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. After having released two EPs earlier this year (“Knobbers” and “Mad Kidz”, both exclusively containing original tracks), they are currently working on their first album, which is due for september 2009. Crookers certainly have sleazed out dancefloors with a catalogue of original tracks, but it’s their work as remixers that have made them one of the most after batteries in the business. Currently, The duo has reworked tracks for the likes of Armand van Helden, Bonde do Role, Brodinski, The Chemical Brothers, Magik Johnson, Moby, Chromeo, Busy P, Don Rimini or Bumblebeez. 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.” |
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