4 minute read
10 minutes with local taste makers
Sxdated
The very first time I heard of Sxdated was earlier this year after he was announced winner of the DJ call-out competition at the BAR-HP music festival. Fast forward to the festival weekend, you bet your bottom dollar I was standing front and centre when he started his set. While midday is not the ideal hour for dancing in the desert, Sxdated managed to pull a crowd from the pool and camping areas. After about 24 hours of non-stop techno, his set was a sound for sore ears, a departure from anything and everything I’ve ever heard from behind a DJ deck.
Ewan Mitchell Kisting, the twenty-something cat dad with a degree in IT, has been DJing since 2012. That is a whole decade spent perfecting his craft. Writing, listening, producing, overthinking. While his goal-oriented personality deserves much credit for the musician he has become, it is his roots (genes, really) that swayed him to this industry. The man is a musical wunderkind, with family on both sides deeply talented in every instrument you can imagine. Ewan’s dad tried his very best to convince him to join the family band, but he wasn’t going to become a musician on someone else’s terms. After throwing around a couple of cringeworthy stage names and laying the foundation for the DJ he would become, Sxdated manifested.
What is in a name, though?
“I take people, the consumers of my art, into a transcendental state… On a journey,” he says. And I can testify. It is hard to describe the effect, because music is so personal, but if I were pressed to put it into words, it would be to create a warm, fuzzy feeling. Sxdated will leave you and your friends dancing and feeling like the only people on the planet. And when the set is over, you emerge as if from a headfirst dive into a cold pool on a hot summer’s day. Sxdated says his DJing is a dialogue between his mind and hands, and the feet and hearts of the crowd. A poet if I have ever met one.
The poster child for the anti-genre movement, you’ll find Sxdated playing everything from lofi to soul, indie to R&B and just a little sprinkle of techno and trap. He plays just enough of the stuff you know and like for the crowd to get grooving, and the moment Sxdated has you under his spell, an arrangement of alternative, seemingly unrelated genres merge into endless melodic magic. Sxdated is one of the rare ones that, despite having been at it since he was 13, still comes up with funky stuff every time. No two sets are the same, because no two crowds are. For Sxdated it is equally important to read the floor and crowd, tweak accordingly, and to push listeners out of their comfort zone.
At his core, Ewan is a die-hard creative. He winces at the idea of ever giving up creativity for the sake of the corporate IT world he is employed in. Ewan is convinced he can balance both, and with a little help of meditation – which he says has been a crucial part of slowing down and staying focussed – I have no doubt that Sxdated can slay his 8-5, take a nap, and still make it in time for his set at a nightclub.
Drawing inspiration from the likes of Gina Jeanz, our very own local girl who has made it big on international stages, Sxdated hopes to spread his wings overseas as well. His dream stage is Tomorrowland. With a heart of gold, humble ambition and international standard music, Sxdated has all the makings of the next Namibian expat we’ll be bragging about when famous.
Sxdated regularly plays at Open Season and Amis Day Club events in the capital. You can follow him @sxdated_ This photoshoot was originally created for FlyNamibia Magazine in collaboration with Ewan Kisting.
Photographer: Le Roux van Schalkwyk
Art director: Charene Labuschagne
