Like many young people in China, Slowcook grew up listening to Mandopop stars from the 2000s, like Jay Chou and Jolin Cai.
Her musical education started when she was a teenager, as she bought cassette tapes and CDs of her favorite music, eventually graduating to buying dakou CDs (imported CDs that were treated as foreign plastic trash).
She started going to see music shows in her teens, attending livehouses to watch emo rock shows, before discovering electronic music when she was in university, citing Beijing’s historic night club Dada as an integral music venue that sparked inspiration.
It wasn’t until she moved to Leeds in England for a post graduate course that she started learning how to DJ and began throwing parties. Right now, she runs a queer, gender-equal club night called G2Gather out of Beijing night club, Zhao Dai. Speaking about G2Gather, she says, “Our party is very local and queer, every month there is a different theme inspired by local Chinese queer culture and traditions or a combination with western queer culture, and we get a steady crowd from the LGBTQ community.”
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2020 was a big year for Slowcook. She co-founded the casual music label DCYY, which released a pair of records called Home Fitness 1 and Home Fitness 2, with the proceeds from sales of those records going to support frontline medical workers and the Black Lives Matter movement.
Some of the China’s best DJs and promoters were included on the compilations, such as GOOOOOSE, Knopha and Yu Su, while a plethora of international acts made an appearance.
Slowcook also appeared on Boiler Room’s System Restart last year, a series of Boiler Room streams focusing on how nightlife was kicking back into gear in 2020, after months of layoff because of Covid-19.
Now her new radio station Baihui Live will launch on June 20th, with sets from the likes of Yu Su, Gong Gong Gong and more. The station purports to act as a meeting point for expression, and a space for music fans to find new sounds. Keep your eyes on their socials for more info on that launch.
In anticipation of that launch, Slowcook put together an exclusive mix for RADII, mixing some of those early Mandopop influences we talked about above with British techno.
All images courtesy of Slowcook
