Lost And Sound

Bradley Zero

• Paul Hanford • Episode 171

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Bradley Zero simply has that rare fusion of global success and grassroots authenticity. 


From humble beginnings as a teenage bar back in Leeds to becoming the founder of Rhythm Section International, what makes Bradley's approach so refreshing is his unwavering commitment to community. During our conversation, he reveals how finding his tribe in Peckham transformed his understanding of creative collaboration. "I was part of something," he reflects. "It wasn't networking... it was people somehow congregating around a small geographical area with an insane amount of creative energy." This foundation informs everything he touches – from his NTS radio show to Jumbi, his one-turntable hi-fi bar that draws inspiration from Jamaican sound systems and David Mancuso's legendary loft parties.


The pandemic proved pivotal for Bradley, creating space for reflection on his role within the industry, leading him to launching Future Proof – a mentorship initiative aimed at demystifying the often secretive workings of the music industry. His observations about discovering the lack of diversity at upper industry levels led to this mission of opening doors and creating change "one step at a time."


If you’ve ever danced to one of his sets or tuned in to his NTS show, you’ll know that Bradley's musical philosophy defies easy categorization, embracing everything from jazz and broken beat to minimal techno and 90s piano house. Add to this rock solid DIY ethics, where "balancing micro and macro," help him keep check in on where he‘s at, helping him in nurturing local scenes while thinking globally.


Whether discussing the challenges of festival versus club DJing or offering wisdom to his younger self about enjoying the journey, I loved having this chat.


Follow Bradley Zero on Instagram  @bradley_zero


Explore Future Proof, his emerging‑artist mentorship programme at Rhythm Section: Future Proof 


If you enjoy Lost and Sound and want to help keep it thriving, the best way to support is simple: subscribe, leave a rating, and write a quick review on your favourite podcast platform. It really helps others find the show. You can do that here on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.


Lost and Sound is sponsored by those good people at Audio‑Technica – check them out here: Audio‑Technica


It’s that time of the year where if you‘re looking for a beach read about Berlin and you‘ve not done so already, grab a copy of Coming To Berlin, my journey through the city’s creative underground, via Velocity Press.


And if you’re curious about Cold War‑era subversion, check out my BBC documentary The Man Who Smuggled Punk Rock Across The Berlin Wall on the BBC World Service.


You can also follow me on Instagram at @paulhanford for behind‑the‑scenes bits, guest updates, and whatever else is bubbling up

Speaker 1:

Hey, I'm Paul Hanford and welcome back to Lost in Sound, the podcast that goes behind the scenes with the most innovative artists shaping music and culture. Today, it's a Sunday morning. Whilst I'm recording this, there's just been like a massive thunderstorm and it's just drying up. So I'm sitting along the road, along the road alongside a road in Neukölln, having a coffee and talking to you, and this week I'm joined by someone who's been quietly, steadily building one of the most exciting and grassroots musical movements in the UK. It's none other than Bradley Zero. But before we get going, lost in Sound is sponsored by Audio-Technica, a global but family-run company that make headphones, microphones, turntables, cartridges. They make studio-quality yet affordable products because they believe that high-quality audio should be accessible to all. So, wherever you are in the world, head on over to Audio-Technicacom to check out all of their range of stuff. Ok, shall we do the show? Thank you, hello, and welcome to episode 171 of Lost in Sound.

Speaker 1:

I'm Paul Hamford, I'm your host, I'm an author, a broadcaster and a lecturer, and Lost in Sound is the podcast where, each week, I chat with an artist who works outside the box. From global icons to trailblazing outsiders and emerging innovators talk about music, creativity and how it's all kind of combined in and squeezed in and all of this and that with life. So, whether you're new here or you've been listening for a while, it's good to have you along and it's been great last week finding out some of your suggestions for future guests on the show. If you're a follower of mine on instagram, you might have seen I did a little call out asking who you'd like to see on the show. If you're a follower of mine on instagram, you might have seen I did a little call out asking who you'd like to see on the show, who would be your dream guest, and I had some really interesting results. So thank you for everyone who who sent something in. There were some funny ones too that I couldn't post a little bit of naughty school boy vibes, but, lol, you know who you are and I did have a laugh, um, but I loved reading all your responses and it was interesting to see some requests for artists. But I've been really interested in getting on the show for a long time, like Space Africa and Beatrice Dillon, and to some artists like Jacuzzi and Alabaster de Plume, who I don't really know that much about or I'm kind of new to, and, and so it's really nice to sort of have like a little almost like yeah, well, have like recommendations from from you about who I should check out.

Speaker 1:

And also, hats off to those of you that said kneecap, yes, anyway, today, a british national treasure in the making, does that sound a bit glib to say I don't know, I'm just gonna go for it. Yeah, I think he could. I think he is bradley tiro, dj, mentor, broadcaster, venue owner and label boss. You might know him as the founder of rhythm section international, his label and club night that's become a cornerstone of the south london scene, or maybe from his nts show, which hits the sweet spot between eclecticism and and just sounding really damn natural. I've been listening to it for years and it always gives me like a warm glow inside whenever it comes on. And so, yeah, if I'm going to call someone like a British national treasure in the making, I better say why.

