But what exactly is “the underground”?

Historically, it wasn’t a marketing strategy — it was a necessity. House in Chicago. Techno in Detroit. Drum & bass in British raves. These scenes were marginal, ignored, sometimes openly dismissed.

In Detroit, Juan Atkins described techno as a futuristic sound born from a declining industrial city — a “high-tech soul” forged in marginality.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXdzjxEnBnc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjV3PDi3KE8

So at the beginning, the underground wasn’t a fixed identity. It was a starting condition for DJs.

Over time, though, “underground” became a posture. A flag. An Instagram bio. Sometimes even a tool of social distinction — the more niche it is, the more noble it seems.

Maybe it’s time to take a step back.

DJs are not mystical archetypes. They are human beings. People who grow older, who have families, who want a certain level of comfort, or who simply want to enjoy life. We accept when a film director moves from independent cinema to Hollywood. We accept when a chef opens a fine-dining restaurant after years in community kitchens. But when a DJ moves from a 400-capacity warehouse to a 2,000-capacity VIP club, they suddenly become suspicious?

Being truly underground today is almost a form of activism. And activism comes with a cost. Less income. More risk. More fragile exposure. The possibility of being blacklisted. Constant pressure — not to disappoint the wider public, but especially not to disappoint the purist underground scene, which rarely forgives mistakes (much like activist circles). The underground can be an incredible space of freedom — but it can also be a space of intense moral surveillance.

Let’s say it clearly: you don’t have to be underground at all.

The pioneers didn’t choose to be underground. They operated in niches because these sounds were new, marginalized, and often rooted in Black, queer, and working-class communities. If Detroit techno had TikTok in 1988, it might have gone global in three months. The underground was a context — not a vow of poverty.

So yes, today some DJs play VIP clubs, take large fees, and tour massive festivals. Is that automatically a betrayal?

For us: no.

As long as the values still stand. Good music. Respect for the crowd. A sense of plurality. A minimum of artistic coherence. You can play for 300 people or 30,000 — if the selection is honest and the intention remains aligned, scale does not define betrayal.

We can also give some breathing room to those who gave fifteen or twenty years to the culture. Those who played for 200 euros and warm beers. Who built local scenes, supported collectives, carried movements when no one was watching. At some point, wanting to get the most out of it is understandable. Many of those who criticize have given far less.

But let’s not confuse everything. Leaving the underground does not mean betraying the scene. Using the underground as an image while doing the opposite in reality is something else entirely.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list of what we are not talking about:

Taking fees that make tickets inaccessible while claiming to be anti-system.
Posting studio photos while working with ghost producers.
Performing purity in public while fueling exclusion or speculation behind the scenes.

In our view, the problem is not growth.
The problem is hypocrisy.


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