Uncle Barnie

Uncle Barnie began collecting vinyl after discovering the music of Fela Anikulapo Kuti. The sound of Fela’s afrobeat music changed everything he thought he knew about music, and he began to explore further.

His collection grew to encompass highlife, juju, afrofunk and afrosoul, and eventually resulted in Barnie making a trip through West Africa and Ethiopia discovering the roots of the music he loves. He made several documentaries for Radio New Zealand based on his recordings during this trip, and cemented his view that dance music should not be limited to one continent or rhythm.

Uncle Barnie DJ’s regularly around New Zealand, and has lugged his crates overseas playing in Berlin, Edinburgh, Ibiza, Barcelona, London and New York. He is co-host of The Dose Radio Show on Auckland’s GeorgeFM, and has opened for the likes of Soundways Miles Cleret, Jillionaire and MoodyMan.

A typical Uncle Barnie set these days jumps all over from the electrocumbia sounds coming out of Argentina and Columbia, to calypso, afrobeat, soca, funk, soul, early New Yorkian new wave, electro (the old kind), afrosoul, 80’s hip-hop, chicha, Thai garage rock… then back to cumbia again.