I’m not a huge EDM (electronic dance music) fan, but the artists I tend to learn towards in that genre usually have a heavy hip-hop sound. My best friend is always the one exposing me to these people and it always feels like we found a musical gem.
One I recently learned about was Gramatik. Currently residing in Brooklyn, born and raised in Slovenia, Denis Jasarevic is seriously nailing his craft as a DJ and producer. At 29 years old, it’s obvious that he’s been making music for a long time. Jasarevic credits his older sister to opening him up to hip-hop, jazz, soul and funk at an early age. Studying classical piano with a passion for blues, he was in bands up until he started MCing. Discovering audio manipulation programs and sampling, Jasarevic became attracted to the craft of DJing and producing.
Gramatik has some serious street cred with his albums “Street Bangers Vol. 2&3” being nominated for the Beatport Music Awards Best Chill Out Artist and Best Chill Out Track in 2010 and again in 2012. With a strong belief in releasing free music, that hasn’t stopped Jasarevic from selling over 100,000 tracks on Beatport.com alone. This past summer I caught Gramatik at the Osheaga Arts and Music Festival in Montreal. It was a great show with live guitar and awesome mixes of hip-hop and blues, laced with classical elements such as the piano and violin. If you want to have some fun for Friday December the 13th this year, then see Gramatik at The Hoxton in Toronto. Money’s always tight during the holidays but this is $15 you’ll be happy you treated yourself to. You can stream all of Gramatik’s music online here at Grooveshark, but if you really like what you hear, throw some support and purchase it on iTunes.