Speaker 1:

And I think for Bradley it has something to do with having a career that's both very international and supremely local, and on one hand, he's a jet set global dj having residencies in new york and ibiza, and he seems to spend a lot of time wheeling a flight case around airports to various worldwide destinations, and yet the guy is very rooted and committed to community. Well, for start, there's jumbie, the hi-fi bar and performance space he owns in peckham in south london. Plus, he talks a bit in the conversation about the mentorship scheme future proof. The guy is a doer. He does stuff. As always.

Speaker 1:

If you're enjoying the show, the best way to support it is by subscribing, rating and sharing it with a friend you know, like give it a little review on spotify, amazon, apple. Wherever you listen to it really does help the build the show and I'm super grateful for every, every listen, every one of you. Um, so anyway, yes, back to the episode. Um, we had this conversation on wednesday, the 7th of may 2025. I loved having this chat. I think you're gonna love it too. It's a good one. And, yeah, this is what happened when I met bradley zero. Brilliant, uh, bradley, welcome to lost and sound. Really great to chat with you. And we're on the cusp. It's probably already happened a festival, and by the time the episode comes out in a couple of weeks from now, it's going to be well underway. You know, as a veteran now, do you look forward to the change of emphasis that the summer festivals bring and summer gigs bring, compared to the more intimate winter gigging.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's well, it's Gala in a couple of weeks in Peckham, which is sort of my hometown festival and really feels like the beginning of summer every year. You know, that's like the official, the official first one. And yeah, going from the, you know the winter season, which is like, like you, you say, small rooms, club world, intimate sort of staging rooms where you can sort of see everyone and read it and get in a groove in a more long form way to like switching to festival mode. It's really like wearing two different hats, yeah, and and it's sort of, in a way, it's easier to switch from club mode into festival mode because the, the room or the, the, the field sort of uh, demands it. Do you know what I mean? You have to sort of step up and be a bit larger than life, yeah, but I always struggle, like when, like august, september comes around and you start going back into the small clubs and you, you're just in this zone of playing like big tunes, you know, yeah, yeah, creating moments rather than building a groove, I think.

Speaker 1:

I think that's the main difference and I think, at its best, when a festival stage or an area is like really, really special, it's when you almost forget that you're performing on that big stage and you slip into a more sort of intimate, groove based mindset become a little bit of a discourse about, um, like some like more, like old school djs, have you know, it becomes like a sort of a battleground in a way for, like more old school djs to bring up their issues with the contemporary dance culture, like, maybe it's like it's too quick, it's too sort of flashy, it's too this and that, but you don't seem to have this problem. You seem to be able to sort of switch between like very intimate environments and like very, very big environments very, very quickly. You know, is that, do you feel like it's? Is there something at the heart of that for you that that does make it, you know, maybe like philosophically easy for you or enjoyable maybe?

Speaker 2:

That's a good question. Well, first of all, I hope I'd never become an older moaning DJ who's complaining? About youth, going about youth culture.

Speaker 1:

Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, give it a rest, I think we have to constantly evolve and change and it's not like there was this once imaginary time when everything was authentic and real and proper and how it used to be. That's just like rose-tinted spectacles. You know, I'm sure the same people were arguing about bpms in the early 90s when hardcore was going at like 170 bpm, fall to the floor like. I think these natural ebbs and flows are part and parcel of any sort of artistic movement. But to answer the question more specifically, about together, the more you sort of end up having a sort of calculatable average. Do you know what I mean?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, if you have five people in a room, it's really hard to know what they want and you can maybe get into a special, unique, really intimate zone that is truly catered for the people that are there. If you've got 10,000 people, you have to sort of, I guess, aim for the center, you know, to get a utilitarian approach, which I won't go into. I won't go into what's the word I'm looking for too much jeremy bentham, um. But yeah, I like the variety.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's really fun to have a big crowd when you're in a good mood and energy's high and you get everyone's hands in the air and yeah, that's a special thing, but that's not what it's all about. And it's also super special to have a small, a small room of 20 people who are absolutely locked in, eyes closed, barely moving and just, you know, like putty in your hands for for a long period. So, yeah, I, I like all the different aspects of djing and I guess, from the way that I started it was, it was as a resident of my own party, you know, so my roots of um. I guess playing to people lies in like warming them up, like getting getting them to that point where someone can go and, you know, do their thing yeah, I mean the whole resident thing.

Speaker 1:

that came up in the conversation I had with Lauren Garnier a little while back and he was sort of extolling the virtues of sort of almost like you know, because Lauren Garnier is also like a chef earning your stripes in a kitchen, in that you know you start in the kitchen, you know you start like washing dishes. You get like a real sense of like the nuance over a long period of time and then you can make mistakes and you really learn things like reading the crowd, you know, and I mean for you like this sort of sense of like beginning as a resident DJ. You know what, what do you feel were the things that you learned the most from that period of your life?

