Shadi Megallaa
Abu Dhabi, UAE

If there was any notion that music is not a globally uniting force, this DJ/producer would prove it otherwise.

Born in Cairo, Egypt, this 27 yr old was raised in Abu Dhabi, on the shores of the Persian Gulf. With not much inspiration anywhere at hand, Shadi remembers that he “first got introduced to electronic music when I was 14, when my friend’s older brother went to study in London and he’d bring back tapes of Drum N Bass shows that he’d been to”. A couple of years later he came across a double cd entitled ‘Northern Exposure’ mixed by Dj’s Sasha & John Digweed. Shadi recalls “being blown away by the complexity of musical layering” and that he finally became fully immersed in playing music upon his move to Lawrence, Kansas in 1997. He purchased a pair of decks at the age of 19 while studying architecture at the University of Kansas.

“My musical influences generally included Bob Marley, Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry, Marvin Gaye, Al Green, George Clinton, Depeche Mode, INXS, U2, BB King, Sade, and LTJ Bukem. Yet I started spinning progressive then, before i moved to more tribally stuff & tech house, and ultimately weird German influenced minimal techno”