GRAMMYS SO UPTIGHT
Dance music wins hearts all over the world, so why not at music industry awards shows, asks
As a general rule, big dance-music festivals are spectacular. They look like what would happen if a packet of Skittles hosted a party with an unlimited pyrotechnics budget. Belgian DJ and producer Regi Penxten, whose single Where Did You Go (Summer Love) recently danced its way into the top 10 on South Africa’s iTunes charts, is one such Skittle. A Skittle that has a gripe with the Grammys, it would seem.
Like hip-hop and R&B, dance music is notoriously underrepresented at the awards show even though festivals annually sell millions of tickets within minutes.
Despite its sonic breadth, there are only two categories dedicated to dance/electronic music, and giants like Tiësto and Calvin Harris have countless hits and only one Grammy to their names.
“I had a record number of hits and it took me a lot longer than artists in other genres to start getting awards. We have to work a lot harder for the Grammys to come,” said Penxten, known onstage as REGI.
He remains philosophical about the matter, however, insisting that it is not about the recognition but the music and the vibe, and a vibe is certainly something he can create.
Last year his set at one of the world’s biggest festivals, Tomorrowland in Boom, Belgium, which he shared with friend and fellow producer Yves V, was kitted out like a massive circus tent out of Moulin Rouge and featured enough fire and smoke to turn brimstone green with FOMO.
The thousands in attendance looked overwhelmed by a combination of ecstasy (no, not the drug), bright colours and an urge to move their skeletons like spiders with crazy legs.
“Belgians are not very good at bragging but one thing we can definitely brag about is Tomorrowland. It is probably the best festival in the world,” he said.
Penxten, now 41, has been performing at the festival since 2006 but his career started when he was just 18. Unlike many of his genre mates, his first forays into music were more traditional.
“I started at an early age as a classically trained musician. I did guitar and stuff and it wasn’t until I got into the studio that I discovered that what I really wanted to do was produce music,” he said.
“One of my first hit records was actually a hit in France, not Belgium. So I would go to France, perform and be kind of famous there but at home nobody knew me. That taught me humility,” he said.
What is sure to put that humility to the test is the performance of Where Did You Go (Summer Love), a poppy dance anthem that will have all the sleeveless-shirted Alfa Romeo owners in your friendship circle fistpumping like they were trying to punch God. Whether it will be enough to knock some sense into the judges at the Grammys remains to be seen.
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LREGI’s latest single can be found on iTunes and his Tomorrowland set with Yves V can be seen on YouTube.