Speaker 2:

it's sort of about pacing, and I think the longer you can draw out the, the warm-up, and the less you feel rushed to sort of dive into the, the main course. Yeah, carry on, lawrence. Uh, cooking analogy then. Then I think that that's when you you're in for a good time. I think the best crowds I've played to are people who are patient, and the worst crowds I've played to are people that um are quite literally screaming to go faster, and that always happens to be in paris, for some reason oh, really bringing it back around to yeah, yeah, the go, the go harder guy is nine out of ten times parisian right, okay

Speaker 2:

and, and they will honestly stand at the front of the row and go god, um, and, and that's when it's just like you. It feels like a fight and I think when, when it happens, the, the right way or the way that I think brings the greatest benefit to the greatest number, is when it's the, the sort of feeling that people there are in it for the long run, like they're there to, to see where you're going to take them. They trust you, yeah, and, and often there's this sort of um elements that can add to that experience, not not by adding options and by increasing variables, but by decreasing them. You know, one room, basic lighting, not a huge smoking area, not, you know, all these side quests that can happen in a club. That is also fun in its own way, but there's something very simple about a real pure, I guess, experience where you're sort of trapped would be the wrong word. There's not so many different options and you end up really just committing to one long moment yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 1:

I mean that sense of it. I mean I was going to ask you this later on, but it kind of links into now. Like, say, say, with jumbie in peckham, there's the whole thing about having like one deck there and this idea you're talking about like having one room and like sort of almost like reducing options down. Um, for you, like, what is the reason? Because I think, I think that the idea having one deck is really really interesting. Um, but what, what for you? What's the sort of story behind that?

Speaker 2:

well, there's a few things, but, to sort of carry on from your last point, I guess it's about refining, isn't it? And I think a lot of what we do as DJs, as broadcasters, as A&Rs, is refining. We're basically a very complex human sieve. We're taking all of this material in and, you know, maybe 1% of the music that I listen to gets played, yeah, and maybe like 0.1 percent of the music that I listen to gets released, um, so it's this constant process of refining, um, which isn't that glamorous, I think. A lot of people just see the dj on the stage, you know, hands in the air dancing around, of people, just see the DJ on the stage, you know, hands in the air, dancing around, and that's the fun bit, you know. Yeah, that's something that I personally enjoy, but that is what makes it all worth it, you know, to have that moment of connection.

Speaker 2:

But in terms of the way that we sort of refined the setup at Jumbie, there's a few, I guess, cultural references that went into that, and it's sort of my two main influences within sort of sound system and clubbing culture, one being the sort of British, jamaican sound system, sound system culture. You know, I grew up going to sub dub in leeds, which is a sound system party that when I was going there happened in leeds west indian center, so very community focused, very um diy, but that all the emphasis was on the sound system. Yeah and, and they, they played on one turntable. Abishanti, you know, going to Carnival for the last 20 years, he does it all with one turntable, same with Channel One, same with Rodigan, same with.

Speaker 2:

It's just the way that that culture sort of expresses the music and it becomes not about the mixing which I think people can get a bit preoccupied by within house and techno. There's a, there's a space for it and I do it and I think there's um, it's a really unique, I guess, energy level that you can maintain when every song bleeds into another. But there's also something to be said for it being all about the selection, like selection of everything. So so that that was one side of it which is not only my sort of like cultural heritage but my way into the music. And then the other side is the sort of new york disco meets house sort of worlds, like I'm talking um Larry Levan, paradise, garage, this kind of world, but then quite specifically David Mancuso, which is, I, the more hi-fi element like refining the sound in terms of the stylus that you would use, the preamps, the amplification, the turntables, the speakers, the wiring and all of that being refined to the highest possible level within your means.

Speaker 2:

And then, just again, making it about the song song, playing one song in its entirety, from beginning to end, and that that was the sort of um parallel influence in in our decision to just keep it one deck yeah, and I think within that there's a real strong tie in in both the, the two connections that you bring in there into what you're doing as well with community.

Speaker 1:

You know this idea of like um david mancuso's the loft was sort of like you know it was his house and um, you know people, there was no alcohol there, I think there was a lot of lsd, but there was um and he'd also, like you know, there would always be lots of food prepared for people. You know, and and and this idea with jumbie is like I've heard you say, it's like a kind of like having like a kind of living room atmosphere. You know, and I feel that that's a kind of common theme with all of your projects is that it sort of brings things back to a sense of community. You know, and um, I'm I don't want to sort of put words into your mouth, so that might not be true in terms of your perception, but what if it is? Or if, what kind of role does community play for you?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I mean, for me that's really at the center of everything I do, and I think it's largely to do with the fact that I I grew up sort of without an immediate community. I wasn't like particularly lonely or feeling that I was missing anything because I didn't know any better, but I grew up in the outskirts of Leeds, basically in the middle of a field, so I had friends at school and I had activities that I did and I wasn't like some outcast, but I didn't have this sense of of belonging to something that not not defined me but but reflected me. You know, yeah, and it was really when I moved down to not just London but Peckham in particular. I moved down to London in 2006 to study fine art, but then a year later I moved to Southeast London and that's when I really understood what community meant and I started working in a bar and then was surrounded by people who were passionate about music, people who were passionate about sound system, culture, art, about design, promoting just just all the things that I was was sort of excited about but never felt that I had a momentum or a sort of community to to make it happen.

