'If there's one thing that has suffered most in the digital age, it's the relationship between art and music – nowadays there's no interesting covers being made'Īli B has just finished mixing his latest CD compilation 'Air Breaks' a storming breakbeat mix that features exclusive productions from some of breaks' biggest producers. 'Digging into a record box and pulling out tunes with cool artwork is always more fun than flicking through a CD wallet full of identical-looking CDs with my rubbish handwriting scrawled on them. 'Personally, I use both CDs and vinyl, but I know which one I get more energy and excitement from playing. 'I don't know about that, but laptop DJing is certainly pretty boring to watch.,' states Ali. Is the rise of breakbeat bands a reaction to the boring-to-watch digital DJ? 'In a negative way, technology has affected the DJ because there's now less to see than there always was.' 'Watching a band is always going to be more exciting than watching a DJ,' says Ali, who recently booked some of the breaks acts to play for his Air club night at Cargo. Innovative and inspiring, these new groups represent an aggressive movement by the breaks community to appeal to a wider audience.Ĭlearly the breaks community are hungry to see their scene grow even more. Just recently, the breaks genre has seen a number of breakbeat DJs and acts set up live bands.Ĭrews like Future Funk Squad, Hooligan, Hyper, Milke, and Aquasky now rock out like a proper band, and headline breaks events alongside DJs like Ali.

'It needed that innovation to grow,' he says.īreakbeat, like the rest of dance music, continues to grow and develop at remarkable speed.

'The digital revolution affected the breaks scene so much more than the house or techno scenes because it is so much smaller, and there's less money in it.

Breakbeat djs atlanta aug 19th