Keys N Krates launch their new label Odd Soul Sounds with RUAFREAK, a percussive club track made in collaboration with Afrique Like Me and 96Vibe.
Keys N Krates first made waves with their 2013 breakout Dum Dee Dum, blending trap beats with live instrumentation. Since then, they’ve evolved into genre-fluid producers, weaving elements of hip-hop, disco, and soul into a club-focused sound that stays playful, rhythmic, and rooted in groove.
RUAFREAK is a tough, tribal-leaning cut built for late nights and big systems, blending Afro-Caribbean rhythms with a jacking house sensibility.
The track sets the tone for the label’s focus: groove-led, soul-inflected house music that draws from hip-hop, garage, R&B, and global percussion. Less about genre borders, more about raw, communal energy.
Afrique Like Me bring their pan-African, rhythm-first approach, while 96Vibe adds his stripped, polyrhythmic touch. For Keys N Krates, it’s another step in a long evolution from sample-based hip-hop into something more fluid and club-facing.
With the single out now on Odd Soul Sounds, we’ve got a treat of a mix from Keys N Krates alongside with an exclusive interview with the trio.
From the early days of Dum Dee Dum to now launching your own label, your sound has undergone a clear evolution. What’s stayed consistent in your creative process throughout that journey, and what’s completely changed?
Wanting to make stuff that’s quirky and catchy hasn’t changed. Wanting to make stuff that’s a little less maximal, and more groovy than just straight bombastic has been something we’ve naturally just gravitated towards. Still love 808s, samples, and a general hip hop approach, but like applying it to groovier things now. Everything has to have a bit of a soul to it now for us.
Your roots in live performance and turntablism set you apart in the electronic space early on. How has that live energy continued to inform the way you produce tracks like RUAFREAK or approach the club setting today?
We think doing so many live shows has made us think about the live contexts for tracks all the time now which helps always lend a certain energy even if we are making something more chill. RUAFREAK we can already picture in warehouses and playing on sound systems at carnival but also playing at Fabric or Coda. This probably comes from years of making songs that went right to the stage and got performed in clubs, at festivals, weird events. It helped us to picture context.
Odd Soul Sounds is described as being less about genre and more about energy. What does that ethos mean to you practically when curating or producing music for the label?
We are such fans of labels that have a hyper specific specialty but that’s just not us cause our tastes are too broad and frankly we play a lot o different types of stuff in a set whether it be Jackie house stuff, latin/afro/brazillian tribal house stuff, UKG stuff, soulful vocal house stuff, UKG stuff Etc. If it has an energy or emotion that we would want to play in our dj sets at some given point of the night then it could come out on ODD SOUL SOUNDS. A peak time tribal banger like this first release could be played in the same night we play a late night vibey vocal record. It has to have a catchiness or a pep, or an emotion that draws us to it, and that’s never micro-genre specific.
RUAFREAK marks a distinct pivot into tribal and Afro-Caribbean textures. Was this an organic extension of where you’ve been heading musically, or did the collaboration with Afrique Like Me and 96Vibe open new doors creatively?
We’ve been messing with Afro-carribean/tribal textures for a while. “What Girls Do” off our IN:Tension album, “Samba Surprise” which we released on Club Bad earlier this year and a more. We are fans of 90s tribal house stuff like Africanism, The Fog, Kenny Dope stuff and have been exposed to the Caribbean side of things from just being raised in the general Toronto area. We love drums, we love syncopation and we love the different kind of energy pockets you can hit with these grooves whether it be something really peak time like RUAFREAK or like the quieter late night stuff, or even combining with RNB type textures. It was always gonna happen.
There’s a strong sense of physicality in the track. How conscious are you of that tension between cerebral and bodily responses when shaping club tracks?
We always imagine how people would dance to something we make. It’s part of the fun and maybe the anticipatory reward when making dance records.
RUAFREAK is presented as a ‘statement of intent’ for the label. What specific values or sounds did you want this track to communicate as a first impression? And what can we expect from the label in the coming months?
You can expect an array of records. This definitely more peak time vibes and obviously very tribal. Definitely a kind of record that you’ll hear on the label. But you’ll prob hear some RnB house kinda records as well. Some Jackie stuff, some classic house kinda stuff. Again harder peak time stuff like RUFREAK has a soul to it for us that you can hear in even RNB records. We are definitely honouring that this music all started as black music and we are honouring that feeling through everything we make and put out on the label.
Keys N Krates came up through a sample-based, hip-hop-informed lens. How does that background shape your approach to building rhythm and tension when working in more stripped-back, percussion-driven forms like RUAFREAK?
Great question! Just trying to make space for things to live and breathe and be focused on. Creating space by not cluttering with elements that don’t need to be there, and just putting emphasis on the main idea. Hip Hop does that so well when it’s done right.
What can you tell us about the mix you put together for us – any specific tracks you’d like to highlight?
Well definitely RUFREAK we want to highlight! But we also have some fun ID’s on here, some bootlegs. The whole thing is house and house adjacent but also eclectic reflecting different vibes you’ll hear at our party.
Tracklist:
MURA MASA – JUMP
MINA FT. LYZZA – MEU JEITO (TONY QUATTRO RMX)
KEYS N KRATES FEAT. AFRIQUE LIKE ME & 96VIBE – RUAFREAK
KEYS N KRATES – MOVE OUT THE WAY
KEYS N KRATES – BACK FOR MORE
PIEM – DISCO MOREDISCO
KEYS N KRATES – I.D.
CAPRI – BE YOURSELF
SHERMANOLOGY – BEAT OF THE DRUM
KEYS N KRATES – BONGOS FLIPKEYS N KRATES – IF YOU REALLY WANT SOMEBODY FLIP
TONY QUATTRO – DARABUKKA CRAZY
KEYS N KRATES & PAT LOK – SAMBA SURPRISE
OSSIE – WORLDWIDE DANCE
KEVIN MCKAY – THE WAY
BASMENT JAXX – FLY LIFE (SALUTE RMX)
KEYS N KRATES FEAT. TAITE IMOGEN – NEED YOUR LOVE
BASEMENT JAXX – RED ALERT (SCRUZ RMX)
ROCHELLE JORDAN & KEYS N KRATES – WHAT YOU DONE (LATE NITE MIX)
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