Throughout June, RA is hosting four mixes on BBC Radio 1, airing Friday nights after the Essential Mix. Following last week's mix from Deena Abdelwahed, next up is New York City duo AceMoMA. You'll be able to hear their mix from this Friday night from 3 AM BST.

The last time I was in touch with AceMo and MoMA Ready, the term "social distancing" had just crept into my vocabulary. We were in the beginning stages of a Breaking Through feature, with tentative plans to meet in April when, as I wrote to them, "hopefully things will have calmed down." Though as the story goes in New York, things would only take a turn for the worse as the city became the epicenter of the United States pandemic. Then just days before the city's reopening, George Floyd, a 46-year-old black man, was killed during an arrest by Minneapolis police. Floyd's death quickly drew public outcry, and the echo of thousands chanting "I can't breathe!" swept through what had been a ghost town. Today, white supremacy is widely regarded as a greater threat to humanity than COVID-19.

A couple months have passed since April, and I'm peering at these two artists through my dusty laptop screen, not over lunch, as I had once so naïvely envisioned. I let out a few nervous laughs at the extremity of the changes we'd experienced since our initial correspondence. The pair appear more collected, with MoMA Ready (Wyatt Stevens) often graciously leading the conversation. Wearing an Underground Resistance T-shirt, AceMo (Adrian Mojica), leans on the more pensive side, but is no less animated and excited when he speaks.

As the current face of New York dance music, AceMoMA want it known that their position isn't treated lightly. The issue of gatekeeping threads its way throughout our conversation, whether we're discussing livestream platforms, production tutorials or the pitfalls of the wider music industry. When discussing the network of producers they've brought together in New York, Adrian describes their work as a "bat signal," to which Wyatt responds through laughter, "Yes! It's exactly that!" The mission: to canonize their fertile sector of the Brooklyn underground, a scene they believe has been too long overlooked.

Their music has its roots in '90s jungle and Detroit techno, and finds a sweet spot between nostalgic melodies and propulsive drums. Thematically, their records share a similar political urgency with the original strains of techno helmed by groups like Underground Resistance and Drexciya. They're also incredibly prolific, having released several records separately and together in the past year (all without the help of PR, much to the chagrin of their managers).

Featuring unreleased tracks and music from their friends, their BBC Radio 1 mix for us is described as one "about the home team in North America."

How are you guys? A lot has happened since we last checked in.

MoMA Ready: I don't think I've experienced this much change day by day, but stagnation at the same time. It's difficult to navigate.

Ace Mo: Yeah, a lot of changes. Everything's stopped and now we've been presented with society.

MoMA Ready: I think we all knew, as a society, at least anyone that was paying attention, that nothing was going to be the same after this. But it's becoming more literal and more apparent, whether you're down for it or not. It's gotten to a point where everyone feels convicted and I've never really seen this kind of conviction before. To see it play out has been kind of jarring.

AceMo: It honestly feels like how big 9/11 felt. It has that much impact. Me and Wyatt were talking about how even the titles and the emotions we put in our music are not only depictions of the times, but also telling of our future.

It's interesting that you bring that up. I've been thinking about how relevant albums like A New Dawn feel right now. Even the concept of a new dawn, or new beginnings, feels jarring at a time when we are literally preparing to leave one world for a new one. Song titles like "Disrupt The System" and "Start The Riot" feel especially prescient on that record.

MoMA Ready: I think it's just where our heart lies in music, what we've experienced individually in music spaces, and then our experiences as black and brown men in America. It really comes down to what techno and house music represents for us, with the conversational projects that we put out, Power and Control, and then that album.

Those projects were actually more of a precursor to the album than the AceMoMA EP. There were actually a couple of tracks that were supposed to be more political on the EP that didn't make it.

AceMo: That was honestly just us becoming friends on some love for the music, but then we also found love for change, and love for the fact that we found something to put all these feelings into. That's what happened with all the music afterwards, we noticed the power in it.

MoMA Ready: The original ideologies that Underground Resistance and other Afrofuturists set forward in their music makes so much more sense now in the future. We're just making music that's true to the nature of why this music was made to begin with. That nature was pushed to the side for a long time, for a white, European idea of anarchism, and we took it back. That's why it's being seen as "fresh," but we didn't reinvent the wheel. Now we're egging on our white friends and allies to educate their white counterparts, but it was never right for them to be telling our political ideas for us anyway.

MoMA Ready

I've also noticed an overwhelming white silence across the music industry in response to George Floyd. I'm wondering how that feels for you, as two producers that are seen to be the face of New York electronic music.

AceMo: It's a weird position to be in. People want to support us because we're the future of this music, but they also use us and put us on some kind of pedestal just to say they're cool.

MoMA Ready: When I see that, all I can do as a leader in New York is put my best foot forward and champion who deserves to be championed. Is the work being put in? Are they being overlooked? Can I give advice to this person? There are a lot of DJs and producers in New York that are on an infinite amount of European mood boards and don't get respect. So if I can be on my homie's project with a remix or a collaboration, I'll do that, because I know for some reason motherfuckers like writing about us. I don't know why, I've never solicited press in my life.

