Wiwek

Saying you always choose your own path is easy, living it not so much. Wiwek Mahabali is proof of this path. He has always been a bit stubborn in his ways and considers success to be relative. Not only has he become a world-class DJ/producer with a resume full of collaborators and festival gigs to die for, he’s gotten there through a music style that he invented himself. Wiwek was born in IJsselstein, a little town located in a picturesque part of the Netherlands, to parents of East Indian descent who emigrated from the South American former Dutch colony of Surinam. His dad sang and played Indian folk music and between the traditional styles he heard at home and the Western pop he heard everywhere else, Wiwek already had a variety of sounds and rhythms in his system when making electronic music.

Inspired by hearing Tiësto’s music on Dutch radio, he made his first beats on Music 2000 for the PlayStation One, before his older brother turned him onto Fruity Loops. Soon enough he was making beats for local rappers as the Dutch house boom was happening around him. Retreating into his bedroom studio to refine his skills, he learned to channel all of those disparate influences bouncing around his head into a distinctive style called: Jungle Terror. It's characterized by complex Indian-inspired rhythms colliding with adrenaline-rush dynamics of trap and tribal house (and not to be forgotten: a library full of sampled animal sounds).

Early Wiwek singles like “Angry Birdz” and his Gregor Salto collaboration “On Your Mark” didn’t sound like any other record being made at the time and soon enough they began to pop up in sets by A-list DJs. In no time he was playing the same stages, making his first festival appearance in 2015 at Ultra, and fulfilling a promise he’s made to himself not to attend any major electronic music festival before he was invited to play one. A Twitter DM to Skrillex, who was regularly playing his tracks, turned into a relationship that helped take his music to a new level. In 2016 OWSLA released his EP The Free and Rebellious , which not only included a collaboration between the two (“Killa”) but also served as the soundtrack to a short film called Still in the Cage that the pair co-produced, and premiered to a massive crowd at the Ace Hotel in Downtown LA. Wiwek’s EP for OWSLA early 2017, Drum Nation , represents yet another stage of his evolution. Blending ecstatic polyrhythms, exotic bird sounds and nods to everything from contemporary Dutch house to classic ragga jungle, Drum Nation offers a fascinating and focused expression of Wiwek’s vision for jungle terror.

His musical journey continues in 2018 by releasing his first compilation The Jungle Terror SAGA on Yellow Claw’s label BARONG Family. The SAGA collects some of Wiwek's favorite tracks from the Jungle terror EP’s and added some new tunes. Wiwek’s main motivation behind the release is to create something special for the legion of diehard fans that flocked to his music. Besides it’s release on all the major digital streaming platforms, the “jungle terror bible” (as he calls it) was also released on limited pink vinyl.

When Wiwek started his own label Rimbu back in 2012 it was his way of releasing new music because nobody wanted to sign his crazy sound. After a while, things changed as he got to work with some great labels and do things he could not achieve on his own at that time. Wiwek developed as an artist and took all the knowledge and experience gained to breathe new life into his own label in 2018, renamedl: Maha Vana – sanskrit for large forest/jungle.

The jungle and forest represent freedom to Wiwek. He wants to experience this freedom and also extends it to others on his label. Maha Vana is the result of Wiwek's evolution from Rimbu into a larger context bringing music, festival experiences and lifestyle together in a world driven by his vision. A safe-haven, a paradise where musicians can collaborate without restriction. Among the first releases on Maha Vana was his own debut album called Cycles. Just like the world is cyclical, so is music, taste and life. Constructs like ethnicity, cultural belonging and gender are just as easily built as they are destroyed. Cycles represents the dance of constructing and deconstructing. Everything comes, everything goes. Man wins over nature, nature wins over man. Man makes, man destroys.

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