Speaker 2:

And then, having moved there, it just it just fell into place, was effortless. I was part of something, you know, it wasn't networking, I didn't go to you know, meetups or anything like that. It was people just somehow, at that very specific time and place, congregated around you know, a small geographical area with just an insane amount of creative energy and intention, and it was, it was a very exciting time, yeah. So so that is what sort of fueled my early, I guess, forays into bringing people together, you know, because I I felt like I was just providing a service for that community and and by doing exactly what I wanted to do, and I've just kind of continued to do that in those various strands, but essentially it's all about bringing people together in one way or another.

Speaker 1:

So everything you've done since just does it feel like like a kind of logical step progression from doing this like this is just what you do, and you know things grow because that's perhaps because there's more of a connection or like there's a larger audience, but it's essentially the same thing, would you say largely yeah, and and it it's all been kind of very slow and steady.

Speaker 2:

It might look like when you, when I kind of write a c out, which I haven't really done in a long time when I've sort of tried to like.

Speaker 2:

I had to write a bio, like a press release recently. So it makes you sort of look back a bit about the things that you've achieved and what you've done and how you can kind of I don't know big yourself up obviously in the third person and it seems like quite a lot, yeah, when you stop and think. But really it's, um, it's all been very slow and steady and just day to day. It's day to day and I think I've just been very lucky, um, and blessed to be able to find a thing that I do, that sorry, the thing that I love, that not only allows me to, to, to make a living, but brings joy and community and, you know, value for other people. Yeah, but that's I'm not, I'm not, uh, I'm under no illusions that that's. That's like a very lucky position to be in, you know, but it's, you know, from working as a bar back when I was 14 in leeds. It kind of references the thing you said, um, about lauren garnier, like, as a chef, having to sort of start at the bottom and understand every role of the I guess the, the culinary world, in order to be in charge of it and to to create an experience.

Speaker 2:

I feel like in the last 20 years I've sort of done that within hospitality, you know, performing, promoting, hosting production.

Speaker 2:

I've really put in the hours you know as working as a soundboard, plugging in speakers, being a bar back underage in leeds getting paid three pound twenty an hour. Um, you know, playing playing records at the bar when it wasn't busy. So that I was when I started working at this bar in peckham. If the bar wasn't too busy, yeah, I could play records instead and I got paid five pounds an hour to play records. So I was like, wow, I get paid the same amount to play music as I would have to have to like clean up glasses and deal Amazing. So yeah, it's been a slow and steady journey where all these kinds of things that I love doing have manifested, and only in the last few years I've sort of felt that it's not even felt but realised that it's crystallised into these things that have, you know, become like recognised, like whether it's the venue or the label, the radio show, the parties and the events and concerts that we've been doing for almost 15 years now.

Speaker 1:

It's all been just like a winding, slow pass, yeah yeah, I love what you said a little bit earlier on about like it was not about networking but about kind of community. And I, I've, I arrived in london probably about the same time as you, but I was, I, I did, you know you, you were in peckham, I was more of a you know dalston guy, but I think the connecting point was that you mentioned like about like that era. That was just such a fantastic era, if we're talking about like the mid to late noughties, going into like the, the early tens, you know, and it felt like in a lot of ways that was a time where there was a lot of collaboration between people, just naturally, because they were living, you know, in proximity to each other. Um, and it feels like in some ways it feels like uh, maybe it's myself feeling like, you know, I've I lived in berlin for the last seven years and a lot of the people I knew then have all moved to different parts of the world.

Speaker 1:

But it also feels like culture has become a lot more scattered since then. That was perhaps like the last sort of strands of like having a visible, more of a visible kind of like, not necessarily monoculture, but there wasn't such a plethora of different platforms, continually that, like, get people's attention, get people's attention. Um, I feel now it's a lot harder for people to focus or really understand or know like specific moments or feel like a cultural climate, because everything's so fragmented, and I'm really waffling here. But I was wondering, in terms of of your reflections, like looking back on it then to now, you know what would you say were the biggest changes that you've noticed with, with, with, like electronic music and dance culture?

Speaker 2:

Well, there's changes in the culture, but there's also changes in the city, you know and I think that's connected, that intertwined completely, aren't they?

Speaker 2:

I really think so. And you mentioned you were in Dalston in like the mid two thousands. I was in Peckham and there was barely any communication. Nowadays you've got NTS in Dalston, which sort of has this citywide, well, worldwide reach in terms of the people that are engaged and part of it broadcasting and contributing. But back then you had what was going on in Peckham and you had what was going on in Dalston, and if I went to Dalston, first of all I couldn't just get on the overground because it didn't exist. You'd have to get like three buses to get there and then if you needed to come back on the night bus to N78, that would just take forever.

