Clubbing in Dubai is all about VIP tables, bottle service with sparklers, and a lineup of supercars parked out front. International DJs usually headline the top clubs on weekends, while weekday crowds—especially desis—flock to Bollywood nights.
In the middle of this, the collective Stick No Bills are envisioning a shift in music curation in the city (and also the world), especially in terms of how South Asian music is represented. “We are trying to bring back the dance floor culture in Dubai,” Kerala-origin Jeftin James, aka DJ Jeff, says over a Zoom call.
A seasoned part of the clubbing scene in Dubai for about 15 years, DJ Jeff got tired of the Bollywood nights. “I love Bollywood, but in terms of being a creative and an artist, it doesn’t let you be as creative as you can. [Bollywood events] are driven by clubs and promoters,” he says. The younger contemporary of DJ Jeff was Gaurav Thakur aka GT.
Jeff recalls how GT “tried to do a few Bollywood nights” a few years ago and he was constantly asked to change up his set just because a bottle was ordered. Jeff says of GT, “All this really, really frustrated him. He actually kind of did stay strong and he kind of said no a couple of times. He’s, like, ‘Guys, you booked me to do my job. I’m just going to do it.’” GT was forced to get off the DJ decks a couple of times in such situations, which is when he abandoned Desi nights altogether and picked up turntablism and became a scratch DJ.
As the plans for Stick No Bills began taking shape around 2023, Jeff recalls a “super emotional call” with GT to bring him on board. He says, “I remember getting in the car and giving him a call and telling him that, ‘Bro, I think, I think it’s time for us to do something that the city has to witness. And I wouldn’t have anyone else on board except you. It’s okay for you to say no, I’ll figure something out. But you know, if you want to jump on board, it would be our pleasure. He got super emotional as well, and so did I, and he’s like, ‘Even if you were to do a typical Bollywood night, I’m with you on this. Let’s click and do it.’”
The collective is completed by Aaron Ferns, who’s more of a behind-the-scenes part of Stick No Bills, along with “money man” Vinay Premachandran and Filipino MC Boss J Beats. Their debut show took place at a restaurant in Dubai on Jeff’s 37th birthday, which meant people were bound to turn up. They expected 200 people at most, but Jeff recalls they had “close to 500 to 600 people that night.” The DJ says, “We kept an invite-only event where it was accessible only if you were let into our Instagram page, which was private. Only if you had access to our page did you get to know where the event is happening.”
Ferns adds that from then on, Stick No Bills knew they were on to something. “This is just the gap in the market that we were fortunate enough to stumble upon at the right time,” he says. Even with Jeff’s confidence that the community would come out to support him—much like GT readily joining the collective—it was a risk nevertheless.
Convincing the clubs that this wasn’t just a differently packaged Bollywood or Desi night was one perception they had to overcome, plus making sure they got a weekend slot instead of the usual weekday. They got turned down a couple of times. Ferns recalls, “The thought process that we had left with was that we had to change the narrative from ‘We’re not a good South Asian night, we’re a good night that happens to be South Asian.’ That was super vital for us.”
They weren’t targeting superclubs and the like (“That’s never been the plan,” Jeff says), but they did find a willing host in the 25hours Hotel in Dubai. Since then, they’ve gone on to perform at festivals like Sole DXB and Wireless Festival Middle East. Jeff says, “Our plan has always been to make sure no matter what room we get, we try to make people feel and understand what we’re trying to do.”
That entails diving into everything from hip-hop to R&B to amapiano and UK grind, and of course plenty of desi music, ranging from nostalgic Bollywood to Lifafa and Karan Aujla. In terms of curation, Stick No Bills have looked beyond South Asian music as well, bringing in South African-origin collective House of Yanos, Nigerian DJs and Sri Lankan DJ Shef Codes as well. The first year of Stick No Bills was more locally focused, and year two brought in Indian DJs to Dubai as part of the collective’s event series, including Lush Lata, OG Shez and The Spindoctor aka Sanjay Meriya.
It’s one thing to play South Asian and globally inspired sounds as third culture kids, but Stick No Bills’ India debut at BUDX NBA House in Mumbai last month signaled that they were about to play desi music back to first culture audiences. The hour-long set was a hit and, understandably, a truly emotional journey for Stick No Bills. Jeff and GT knew Mumbai was big on hip-hop (as was the event), so they swerved from their “typical stuff” but still took inspiration from everything they’ve done at previous Stick No Bills sets. “It did have a lot of samples and edits by some of our favorite DJs, some of them by GT and me as well, but it has samples of what inspired us and what led us to create this whole collective,” he says.
Ferns says after the set, they could see “everyone’s eyes light up and understand the gravity of what we’re capable of.” Jeff insisted that the whole crew come together, including photo and video, almost like a sports team that traveled, stayed, ate and prepped together. He adds, “We were all very overwhelmed at the end of the show. Back in the green room, we spent 10 minutes just to look into everyone’s eyes, everyone just being proud of the other person, and to just realize what we’ve achieved.”
The DJ says he’d been waiting 17 years to play music for the “right people, for the right event in the right country.” He adds, “We’ve always wanted our first international gig to be in the motherland.” There were (and are) offers to come to the U.S., the U.K. and Australia, but India was first priority.
Stick No Bills find themselves part of the growing South Asian movement right now, with Indo Warehouse in the U.S., Dialled In and Daytimers in the U.K. and more. “All of them come from backgrounds where they belong in places where the sounds belong,” Jeff says, pointing out how U.K. underground inspires the likes of Dialled In. Stick No Bills aren’t a genre-specific collective, however. Ferns says, “Just hearing GT and Jeff produce music and start from scratch, it doesn’t make sense to see someone not resonate with that. The emotions, the impact… it’s strong.” Jeff adds, “Hopefully we get to take this around the globe someday.”
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