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Crookers

Southern Fried

Drawing from influences of house, hip hop and beyond, Crookers blend their
beats with the kind of fidget house finesse that gives Potty Mouth Music
its soiled swagger. Since 2003, DJs Phra and Bot have been drawing upon
their collective musical backgrounds to create tracks that twist, startle
and surprise with synthetic pop.

Before their collaboration as Crookers, Bot and Phra pursued their music
interests on a separate tip. Bot took up the piano and guitar at an early
age, later moving onto synths, turntables and sequencers. Phra had already
started DJing by age 11, when he was introduced to the Italian hip hop
scene. Soon, he morphed into an MC and became fully immersed in a culture
that would shape his future production career.

“Both of us started getting more involved in music when we used to listen
to hip hop,” Phra says. When the two artists met, both were trying to
branch out of their genre success and explore dance music. The experiment
worked. “It felt natural to team up, seeing that we had the same musical
tastes … which isn’t that easy here in Milan,” he says.

When Crookers are not crafting their dirty (crooked) beats in the studio,
they are busy holding down their residency with MTV (Italy). “House and hip
hop are our main influences, but we try to put all the things we like in
our productions. We listen to a lot of music from very different periods
and genres.”

The result is a twisted blend of glitch, tech and distortion.

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