Speaker 2:

So it really was was the city was more fragmented, at least the parts of the city that I guess were the most sort of dynamic in terms of, uh, young creative people, which at that time then, and arguably still now, is dalston and heckham, um. So so I think you had what I've referred to in the past as a sort of pressure cooker effect, um, because there was it's not like it was impossible to get out of there, but but it wasn't that easy and there was so many like young creative people in these different areas that they did just collaborate all the time and and when. When people are working together and sort of magnifying, multiplying their own sort of creative energies, you get like special things happen, and lots of special things were happening in those days I think. I think it would we'd be verging into, uh, grumpy old men territory to say that it's not happening.

Speaker 2:

Now it definitely is, and I think that there's two things that there is the side of it that you that you noted in in terms of things are fragmented in a different way, not so much geographically, because that I think the geographical fragmentation has been minimized with social media and with the london overground and I think people move a lot more freely around the city now because you hear about things that are happening everywhere more easily. But then what was my other point? Yeah, we're also we're not part of that that sort of exciting age group in between I don't know about 18 to 24, 24, you know, when you can go out every single night and you hear about the crazy things that are happening in these disused buildings and empty warehouses and forests and I mean, I hope they're still happening.

Speaker 1:

I'm not getting invited anymore it's not, it's not really for us to be invited anymore, I guess. Is it really is either way, I feel I feel that we've, we've sort of evolved.

Speaker 2:

Well, not just me and you, anyone who is involved, who's like a sort of wifer in this game of music and clubbing and bringing people together, you assume a different role. You know, when you are like 18 and you've just arrived in this new city and you're hearing all these sounds for the first time, you, you want to be bouncing around and you want to be hearing about everything and I, I mean, I I still do have a sort of thirst for new experiences. But when, when I've moved to london from the suburbs of west yorkshire, it was insatiable. You know, I mean, and you can go out five nights a week and still turn up to work and go to uni and um, that's harder when you're uh, you know, when you're pushing towards the upper 30s. Should we say yeah, yeah, so I, I still, I still have faith that, um, you know, the, the young ones will work it out, but it's a different landscape. It's a different landscape.

Speaker 2:

I think the last real sort of musical new genre that had a sort of tribalism about it was dubstep. Really. Since then there's been lots of, of course, new sounds and trends, but a lot of it seems quite circular, you know, like breaks come back in and then trance is everywhere and now it's all kind of quite proggy and like 90s tech houses having a bit of a moment and these things sort of go around in circles. But that was the last thing where it was like you felt that you were part of a new sort of tribe and I think when you look further back into the sort of history of not just dance music but any sort of youth culture, it was very tribal.

Speaker 2:

You know, you were a mod or a rocker, you were into hardcore drum and bass, you're a househead, you're a new school breaks and now it it's just music, you know, and you can hear all these things at the same time and there's a lot less uh, tribalism in that sense, which is interesting, um, but yeah, I always sort of I never had an allegiance to any one sound or direction which I found just, you know, just again, just the variety, just refreshing yeah, yeah, um, I I do notice sometimes, like in berlin, particularly on a summer day, like maybe on a monday or a tuesday, you're walking along the canal and then you'll see a group of um 18 to 25 year olds, I guess, kind of huddled together, you know, like sharing, like a club mate, you know obviously wearing the same clothes that they've been wearing for like two or three days.

Speaker 1:

And I see, you know, I feel like that's so not me anymore. But at the same time, you know, I think this is brilliant. These are like little pockets of, I see, of people that for them maybe there is that tribalism still there. You know, they've been like, in a literal sense, they've spent possibly the last couple of days in a little tribal pact with each other. They might not have even known not everyone there, might not have even known each other like two or three days beforehand, but there they are. It is a sunny day and it's monday or tuesday afternoon and the rest of the world has kind of started going back. It's like daily, normal life and they're still there, hanging on to the last little bits of an incredible experience. That reminds me of experiences that I would have had a few decades before, but it's not for for me, you know it's not. I shouldn't.

Speaker 1:

I always feel like this thing, like you sort of mentioned, about the grumpy old man thing, and it's something that I think, on one hand, the older we get, we do become a little bit more like inherently conservative, just in terms of like our worldviews shrink a little bit. I don't necessarily become right wing, but you know what we want to do, you know we, we retreat to our comfort zones a little bit, um, and so you know it goes back to talking about about like being very careful about this and and about like djs complaining about like summer gigs, um. But on the other hand, it's like I feel that there's a sort of natural responsibility to sort of pass the baton on and, you know, assume a slightly different role at different stages of our lives. And what for you right now would you say, is that role, like you know, because you have so many things going on, you know, like rhythm section is sort of like on its way to sort of national if you don't mind me saying national treasuredom, really, and it's um, yeah, what?

