Faded Society is grateful. As she speaks to Mixcloud, the hustle never stops and her inbox is filling up by the minute. Despite being refreshed from a much deserved holiday, reality kicks in as she’s back building her creative brand, The Faded Community (T/A Faded Society ltd), an events and marketing agency to work with artists in the electronic scene. A key aspect of the brand is Back2Back DJ Battle. Since 2024, the DJ competition has brought together some of the UK’s most talented and fearless DJs for intense battles to see who comes out on top. Running throughout the year and available to stream on Mixcloud, eight finalists take part in a winner-takes-all DJ competition. Think of the DMC World Championships with just as much flavour, where the musical lengths DJs go are as wide as their own imaginations.
Inspired by her days as a raver, where she observed the beauty of genres being channelled together to create unique musical sequences, Faded Society took her passion for clashing sounds and turned it into a full time business. One that is mandated to serve a growing community of up and coming spinners.
She emphasizes community, because with a working relationship with brands such as G-SHOCK Radio, Westend DJ and Riot Noise and a rapidly growing network of DJs and musicians, she is the glue keeping things together. The captain of the ship. “A lot of stuff happens behind the scenes with the Battle but hopefully what you see is of a high standard,” she says. “It’s going to make you want to be part of the community and the competition.”
We speak to Faded Society about the creation of Back2Back Battle, the art of DJing and nurturing the next generation.
How did you get started as a DJ?
Faded Society: I’m from Australia, I moved to London about nine years ago and when I got here, I was into a lot of warehouse underground raves where you get a lot of Techno, House and Bass. It felt like it was always okay if you go to a party and that’s all you’ll hear for four or five hours, but I wanted to change that.
I am a self-taught DJ and I got into the scene because, like other DJs, I was just addicted to music and where music takes you, especially in the context of a rave. I’ve been an avid raver for a long time now and I saw a gap where I wanted to have the power to curate different sounds that aren’t necessarily available all the time. What if you’re in a rave but you’re putting some jazzy bits over some Rap and then you bring it back to something bassy or take Baile Funk and put Acid Techno on top. I’ve always wanted to create that experience as a DJ and encourage people to dance to different sorts of sounds.
Would you describe yourself as an open format DJ or do you specialize in certain sounds? What do you tend to play?
I call myself genre-fluid and I play anything that is dancey. In a performative set, it could literally be anywhere between 120 and 165 BPM. But as long as I’m giving you bass and vocals in between, then you’ll be dancing. That could be anything from UKG to Jungle to Afrohouse to Acid Techno which is my love.
What led to the creation of Back2Back DJ Battle?
It was a combination of my love of DJing, blending things and looking at different ways to create new sounds. The Battle came about when I was jamming with Venxm, another artist, and he comes from a completely different sort of vibe. He’s a lot more funky and Afro-based. We were jamming together and I was bringing in heavier stuff. So with that, we blended back to back and I came up with the idea. Why don’t I create an event where I find DJs who are so different from each other but together we can create a performance where they’ll blend in their signature styles? But also have to show off what they’re about a little bit more. That’s how it evolved into a full competition.
What is important to Back2Back DJ Battle as a creative platform?
First of all, exposure. Finding talent from the ground up. It’s all about the hidden gems and talent that no one’s ever heard of. They’re not yet the next Fred again.. but they could be, and from an artist development point of view, the Battle is huge to provide this opportunity. So, for me, I’d like to nurture that side. From a huge pool of DJs, eight get selected per tournament. Only one wins, but what you guys don’t see behind the scenes is that all eight of them get the same preparation and support, they get mental health check-ins, they get social media content created for them and that all helps them. It’s like a whole village raising the acts.
They get feedback and upskill with the way that we provide resources. So they discover new genres and skills. Then it becomes educational for me because I get a lot of feedback from everyone who’s been involved and competed. From that, I’ve been able to create a support system and a proper community of music lovers.
What does it take for someone to reach the final eight?
There are many metrics that we go through. First of all is your skillset technically. You don’t have to be a wizard but can you think on your feet with your ability? We don’t want to make you feel like you’re unequipped or embarrassed, so that metric is to make sure that you’d be able to adapt to the rules and briefs of the competition. We’ve got a panel of selectors now; Riot Noise, G-Shock Radio, Donal Sharpson from Choki Biki Records and myself. It’s a wide range of people in the industry with a lot of different experience of people in the industry to look at the artist in that way.
Then another factor which people will probably hate to hear, is social media. How well can you present yourself online? You don’t have to have 10,000 followers, but even if it’s 1000 followers that we can see they have a high engagement percentage. That means they actually have people communicating with them and they’re actively present online with their fans and followers.
How did the link up with G-SHOCK Radio for the second season of Back2Back DJ Battle come about?
Shout out to LJ Shellings for hooking that up. G-SHOCK Radio got involved during the championship last year. They were providing a space to bring all the all stars and previous winners in before the live battle to talk to them, letting them be online and getting their insights on the battle. Then they provided the championship winner a six month radio residency. So congrats to The Cooke who won that and is now into his residency. After season one, I think our goals really aligned.
From all of your time running battles, are there any signs you see at the early stages that certain DJs are going to go far?
