In February 2020, before the world came to a standstill, Nikki Nair landed in the UK for the first time. He was there to play his first ever UK shows, starting with the iconic main room at Ministry of Sound, alongside Nocturnal Sunshine (aka Maya Jane Coles), Ejeca b2b Addison Groove, Asquith and Chloé Robinson (then Barely Legal), who was hosting a party for her label Pretty Weird.
“I thought that was the peak of my DJ career,” Nair tells DJ Mag now over a video call. “I got to go and play with these people I’ve listened to for a long time, at a club I never thought I’d get to play at. Now when I’m old I can tell some young person at a bar that I did that, and I’ll be happy.”
During his time in the UK, Nair experienced the polar ends of clubbing in London: the pizazz of an institution like Ministry of Sound, and a dark, low-ceilinged rave in the intimate Rye Wax basement. Having played two such different spaces, what makes the perfect party? Being eye level with the dancefloor for one, he says. “I like when it’s a tenuous situation for me,” he laughs, “when there are people who could touch the CDJs and are looking right in my eyes.”
Nikki Nair has had a fruitful few years. Following a debut in 2018 on Partial Magic, where his track ‘Murder My Balls’ appeared alongside friend and mentor Alex Falk, Nair’s fiery and disparate sounding releases have since landed via Scuffed Recordings, TRAM Planet, Gobstopper and Dirtybird. He also holds down a residency on Refuge Worldwide, and has just revealed an official remix of ‘Back Together’, an Amorphous track featuring Kehlani. It’s a silky garage cut that shows another side to Nair’s production, which has already run the gamut from dark and weird to bright and buoyant: writhing acid, whomping basslines, banging techno, moody breakbeats, electro, four-to-the- floor house, and AC Slater-flavoured fidget house — you name it, Nikki Nair has probably done it.