Speaker 2:

what would you say is like yeah, your role now really yeah, um, I, I noticed that sort of generational shift only really during the pandemic, um, because I hadn't really slowed down until that point. Like it just been, as I said before, just a very slow and steady rise in terms of in terms of my schedule, in terms of my um, I guess, visibility, in terms of our reach, I didn't have, I didn't like release a record that made me an overnight hit, do you know? I mean I, which I think I mean that's a whole other conversation, but that that's a pretty. That comes with its own consequences and risks and dangers. But we can, we can touch on that later. But, um, yeah, it was only when I actually stopped and slowed down that I realized what we'd sort of built.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then, in doing that, I guess, came a sort of a sense of responsibility but also a sense of not of realizing I was like not one of the young ones anymore, because in my head I was still one of the young ones and a lot of the people that I would look up to and sort of admire and not model myself on, but just like see aspects of the way that they either the way they played or the way they built community, the way they structured labels and festivals and just the way they carried themselves. The people I looked up to were always older than me, which I think is a normal thing. But then, having sort of slowed down for a moment, I realized that there was this whole generation of kids I say kids, that's very condescending, but younger, younger people who had been getting into this world of music that I'm part of and and they were looking up to me as someone who's been doing it for 10 years and has this back catalog and um of releases, events, radio shows, and it was like, ah, there's actually quite a lot to to share here. There's, there's a lot of things that I could put out into the world that would be beneficial to people and that that sort of coincided with our future proof scheme. Scheme is the wrong word, scheme makes it sound like some uh yeah, you have to do for health and safety like, but like the platform future proof um, because around the same time as the lockdown, as you'll remember, was also the murder of george floyd the black lives matter movement, a lot of Lives Matter movement, a lot of protests, a lot of, honestly, quite hysterical reactions to it on social media, not just in our world, but across the board. You know, the posting of the black squares and the absolving of all guilt. From my perspective, some of it was so performative and so just unhelpful. You know, and I know no one person is gonna solve like racial inequality, that would be naive to believe. But there was this feeling of like, what can I do? Like if I can make any small contribution to society, like what could that be? And it's not about me getting on my high horse and thinking I can change the world and becoming an activist um, because that's not the core of what I want to do, but but it is. I was, I was interested to to, you know, make make some positive difference.

Speaker 2:

Because in in that time, from entering the music world as a young person, moving from the suburbs, coming to this super creative, super diverse scene and being so excited about it and suddenly feeling seen and reflected and validated and empowered as I moved up the echelons of the music industry, you know, from bar DJ to festival headliner, to someone who's working on big events and speaking to the owners and the management and the CEOs and the people behind the scenes, it went full circle. From being in this very like, diverse. It went full circle from being in this very like diverse, very uh young, engaged group of like, really like mixed people from different backgrounds to to like just white men again and and that's when it's like ah. So it's kind of a little bit of, uh, a mirage. You know, like the grassroots of the music scene in london is is super, super diverse, but behind the scenes there's very little ownership, there's very little uh stakeholders, um, outside of one narrow demographic.

Speaker 2:

So, as much as I know, I can't change that overnight. What can I do? Well, one thing that I did was, um, I studied a executive MBA. I read about that, yeah, yeah. I mean a couple of reasons. One one was a sort of knee-jerk reaction to like what if there's never a music industry again? And I might need to actually have some skills that are transferable to, uh, some of the kind of uh aspect of the of the music business. But then the other one was like, well, now I've actually got some time to sort of level myself up to the point where I can understand what is being discussed in these boardrooms, where I know the, the jargon and the um, uh, the business speak. I can understand the economics of it. Um, I, I have a you know, a grasp on on how companies are structured and how leadership and management models work and and basically speak that language. Yeah, and then once I can sort of speak that language, and then I can hold myself in that space, and once I'm in that space, I I can start to open doors and make a change like one step at a time. This isn't like some overnight plan.

Speaker 2:

So that was one thing, and then, as I mentioned, the Future Proof program was built out of a desire to be able to just share this knowledge along the way. I think that the way that I summarized it in the other days was like demystifying the music industry, because I think so much of the industry is like shrouded in a sort of secrecy. You know, like a lot of people would love to be involved in it, but you know, what does a manager do what? How do agents work? What is publishing like? There's people who run record labels for 10 years who couldn't explain to you what publishing is, and there's things like this that are really super beneficial to anyone thinking of starting a label, wanting to release music, thinking about getting into broadcasting, into promotion, production, and you name it.

Speaker 2:

So we put together this sort of um syllabus of, uh, music industry insiders to sort of just spill the beans, you know, to teach people about the uh, the intricacies of what they do, and and, yeah, we've been doing it for well. We've done sort of three seasons. Now we're in the third season right now and we got we got some funding from the Arts Council and from Beatport actually to to sort of deliver it and to take it all over the country, which has been really good. Now this has been my turn to blab. I've really I've really answered that question.

Speaker 1:

No, that's absolutely fantastic. No, that's absolutely great. That's what it's all about really. It's just about letting out what needs to be said, really.

Speaker 2:

But the other thing to add on to that is also to go back to your actual question is opening Jumbie, you know, because that opening Jumbie sort of came at the time just out of the back end of the pandemic, when an opportunity kind of presented itself and we just sort of went for it and in many ways it felt like a natural progression. As I said, having worked in a bar since I was 14 years old, found my community in a space like that, built the things that I have become known for through interactions that happened in that you know, fertile ground of music and alcohol and communication, and that was something I really wanted to create for myself. And in terms of giving back, it's, you know, I'm not, I don't want to uh front and say that this is just purely some philanthropical, uh endeavor, because it's a business, you know, and it's also, you know, as you said, as you get older, you get older, you're thinking a bit more conservatively, thinking about diversifying and riding different waves of economic upturns and downturns, and of course it made financial sense to open a bar, but it's also a huge risk. We did it with no funding. We're not nepo babies, as I've often been asked in the past we didn't have. We're not Nepo babies, as I've often been asked. In the past we scraped together money from, you know, putting on raves over the last 10, 15 years selling records.

