Q&A
Could you start by telling us who you are and what kind of music you make?
I’m Nassim and i do the project lead and programming for PIP Radio. I don’t make music, but I do dj. But for this questionnaire that’s probably irrelevant, haha. Mostly i focus on building the vision of PIP Radio, giving the platform a foundation and expanding it in a way that aligns with its vision and goals.
As an artist from The Hague, what unique sound or energy do you bring to ADE?
As a platform from The Hague, PIP Radio tries to show the talent hidden in the city and the talent hidden in its own team, in which an event like ADE is a good moment to showcase with pride what we’re all about. To give some of our long running residents the opportunity to do their shows with a different audience in a different setting to build up experience and give them a sense of pride for the steps their making in their individual careers as they grow with our communal platform.
How did this booking come about. Did ADE reach out, or was it through your own network?
We were contacted by the team of Open Source Radio, who were informed by the head programmer of ADE Lab about us being a potentially good partner to program together with. They reached out to us and it immediately clicked in terms of approach and our goals behind the ‘gig’. We build the program on our collaborative hosting day together, by weaving our residents together in new, unique combinations that challenged them, but also gave them new opportunities to share their passions with eachothers and expand their network.
What makes you happiest about being here; the recognition, collaboration, or contribution?
What makes us happy and proud is that being at ADE feels like a recognition for all the hard work we put in the past year and a half since PIP Radio started and being able to collaborate with another radioplatform is fun and a learning experience that holds a lot of value for us. Furthermore, it’s really nice to see the fun and pride it brings to both your own team and the artists that have been with you since day one. It brings a lot of pride to see them ‘shine’ during ADE and feels like you’re contributing to both their individual development and our development as a platform.
Does ADE feel like just another gig, or does it hold a special place for you?
I don’t know if it really has a ‘special place’, but obviously it’s one of those yearly events that has a lot of attention and could bring new opportunities. We approach it with the same philosophy as we usually would with any gig/event/hosting, but the attraction that ADE has does influence our choices by making focus even more on showcasing residents and talent that we feel could use that next step so to speak.
Since its start in 1996, ADE has evolved a lot - what changes stand out to you in the music or industry side?
Well, the most obvious i think is the influence of social media, trends and the way personal marketing and brand marketing is approached. Ofcourse marketing has always a part of the music industry, but think in the last 10-15 years we’ve switched the balance towards a music industry in which - especially with more mainstream sounds or trends - marketing seems to go first and music follows second. Image i feel has sometimes over shadowed artistic quality, but at the same time their is still - also at ADE - a lot of artistic quality. A lot of sounds are represented and there is still a lot of cool music to discover, but i do feel like the filtering/algoritmic world of social media has (too) much of an influence on who gets ‘picked’ and put on the forefront. That might sound a big like old, grumpy nagging. I don’t mean it that negative and there is a part of me that can understand/accept what is going on, but at the same time i do feel like we should collectively take our responsibility to make clearer distinctions between image and quality. Social media is here to stay whether we like it or not, but the way we approach it and each other in it i think is something that we can still positively influence to make the music industry a more fair place for everyone.
What trends are you noticing right now; in sound, performance style, or audience energy?
Well the most obviously visible trend is that it seems we like to go hard, harder, hardest. A lot of (new) DJ’s focus on that peak energy sound and bringing these dopamine bombs in sounds like (commercial) trance, eurodance, hard house etc. Now i’m not necessarily against any of that, my position is always that music is there to entertain people and if this is the sound that entertains a lot of people then that’s just the way it is i guess. But i do feel like - especially for young, beginning artists - it sort of clouds a lot of the endless directions and possibilities you can can have with music to experiment. To take risks, dive into complexities and to not solely focus on entertaining big crowds but to also dive deep in all sorts of emotions that music can trigger.
What advice would you give to up-and-coming artists who want to be part of ADE?
Well their is an idealistic advice and a realistic one i think…The idealistic one i would stand for is to advice to focus on creating your own unique sound and approach and not attach yourself to a perceived hype/trend that you feel could get your career going. Experiment with your sound and stay true to what you believe adds something to the world of music, because i believe trends come and go but artistic experiment and quality remains resilient. If you build a (evolving) sound that truly represents you, then i feel it will be easier to stay motivated with it and to feel like you’re showcasing yourself with gigs (like ADE). But here comes the realistic part: in todays industry, the relatively easiest (still difficult though) way to become part of big events like ADE is to be seen as much as possible in the digital domain. And the digital domain preferences certain sounds, styles and images. So yes, if you sort of confirm to that, you probably have bigger chances. I do feel though like their should be a middle way and i see some promising artists picking that middle-way in which you stay true to yourself/your sound and sort of play alone the social media part in a way that’s not to alienated from your own persona. It’s a balancing act that has to be reinvented every x years.
How does this year’s ADE experience compare to others you’ve had?
Well it’s quite different ofcourse since this is the first time being part of ADE so it’s a really nice and grateful experience. ADE is always fun, but i do dosage a bit more the last years (getting older) and cherry pick the events a bit more then a couple of years ago. ADE is madness and structure at the same time. What i like about it the most is that you have so much routes to take and there is stuff in there that suits every type of music lover. And that’s definitely impressive.
