“If you've got one follower or 10 million, that doesn't matter. What's really important is the quality of the music”: Dr Dubplate on the "gatekeeper mentality" in club culture

"Gatekeeper mentality made me bitter towards dance music": Dr Dubplate on club culture and ec2a - YouTube

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Yanis Koudjo is a DJ and label head nurturing a new wave of UK garage and bass music.

The Bristol-based DJ, better known as Dr Dubplate, heads up ec2a, a record label championing the next generation of talented young producers alloying UKG with acid, breaks, dubstep and techno, specializing in limited-edition dubplate releases that have become increasingly sought-after as the label's reputation has grown.

Celebrating its fifth anniversary this year, ec2a has released tracks from Bakey, Main Phase, Soul Mass Transit System, Silva Bumpa, Skeptic and more, carving out a distinct niche in UK dance music with its unapologetically rowdy sound.

Driven by an inclusive and deliberately unpretentious ethos, Koudjo was compelled to make the imprint accessible after experiencing a "gatekeeper mentality" in the dance music scene early on in his career. "The barriers to entry were very hard," he tells us. "If you didn't know someone, or you weren't deemed cool enough, you were basically shunned from being able to get involved.

"In many ways that made me bitter towards dance music, because I was so passionate about it but felt like people weren't giving me the time away. ec2a comes from a place of, like: 'Listen, if you've got one follower or 10 million, that doesn't matter. What's really important is the quality of the music.' Essentially it's just a platform that anyone can be a part of."

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