For me, all the DJs who have won are the ones who have done hours of homework. The preparation they get such as the resources that I send through; if they actually read that line for line, they are 100% contenders to win. That’s already an early indicator for me that they’re going to go far because it’s the ethics at the end of the day. There are so many talented DJs who know how to put sounds together and can make people dance, but it’s how well you study your craft and how seriously you’re going to take it that’s going to take you far.
Who would you say are some of the biggest success stories to come out of Back2Back DJ Battle?
Everytime I get asked this it’s like counting your kids! I think all the winners, honestly, they have proven to me even before the Battle that they’ve owned their unique styles but even after the Battle they have gone out and proactively done so many things. Draft, Mattana, Limi, LJ Shellings, Chedda Bread, The Cooke who won the championship, I’m very, very proud of them. And for those who even didn’t win, I see a lot of them being proactive on their DJ journey. I see them and I believe in them.
What are some of the lessons you’ve taken about DJing and running events through Back2Back DJ Battle?
Two things. For DJing itself, to continue to be open-minded. Where you start and where you go might be completely different pathways but it doesn’t mean they’re wrong and doesn’t mean that you should hate the stuff that you were doing earlier. You should be proud of your progression. Secondly, being open to new music and new techniques. As an events producer, I’ve learned to give people an insight into my world and openly talk about the fact that it’s not just all the pretty stuff and cool content that you see. It’s 90% of admin and very hard work behind the scenes. So I guess the reason is to inspire others. To get to your goals, you have to present yourself well, know your strategy and continue that goal no matter how tough it is right now in front of you.
What are some of the best tracks or flips that you’ve heard at a battle? You must’ve heard a fair few!
I think one of my favorite rounds in the battle is the semi-final which is like an acapella edit round which means you have to get creative with your blends and reinterpret the brief. But the final round is where the back-to-back track for track happens and that goes into the original DNA of why I wanted to create the Battle. It’s when you put two DJs together who’ve probably never played together and have completely different sounds. For example, The Cooke was more Hard Groove and quite high energy. Then his opponent Chedda Bread was very Rap, Grime, UK sounds and together that back-to-back was amazing; you didn’t know who you should be screaming for (this is how people vote for DJs)!
But I will call out Chedda Bread for the acapella round last November in the All-Stars battle. He was on three decks. The acapella was in the middle and he was just dropping different beats and rhythms on top, bringing that track to a completely new world every time he brought new sounds in. He won that round and honestly it was so good. It lives rent free in my head!
What do you think are some of the main things that DJ competitions teach DJs about the craft of DJing?
Definitely the skill set (not just technical but as a performer). So, I wrote an article with Mixcloud about how to win a DJ battle and everything I say in that is legit how you can win. One of them being the most simple technique, hot cues. You wouldn’t believe it, but so many DJs say to me, ‘I don’t know what it is, I don’t want to use it.’ But you need to learn it because that gets you to places quickly and you can react quickly. Teaching DJs about those skills and artist engagement allows them to nurture their personas as performers. Then it just goes back to build community and support systems. To let people know that DJing isn’t just some cliquey thing. You can have actual communities and don’t have to feel alone.
I have a huge WhatsApp community where DJs are always talking to each other asking for opinions, where they should be looking at stuff, how they can learn different things, where the open decks are in London. Just that sharing of information for me has always been a big part of creating this community.
“DJing isn’t just some cliquey thing. You can have actual communities and don’t have to feel alone.”
How has Mixcloud impacted Back2Back DJ Battle?
Mixcloud has been an amazing platform, not from just the live streaming side, but in having the different features that we can use. To be able to live stream the battles, archive the audio from the live streams which people can listen to, then I’m able to cut the entire Battle into separate sets and Mixcloud can house them. I invite all the competing DJs to have their own featured set so that people who have tuned in can learn more about the artist. So there’s that discovery element for the artist.
You mentioned wanting to expand your Mixcloud activity beyond Back2Back Battle to spotlight DJs in the wider network. What does that look like?
I’m planning to introduce more DJs through different avenues. Some produce their own tracks for the acapella round so I’m going to use Mixcloud’s Tracks feature to expose their original music and edits on the platform. There are a lot of people from the Faded community who want to showcase what they’re about – I have a database of about 300 DJs at the moment! I can use Mixcloud to expose them to the world. So there will be more mixes and tracks. I just try to give them all a bit of a spotlight every time I can.
What’s next for Back2Back DJ Battle?
The next Battle is in April with a brand new final eight and big energy. But overall the competition takes over the whole year, so we’ve still got Battles in June and September, before the grand finale called the “All-Stars” battle where we invite past winners to compete for huge prizes such as a DJ slot at a UK festival, new DJ kits and training development to help their careers. It’s all shaping up really well. You can find a list of prizes that we provide every tournament on our website or Instagram!
What are some of the moments in your career that stick out the most?
I’ve never really sat down and thought about it. But I’m definitely very proud of myself for even getting to this point – it’s a bit of a “Started from the bottom, now we’re here” Drake moment. Because it all started with nothing and no funding to now be full of support from different people and brands is pretty insane
So just being able to create what I do now and truly provide a community where everyone feels like they’re part of something and then this makes me happy. Personally, I’m probably DJing less because I have less time to do things but this year I’m hoping to put myself more into the forefront. Get myself back on my own DJ game.
The next edition of Back2Back DJ Battle is on 4th April. Tickets are available now.