With the entire world colliding on the internet, the range of options can feel overwhelming. But the world of the bootleg music—the edit culture of remixing well-known, popular music with far-flung genres and cutting-edge styles of music—provides a meeting place that everyone can wild out to if a producer or DJ can capture the right vibe. This is where Jakarta’s Erik Soto finds himself most comfortable. Whether you like dancehall and afrobeats, Kpop and R&B, or house and amapiano, you’ll enjoy his music.
This wide-ranging but well-defined sound is exactly what Soto brought to town when he tapped in with us at Blaq Lyte here in Bangkok. His set at Rover was upbeat, soulful, and warm. As usual, he chooses recognizable artists like NewJeans and Tinashe as a way to introduce less familiar sounds from places like Africa and Jamaica to new audiences. “I love the originals of these pop music songs, but am pretty quickly only listening to and playing the remixes,” he says. He’s also keen to drop original production from the regions that many of the dance music styles he works with as well, but keeps an eye on the dancefloor to see how receptive people are. “I think it’s the DJ’s responsibility to read the crowd and the room. As much as I want to be myself, I always want to make sure people have a good time.” It all depends on the venue and crowd.
Soto’s introduction to these tropical, futuristic beats originally came by way of Soulection but was cemented by the local scene in Jakarta. During high school, the party scene there was very hip hop-oriented and it was difficult to play much else. But when he came home in 2017 after studying audio engineering in the US, everything had changed. “There was already a huge crowd for the music I was into, it was surprising,” he says. The events were always packed, mostly by Indonesian college students. “One of the biggest movements to come out of Jakarta was Cul De Sac. They were younger than me by a couple of years but were throwing these crazy parties at different venues and the crowds would follow them around. They set the standard for a lot of the collectives that followed.”
The Jakarta crowds are always looking for new sounds and are there to enjoy the music, Soto says: “When you play the originals for these crowds, they’re like, ‘We’ve heard this and it’s old.’ That’s how fast-paced Jakarta is.” He says there are also parties and venues known mainly for playing dancehall and afrobeats and mentions Zoo in particular. Dancehall is actually what Soto built his name around after a brief hiatus. After going dark for nearly three years, he decided to try producing again in 2022 and it was dancehall that caught his interest. “It was just appearing everywhere online and DJs here were dropping it in their sets at different venues. It was just a part of life by the time I got back into the scene and seemed like the obvious move.” He dropped a “Kill Bill” dancehall edit and suddenly everyone started reaching out to him again to book him. “Apparently I was still relevant,” he laughs.
It was the Bebop Collective that had initially asked Soto to come back out and play, and it’s where you can find him at his weekly residency these days. He says there are similar collectives across Southeast Asia that he frequently works with as well, like Saturday Selects in Kuala Lumpur and Orange Juice in Manila.
The reason Soto took such a long break was that he felt burnt out and wasn’t enjoying music anymore since it had become his day job as a professional audio engineer. But the thing that rekindled his joy was an exploration of the new, and that’s the advice that he offers other producers and DJs who might be falling out of love with music. “Stay a fan,” he says. “Just keep digging and looking for something new. Even if it might not work in the club per se, just try new stuff. Something other than what you’ve been doing repeatedly.” It clearly worked for him.
