One man in the past twelve months has been providing quality and original remixes – with each remix different to the other one he has released ....

For the past twelve months, the underground Bhangra scene has been active and electric more than ever. Popular DJ’s such as DJ Twinbeatz, DJ Hans, DJ EM, DJ KSR to name a few have been waving the flag for North America, providing quality and original remixes that has increased their own individual popularity and prompted them to release music on a more regular basis. Unfortunately, there hasn’t been a single UK based DJ that has provided original remixes and music and has competed with the names above. Thankfully, that has all changed and one man in the past twelve months has been providing quality and original remixes – with each remix different to the other one he has released.

That man is DJ Frenzy, aka Berik, who is most well known for being the tour DJ to Tru-Skool and JK. DJ Frenzy is a student of the hit music producer Tru Skool and DJ Frenzy has put the skills he has learnt from him to the test. Last summer, DJ Frenzy and AJD released the mashup entitled: “Lean on Diljit”, with the music video most recently achieving one million hits on YouTube. DJ Frenzy ended the year with the remix EP entitled: “A Frenzy Xmas”, which consisted of three remixes in the form of “#BawaVsBilla”, “Just-In Pyar” and “Kawan Bling” – with all remixes receiving a huge number of hits online.

The success that DJ Frenzy had in 2015 prompted DJ Frenzy to start up his own regular and monthly remix project in which he would release one remix each month, forming part of the #DesiFrenzy EP. So far, we have been treated to the dancefloor filler “In2 Narma”, the traditional and folk inspired “Manak Frenzy”, the soothing and soul touching “Maa” and the incredible “Hymn for Punjab”, with almost every mix fusing Punjabi and Western music together in an incredibly produced way.

This month, DJ Frenzy announced the release of “One Dance Frenzy”, with it being a very special collaboration for everyone involved. The track features vocals by R&B sensation Drake, who is sweeping the entire planet with his latest album “Views”. The track also features Punjabi tracks “Much Putt Gabru” vocalled by Jordan Sandhu and Malkit Singh’s “Jind Mahi” as well as blistering dhol recorded by the Beats by Lions dhol collective, a new team formed by the Lions of Punjab Bhangra team.

Speaking to DJ Frenzy, he was delighted with the way that his collaboration with Beats by Lions turned out and hopes his current mixes and future material can have a positive impact on the Bhangra industry.

“With #TheDesiFrenzy series, each month I release a brand new mix on to my Soundcloud page. My aim has always been to give people an insight into the kind of music that I listen to and to get people thinking about songs that they may have forgotten about, or for people to discover new songs through my mixes.

I feel that there’s a growing trend of Panjabi people solely listening to western music, as opposed to Bhangra. One of my main aims is to entwine the two styles of music, in the hope to possibly educate the non-Bhangra listeners and show them that every Panjabi song doesn’t sound the same(!); which may, in turn, lead to them regularly listening to Bhangra music! The best way to do this, in my opinion, is by picking commercially popular songs in the chart (that they most likely already listen to) and mixing those tracks with Bhangra songs.

With #OneDanceFrenzy, I’ve followed the pattern from a lot of my previous releases; fusing a commercially popular song with desi beats and mixing it up with a Punjabi song. However, this time, I’ve teamed up with a dhol team; ‘Beats by Lions’. This collaboration followed on from working closely with them over the past few months to create a performance set for their events/weddings etc. They recently had an idea for a mix to Drake’s One Dance after posting a dhol clip to the song on Twitter which went viral. Coincidentally, I had already began work on a One Dance mix around the same time, so things just fell into place.

This is the first time that I’ve had a live dhol recording done for a mix, so I’m excited to see the response for this one. I've tried to do something different with the mix overall too, in the style that I usually do, so it should be interesting to see the feedback.”

Overall Review: When DJ Frenzy announced his next remix, I was excited to hear of a remix of the incredibly popular “One Dance” by Drake – which is a song that I am a very big fan of. Having said that, I was afraid that the remix wouldn’t live up to the expectation of his previous remixes that he has released. However, he has infact provided yet again another mind-blowing remix that fuses the three tracks and dhol together incredibly well. The addition of Dhol isn’t overpowering and fits well in the song. Dhol mixes have been frowned upon recently by Bhangra fans as the use of dhol can be overpowering in mixes and ruin the original product – but thankfully this isn’t the case for this remix. The Beats by Lions team features a roster of talented dhol drummers and this song is perfect for them to perform to at events.

Overall out of 5, I would give this remix a solid 4. The dhol is fantastic and I love the style DJ Frenzy has gone for. However, when listening to the track on my headphones, I didn’t enjoy the way that the dhol had been mixed. Even though it lived up to its expectations, I felt like his other remixes such as “In2 Narma”, “Lean on Diljit” and also “Maa” have been a lot more enjoyable because of how simple they have been produced. A lot was going on in this mix, so it was hard to enjoy the whole aspect of it. Although I mentioned this was a good remix for the Beats by Lions team to perform to, I can’t see it being a popular dancefloor filler in comparison to his “Lean on Diljit”, “#BawavsBilla” and “In2 Narma” remixes – again the reason being how simple and quality those remixes are.

Seeing as we are now reaching summer, I would love to see DJ Frenzy branch out and try something different by experimenting with house and EDM music – which is a popular genre of music and has been sweeping the charts. DJ Frenzy also accomplished 6.5k plays for this remix on his Soundcloud page, before having it taken down due to copyright. Copyright is an issue that DJ Frenzy had faced in the past few months, so would love to see him experiment by producing a new track entirely by himself – without the use of samples or taking an instrumental from a popular top 40 track.

Having said that, whatever he releases, I’m sure it’ll prove to be another successful and enjoyable remix and I hope the success that DJ Frenzy has had with his remixes prompts more UK DJ’s to represent the underground bhangra scene.

For more information regarding DJ Frenzy’s mixes, be sure to follow him on all social media accounts such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat and Soundcloud – with all accounts under ‘DesiFrenzy’. DJ Frenzy will also like to inform readers that the ‘One Dance Frenzy’ remix is also available on his YouTube page, with the download link in the description of the video.

You can follow me at Follow @JusiSahota