Portuguese mainstay Rave Child launches his Kokölò label via his vibrant ‘The Birth’ EP. We sat down with him to discuss the premise behind the new label and more.
You describe yourself as a “no-face-entity”, what is the idea behind this?
The music and the feeling it creates is what truly matters.
Your Kokölò label launches with your EP ‘The Birth’, where did your musical inspiration come from for this release?
My childhood years. Colouring outside the lines.
What is the meaning behind the name Kokölò?
In an ancient african dialect it means “to take a step forward”. For me it’s just a funny word.
The artwork for the EP is quite abstract, what was the inspiration behind it?
For the label, I believe in giving total freedom to the artists we work with, and that was the case with David Duarte, the artist who designed this cover (and the ones coming after…). To quote him: “The inspiration arrived after listening to the EP and thinking about what could visually work well with it. I wanted to create something appealing but at the same time simple… without any excess in terms of elements or colors”.
What values and especially music do you hope to advocate through the label?
I want that from the moment you press play you sense that you’re about to hear something special. Made with authentic feelings inside. The more honest and pure the music is, the more people will be able to relate to it and create a new reality out of each of our releases. Having said that, we want to convey a feeling of freedom, not focusing on genres, but on what moves us on the dance floor and away from it.
What other exciting releases can we expect to see from Kokölò in the future?
Alfonsvs will be releasing original material for the first time in many years, and going on his own direction. We also have music coming out from a new-comer artist, named Adriana Ruas, and also from me. On remix duties we have invited artists who we have connected with in the past, and who believe in our music. Lined-up we have Vril and Answer Code Request, with their own takes on our music.
We’ve heard you will be throwing some regular events in Portugal. How has the response been like?
We are very lucky that people seem to understand what we are doing and why we are doing it. It seems like there is a big thirst for these kinds of events that don’t focus solely on a single-musicgenre. However, we know that the more attention we get, the harder it will be to keep those intentions up, and not get washed away by the perception of others. Nonetheless, we hope to be able to create memories worth sharing and caring about, at our events.
Our events are called Ölò and are following the same ideology of freedom of our label. For the first edition of Ölò, which will happen at Pérola Negra club, in Porto, we have invited Tijana T. She is a very versatile music selector and it totally made sense to have her joining us. For the next events we have already booked some very exciting artists, so stay alert!
What is happening in the underground scene in Portugal at the moment?
We are excited to see many smaller crews grow and see new artists blossoming with their recent work. We see the scene becoming increasingly open and diverse. This is also great as it creates more opportunities and it fades away the lines separating the established names with the ones coming up.
Answer Code Request and Vril will contribute with remixes for the label, and Alfonsvs will contribute with original music, who else would you like to collaborate with in the future?
To keep an open heart and ear is always important. The opportunities we had as label have appeared very naturally and I believe this is partly the recipe for what we are doing, in order to keep the feeling of our music honest and pure.
Rave Child [IG]
Kokölò [IG]
