MANIK (NYC) - UNDERGROUNDKNOWLEDGE (2017)

Undergroundknowledge is a journey into Queens on the 7 train. It flips through my history (my youth and the sights, smells, and sounds around me) and is a window on how I grew up. Musicality wise, I wanted to explore my background of house music, but also dig deeper on the jazzy and hip-hop influences. – MANIK MANIK fired on to electronic music scene in 2011 with releases on Ovum, Poker Flat and Culprit. The Queens native is the quintessential New York DJ; a connoisseur of dance music with an inimitable style that crosses multiple genres. A seasoned crate digger, MANIK spends hours in record shops to find those forgotten records and hidden gems. Since his electronic beginning, he has also released on labels including B-Pitch Control, Kim Ann Foxman’s Firehouse, Huxley’s label NIO, Fresh Meat Chicago and he is known for cheeky edits of Janet Jackson and the Beastie Boys. I moved out to the West Coast three years ago and started writing this album. And somewhere in this time, I found myself as an artist. I took everything back to where I started, super underground, low key, New York, Chicago, Detroit sounds. There are non dance orientated parts, but it is relevant to me a an artist and me as a person. Who I am, where I come from and what I am today. Stepping away from the city allowed me to fully find where I was trying to go in life. Both as an artist and human being. When I moved, I stripped it back to the essentials and it helped me see my work flow way more clearly… I called the album Undergroundknowledge. We are in this age of the ultra celebrity DJ thing, I find that not to be my ethos. This is my way of saying I think we all need to take a step back and make the extra effort, spend the extra hour digging those promos – look for the underground knowledge. – MANIK