Speaker 2:

But really at the core of it is this sort of desire to want to recreate a similar kind of space that gave me my start and to allow the young people who are hanging around pecking today the art students, the um, the kids that are in bands, the people who are djing, who are just wanting to come out for a good time, meet interesting people, engage in conversation. I think that is the the biggest thing that I've sort of put out there in terms of just creating a space and then not being hands-on with it. You know, when you're releasing uh, quite curated things, it's it's very controlled, but when you're just creating a space for people to be and to do what they want in there, there's a certain amount of relinquishing control. That has been super refreshing and really beautiful to see what is coming out of it.

Speaker 1:

Um yeah, yeah, I mean that feeds into a lot of what we talk about about like kind of like letting go at certain times as well, um, and I think that that's part of the the role of the curator. You know, there's a certain amount of like your own imprint that goes on to something, and then there's a certain amount of like your own imprint that goes onto something, and then there's a certain amount of like within that, the freedom of how people adopt something to to their own means and when it comes to curation, and so this is a bit of a segue. But, like you know, there is when we think of like a Bradley zero sound. It's. There is a sort of sound, but, like you know, I'm a massive fan of like the NTS show and it's hard to sort of think about it in terms of genre because I'm not a big fan of like genre restrictions anyway, but we are.

Speaker 1:

It would be also naive to sort of imagine that we don't, we aren't, informed by genre in in any kind of way. Um, but I mean for you, like you know, if you had to sort of describe like what it was like sound wise, that you did. You know, like sort of in terms of, like the bradley zero sound. Is there a way that you get a hold of it? You know, is there a way that you you feel that you can describe it?

Speaker 2:

the short answer is no, hey, and it's. It's most poignant when someone who is, uh, maybe not that deep into music asks me what, what I play, you know? Or like, say I, I meet someone at a bar or a restaurant or on a plane and we get talking and I say I'm, I'm playing tonight, if you want to come, and they'll be like, oh, what do you play? And I'm like where to begin. I don't even know what I'm going to play on any given night. I think over time it's become a little bit more refined to go back to that word, in that I know how to approach a big crowd now and I know the freedom that I would be afforded in a smaller room. But there's, like you say, there's a bag of influences and touch points that I like. Like you say, there's a bag of influences and touch points that I like, whether it's jazz, broken beat, minimal techno, hard groove, 90s, piano, house. There's these things that are all part of my, I guess, palette, but I like to pick and choose from them.

Speaker 2:

you know, so that there's some kind of thread that goes through, but I even haven't been able to uh define it and, honestly, I'm okay with that and it's also, I guess it's part of the story and I've slowly built up this, uh, this language, you know, and a following of people who, I guess, understand it in a, in a in its wider sense, you know, in an abstract way, which is, I guess, why I didn't like, you know, this didn't happen overnight because there's some people who are really good at doing one thing, yeah, and I also really respect that, like the kind of um you know, like the like tech house djs who can play, just keep it on a level for 12 hours and have people locked in in this groove, like that in itself is is really incredible and not easy to do. You think that if you're just doing one thing, then it narrows it down and it makes it easier. But within those restrictions, there's so many um, I guess, my new considerations that go into like making that great.

Speaker 1:

You know, yeah, it's easy to do badly but very hard to do well totally totally within that there's a whole universe of different little variations and and yeah elements of journey yeah, so I, I like to kind of mix it up, you know, in summary, I'm like if you could go back in time, what would you tell the young Bradley?

Speaker 2:

Well, the first one would be purely, I guess, practical advice, and that would be to wear earplugs. I used to play drums in bands. I played drums and bands at school since I was 13, 14 years old, and back then I was playing more sort of like heavy rock music, not quite metal.

Speaker 1:

I wasn't like, uh, you know, wearing all black and with, like, the triple bass drum pedal.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, no, not quite that heavy, but more, I guess, more influenced by, like foo fighters, incubus metallica kind of you know, that that was like our, our sweet spot, but uh, I digress, however.

Speaker 2:

Smashing cymbals at ear level for hours and hours in a in a practice room and then having to like smash them even harder to be able to hear yourself over the guitar amp that was next to you at the gig, that causes real damage, as does going to array for seven hours and standing by the bass bins. So that would be one piece of practical advice, which is maybe not the yeah, I know what you mean, but yeah, so, but the the more mystical answer I feel like I've. I've not I've never completely had it worked out, but I feel that I've enjoyed the journey enough to not worry too much about where it's taking me. Yeah, um, and I and I guess I would have just reaffirmed that somehow to my younger self like, I guess, just like, not get too lost in the bigger picture, you know, um, but also don't get too lost in the bigger picture, you know, but also don't get too lost in the sauce. There's like I think there's a sweet spot, isn't there?

