15 Years Gretchen: What So Not + DJ Spinn

Box 1:
What So Not
DJ Spinn
Grzly Adams
Deby Cage
Yunis

Box2: OHSHITF*CKYES
Allynx
Sean Steinfeger

Different perspectives on bass-driven club music: What So Not and DJ Spinn come together for Gretchen’s birthday.

What So Not is the project of Chris Emerson, also known as Emoh Instead. Originally founded in 2010 as a duo with Flume, What So Not evolved into Emerson’s solo project after their split in 2015. In the years that followed, he collaborated with artists such as Skrillex, RL Grime, Noisia, RÜFÜS DU SOL, and Killer Mike, shaping the electronic music scene of the 2010s with productions spanning trap, bass music, electronica, and hip-hop.

In 2026, Emerson returns to the trap and bass sounds of his early years with the project “I SAW A TRAP DJ AND IT CHANGED MY BIO CHEMISTRY.” The EP, released in August, draws on the aesthetic of the early 2010s but reinterprets it through the lens of more than a decade of musical experience.

DJ Spinn brings a different perspective to bass music: The Chicago-based producer and DJ is one of the defining figures of juke and footwork and co-founded the Teklife collective with the late DJ Rashad. Since the late 1990s, Spinn has been working with fast, sharply cut rhythms, samples, and deep basslines that are closely tied to Chicago’s dance culture. His releases have appeared on labels including Planet Mu, Hyperdub, and Teklife. In 2025, he released the EP “Break Yo Back” on Teklife, which combines an older juke production with five new tracks.

Despite the differences in their musical roots, What So Not and DJ Spinn share a strong focus on bass and fast beats: both make rhythm physically tangible and use it to create an immediate pull toward the dance floor.

Grzly Adams, Deby Cage, and Yunis explore other facets of bass culture: Grzly Adams moves between hip-hop, bass music, and global club sounds. Deby Cage is at home in drum ’n’ bass, dubstep, trap, hip-hop, and halftime, while Yunis’s spectrum ranges from trap to juke and grime to halfstep.

Box 2 features polyrhythmic sounds blending UK bass, jazzy house, and broken beat by Allynx and Sean Steinfeger.