AceMo: We're the ones to be doing it, and we're a part of a larger network of people doing the same work. The New York Dance Music compilation, for example, is a great thing. All the money is going towards a bailout fund.

Can I hear more about your involvement with that compilation? That series is really you alongside a wider cast of producers at the helm of the Brooklyn underground scene. These are heads you'd expect to see at Bossa Nova on a weeknight.

AceMo: That's exactly what it is! We've been doing this stuff for a while, since 2015. It's all the people we think deserve shine.

MoMA Ready: You have this cast of producers that are well-respected among DJs and producers at a minimum, and you have relatively unknown artists featured that are playing on the same lineups. When you put them in the same group together, it's creating this conversation, like we were talking about. We're finally creating our place in the canon, whereas before it was just music on Bandcamp. We're now a part of the history of New York's dance music, legitimately.

So, you're both known to be prolific, and without the help of PR. How do you keep your music fresh with such a busy schedule?

MoMA Ready: I think we both just do it anyway, like unsolicited.

[Both laugh.]

AceMo: When I think about that question, I think of an artist who has so many paintings and drawings and sketches, and it's literally the same thing. Things will always happen, each day something will always be made.

MoMA Ready: I'm kind of compulsive when it comes to making music, and so are all of our friends. The world will hear it when it's time for the world to hear it. And whether it be when it first comes out and it gets no attention, or it comes out and six months later you find out about it, the music is always going to be put out. Because we're not doing it performatively, that's what makes it easy for us to do. It pisses off our managers, it pisses off our agents and our distribution company can't stand me, because I just be putting shit out.

AceMo: The stuff's going to get made! It's the only thing that can come out, or else we'd be in the middle of the fucking streets right now.

AceMo

It seems there has been a push to democratize music production during the pandemic, and you two are among the many producers I've seen sharing production tutorials on the internet. How has that been received?

MoMA Ready: It's been going well. I started my own talk show on Instagram, and Ace has his own Twitch livestream. I've always been a teacher, I've been teaching since I was 14. If I have access to certain knowledge or resources, I'm not going to prevent you from getting to those things. I don't have a gatekeeper's perspective. In electronic music, there's a serious imbalance in who's producing music and who's confident in producing music. I've started doing free private zoom calls with my friends, most of whom are talented producers and DJs, and trying in any way to spread the knowledge. To be here and see other people that I know are in the same bracket not being able to experience some of the success I have, I'm not going to keep anything from them.

AceMo: Wyatt and I are both nerds and we love tutorial videos. Growing up learning how to make electronic music, it was like watching tutorials, watching your favorite producer like Pete Rock in the studio. If I can make those kinds of videos for black and brown kids, that's the most powerful thing we can do.

With that in mind, how are you finding the pivot to digital raving? You seem to have done a few livestreams.

AceMo: As kids we were on World Of Warcraft, chat sites, group chats, so it feels like that all over again, just with music. It's bringing to the forefront what we grew up with. It's regular for us. It's funny because now people write about it, and they're like, "Wow, it feels good to be video chatting!"

MoMA Ready: Motherfuckers been using ooVoo! Millennials have been out here maximizing the internet. But one thing I will say I have not experienced with streaming before is how you are able to connect with your specific audience, immediately. On Twitch, literally the second I press stream I have comments. And you don't have to go through a prompt given to you by a promoter, you can give your idea directly to the people.

Do you see livestreams thriving post-pandemic?

MoMA Ready: I think it was already thriving before the pandemic.

AceMo: The first thing I thought of is Tupac at Coachella… [Laughs.]

MoMA Ready: Oh yeah, we've been doing this livestream shit since 2012. I watched that happen! I was on the phone with somebody watching Coachella, and then Tupac comes out and we're like, whoa what the fuck? It broke my fourth wall.

AceMo: It's going to get more and more hi-def. I feel like keeping it core as much you can is important.

MoMA Ready: I also think it's beautiful that what usually belonged to two, three entities in dance music, now belongs to dance music in general. I think we both thought Boiler Room would have a foot on the neck of streaming, but because it became a necessity and we also saw the lack of diversity in it, now streaming has become democratized and now you can go find your people.

How do you approach selection when it comes to a mix like this?

MoMA Ready: We love hard, rough sounding music, but we also love melodic, emotional music. Both of us try to find a meeting place between those ideas.

AceMo: If Wyatt shows me a song I'll be like OK, that's cool, because I found that kind of song in my own way. We're talking to each other, and focusing on concepts with the artists we want to represent.

MoMA Ready: This mix is very much about the home team in North America. We tried to get a bunch of our friends in here as well. It's what rave sounds like to us right now.

Listen to the mix /
AceMoma's mix for RA on Radio 1

Other episodes /
Deena Abdelwahed
Skee Mask
Arca