Speaker 1:

There is, yeah, you sort of mixing the micro and the macro, you know, zooming in and zooming out at the right kind of times, I guess.

Speaker 2:

Maybe I think I think that is a sort of a way to characterize the thing a lot of the things I've done, you know, thinking about really nurturing a very local scene on a micro level and being on the ground and sort of active in that community, but then also taking that and spreading it out and then being able to now sort of zoom in and out of different communities, different movements, different collectives around the world and sort of magnify what we've done in our space to sort of, you know, almost like preach, preach the gospel. So I guess that there's a lot of, there's a lot of the, I guess, balancing micro and macro when you, when you zoom out of it over the years.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I would. I would also, I'd tell myself when I went to university, I went to study fine art and I very much had this school mindset you know where I had in my mind. I thought that I had to just impress the teachers and get good marks. And I had this feeling that I think a lot impress the teachers and get good marks and and I had this feeling that I think a lot of us sort of inherited from school that, like you know you, you have to be there and that if you don't, you're in trouble and that you've got to do what you have to do to get the good grade.

Speaker 2:

When really and it's only dawned on me later when I've given advice to people who have gone on to to study certainly something like art, where it's very self-directed and you just basically have a space and do what you want, just to exploit it. You know you're paying them, they're working for you, like they can't tell you off. You have to demand what you want from them and you have to make the most out of the space that you have and the opportunities that it affords you and the equipment that you've got. And and if I would have approached, um, my uh, years studying fine art with that almost entitlement, a little bit a bit more of an entitlement rather than a sort of schoolboy mentality, and who knows, maybe I'd be a a famous painter by now yeah, I, I could, I can relate to that.

Speaker 1:

I feel like that's a sort of maybe it's a very british aspect of that. We, we, we have this sort of like. We like to be cheeky but we also like uh, we like to kind of be cheeky and make out that we're like really anti-authority, but at the same time, you know, it's all very much yes, yes, yes, we've done. You know, with uh, I guess there's this sort of class system, the, the pecking order. You know there's this massive sort of assumption of pecking order in in british culture.

Speaker 2:

It's a. It's a. It's deeply entwined into the national psyche, in a way that that we, most people, are unaware of and you're only reminded every now and again. I mean mean, the French celebrate Bastille Day right, which is when they stormed their parliament and set all the political prisoners free and basically chopped off the ruling class's heads. We celebrate the day that the guy who tried to do that failed, I know, and we burn him on a stake in a ritual humiliation every year.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, we confuse Guy Fawkes for being Freddy Krueger rather than a revolutionary. It's insane, yeah.

Speaker 2:

And if he did it, then we'd probably be celebrating that day and that would be our, that would be our Bastille Day.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So, yeah, it is deeply entwined and it's often frustrating, but we are also all guilty of sort of falling in line at some point, whether we're consciously aware of it or not.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I'm going to have to cut it there, if that's all right. I think that's a nice place to end. Brilliant, excellent. Thank you, bradley. Thank you so so much. Okay, so that was me, paul Hanford, chatting with Bradley Zero for Lost and Sound podcast, and we had that chat on Wednesday, the 7th of May 2025. Thank you so so much, bradley, for your time and sharing your thoughts there.

Speaker 1:

I really really enjoyed having that chat and, yeah, you might notice, it ended a bit abruptly there. That wasn't down to anything that Bradley said or anything like that. That was I had like another meeting that I had to jump onto something else abruptly there. Um, that wasn't down to anything that Bradley said or anything like that. That was um, I had like another meeting that I had to jump onto something else. It was just. It was just one of those days where you know you have a day where you like the day is like having a sandwich and you think you've got the right combination and then you're eating it and all of the bits of, like you know, mayonnaise and onions just fall out on your lap and you're like, oh my god, I've just overloaded this. It was a bit of an overloaded day, so I had to jump straight into something else, so it ended a little bit abruptly, but I loved having that chat. So thanks so much, bradley. Um, so yeah, I hope you enjoyed listening to that.

Speaker 1:

If you enjoyed the show and you haven't already, please give it a subscribe. Give the show a rating and a review on the platform of your choice. It really, really, really does help. And if you like what I do and you want to check out more stuff of what I do, you can listen to my radio documentary the man who smuggled punk rock across the berlin wall by heading on over to the bbc sounds app or on the bbc world service home page. There's also a link in the podcast description. And, and if you want to read stuff that I do, my book Coming to Berlin is still available in bookshops, independent bookshops, good bookshops or via the publisher's website, velocity Press.

Speaker 1:

And, yeah, audio-technica. They sponsor Lost in Sound makers of headphones, turntables, cartridges, microphones. They're family run, still family run, and they make studio quality yet affordable products because they believe that high quality audio should be accessible to all. I use their stuff, been using it all my life. So, yeah, they're a good one. And the music you hear at the beginning. The end of every episode of Lost in Sound is by Thomas Giddens, hyperlink in the podcast description. Okay, so that's it. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed that one. I really enjoyed having it and I hope, whatever you're doing today, you're going to have a really, really special day, so take care and chat to you soon, thank you.