goes.”

This year’s Phonox residency set the blueprint for that next chapter. If Tribute was about paying homage to those that inspired him, the next chapter is about sowing the seeds for future generations; building infrastructure, creating opportunities, holding doors open, and inspiring growth. “The Phonox residency was a big one for me,” says Bakey. “It’s something I’d wanted to do for a while, and it was nice to finally make it happen. Being able to bring through people I’ve looked up to, alongside newer artists I think more people should know about, felt proper good. Things like that—working with people, curating nights, just being part of that side of the scene—that’s the stuff that means the most to me.”