Since we last talked to King Saaidi his reputation in Detroit and beyond has only grown stronger, which has resulted in some pretty significant opportunities to share his music and build his brand within the US and even around the world. We sat down with Saaidi to talk about what he’s been up to, his upcoming set at Corona Electric Beach this Saturday, a new project with Paul Cart, and much more!
RSVP here, spots are going fast!
B: First, could you just tell us your name and what you do?
KS: Yo, my name is King Saaidi, and I’m a DJ and producer from Detroit, Michigan.
B: The last time we talked to you was a while back, right after one of your shows at TV Lounge. What’s been up since then?
KS: I’ve just been trying to live my best life really; travelling a ton, going to shows, playing shows, getting in the studio, just doing what I gotta do every day. I’ve also recently been doing a weekly mix series for Home Bass Orlando as they gear up for EDC Orlando, and of course still rocking with my Drip Detroit brand and all that good stuff.
B: Great. How did you get involved with this show coming up?
KS: Honestly, it’s kind of always been a dream to play one of these. I just got a call one day that they were working with Wax Motif on a series leading up to Breakaway and they wanted me to be involved, so I was just excited to take advantage of that opportunity.
B: Have you been to any of their events before?
KS: I have, I went to one that was in Miami…they’re usually hitting most of the big cities, Chicago, LA, New York, etc. I don’t think they’ve ever done one in Detroit actually, so it’s gonna be really dope for the city to be a part of the series.
B: What are you most excited about for the show?
KS: I’m really excited to play with everyone; we’ve got PVRTY HVRD, two guys from the Metro Detroit area that I actually did a B2B set with at Electric Forest this year, amazing DJ’s. WHEREISFENIX from LA has been a good homie of ours for years, so it’s always great to see him out here. Plus we’ve got Wax Motif, who’s been a beast for what feels like forever. I actually remember when I first started getting into DJ’ing he was a big inspiration for me, I think like the first 100 songs that I downloaded to spin at clubs were pretty much all Wax Motif and Night Bass music, so that’s going to be an honor to play on a show with him. I’m actually playing the set right before his, so I’m hoping to catch him for a little bit at some point during the show for sure. I do think we have pretty similar styles actually, I saw one of his most recent Mixmag sets and I definitely noticed a few tracks that I’ve played recently at shows.
I probably won’t play those songs (laughs), but I definitely will have some good stuff in there, including some new Paul Cart tracks. Paul is an amazing producer and DJ from Italy, and I recently got to connect with him one a project that should be coming soon, which I’m pretty excited for.
B: Right on, so tell us more about that project…how did it come together, and what was the process like creating it?
KS: So I was at Home Bass Orlando, I had just got done with my set, and someone was playing a track that really caught my attention. I had to get the track ID, and I found out it was a Paul Cart remix, so I just hopped on instagram and hit him up right then and there. I looked up his stuff, IG stalked a little bit, and when I was sure it was him I just dm’d him and said yo, this track is fire, we should work on something together. Sure enough, he was like yeah fuck it, let’s do it. It all came together after that.
B: How did it feel to collaborate with someone in another country, and how did your two styles mesh and combine with one another?
KS: I really like how he combines trap and hip hop vocal samples within dance music; he’ll take an Offset adlib and throw it into a house track, which gives this really familiar component to a type of music that some people might not have much experience with. We’re actually doing one of the tracks where we focus on Detroit artist adlibs, which is also really exciting.
B: If you had to describe the project in just a few sentences, what would you say?
KS: I would say that’s going to be a good gateway project to a bunch of different things. I hope that it’s a good transition for people to give house music a chance that may not have really experienced it before. I feel like we’ll be able to get a lot of people to cross over with this music that we’re making, which is really exciting.
B: If you could imagine being at one of your shows, what do you hope that would feel like?
KS: I hope the crowd feels exactly how I feel in the moment, which honestly is just like euphoria, it’s just the best feeling in the world. I hope that any problems they’ve been having can be forgotten for that little bit of time, and that they have a great time with good people and can feel good about that when it’s all over.
B: If you had any advice to people for the show, what would you say?
KS: Be safe, drink water, lookout for new music, support the artists, RSVP early and share the link with everyone, just bring good vibes all around.
