Artist Spotlight: KJ Sawka – Top EDM Drummer
KJ Sawka is an artist’s artist and I’ll provide more details on that soon, but truly a really special artist that doesn’t come around often. Think about all of the artists out there and how many of them really make you go “oh wow!”…where you go out of your way to share them with your friends or in my case other members of the industry. That was indeed KJ Sawka for me, and this was almost 16 years ago.
KJ had me hook line and sinker all from this video
A little background on myself is that I am a huge live music fan, 90s rock, turntablism, etc, I also used to play drums back in school, so drummers stand out to me so call me biased sure but KJ is just raw skill, hands down. But yeah, I saw that video and I needed to bring KJ onto the agency. KJ at the time from what I recall was just involved in a few Seattle-based bands, and solo showcases in local clubs but his touring schedule at the time was not great, certain it was good, but not great. So I reached out and we started working together, pretty sure it was as simple as that. I was stoked to share KJ Sawka with the public so they too can have goosebumps and get obsessed as much as I was to his music and sheer ability. KJ was also my first live act and at the time it was a big thing, it was the time of London Electricity and the Jungle Drummer (same group), amongst others, but it was now someone in the US to push out as a talent, super exciting time for sure.
During the early days touring KJ Sawka at CGAgency it was usually in the NY/VA/PA areas and I personally made sure to be there – we would road trip them – and I would put KJ up at my house when I was living in NY. Still to this day I see crowd reactions that I saw back then where people gather around his drum set, watch for a good 10 min or so, in absolute awe and then something primal happens around that time where dancing ensues – pure vibes.
The mention that KJ Sawka is an artist’s artist is how collaborations occurred throughout KJ Sawka’s career, the largest one in our world being Pendulum, I still remember the time I learned about this, I was with KJ down at WMC (Miami) when those initial talks were going down, the whole team was so pumped for his growth since we all knew the amount of work KJ put in to make everything for himself happen. KJ’s collaborations all branched from the reaction to KJ’s ability. The dude is a machine and not just in the drum and bass, dubstep scene, but his technical ability in the drum world put him on high-profile showcases and into magazines/sponsors outside of our niche market.
For those who have the ability to bring people into music venues like our state-to-state promoters or if you dig what KJ does and you know your local promoter you just need to ensure your city’s public has seen this type of show. If it is a club without a stage, build one or barricade this man on the dance floor. KJ Sawka is still very much active and he has a strong desire to visit and we share this desire to get him out there. Just get in touch and we can “bring Drum and Bass for the masses” as KJ likes to say.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KJ_Sawka
https://www.youtube.com/c/KJSawkaOfficial