Party anytime, anywhere, with anyone. Radio Cargo’s motto couldn’t be simpler. Its two co-founders, Jay and Danski, regularly improvise open air shows in the capital. When the mood takes them, they get on their cargo bike, transport their sound system and disembark unexpectedly. They settle “where there is traffic” to mix, watching the world settle around them. “About 3,000 people” per open air, says Jay. Only those who follow them on the Instagram account@Radiocargo are informed, at most 24 hours before the start of the event, of the place and time.
Their playlist? “A revival of the 1990s,” says Danski. But not just any. “Everyone is doing it these days, but music from the late 1990s, like progressive and trance, is often overlooked,” he explains. We do not want to omit this part of the story. “And above all, we understood the guilty pleasure for trance, for certain music with ultra kitsch connotations, which everyone loves”, adds Jay.
A sound system powered by recycled bicycle or scooter batteries
On Sunday, Paris organizes the ” car free day “. An event that speaks to the two DJs. “There’s a reason we ride cargo bikes,” says Jay. Their sound system could therefore be out. Followers of this soft mobility, the artists are in search of “energy sobriety”, and seek to promote ecological values.
After creating Virvolt, a company that designs bicycle electrification systems, Jay “realizes an industrial scourge: 95% of the batteries that we throw in the trash are still usable”, he says. . To prove his point, and to combine his passion for technology with music, he undertakes to recycle the batteries of scooters and electric bicycles or self-service scooters. These batteries “meant to be burned […] now allow more than 3,000 people to dance for 12 hours”, he rejoices.
Make partying accessible in Paris
“Today, go out and have a good evening [à Paris], it costs you 100 bucks”, regrets Jay. Radio Cargo was born out of the frustration that many people in the industry have about the party in Paris, which has become “very elitist. To “break these codes”, Jay and Danski “give themselves the right”, which the town hall does not want to grant them, to organize open air events in the capital. A way to break with this “obvious problem of access to culture, and in particular to rave culture” that they observe.
Born a few months earlier, the initiative gained momentum during the first confinement. The artists of Radio Cargo defy the ban and organize clandestine open air. They experience their first big success in May, the day of deconfinement. “That day, I had just finished setting up the sound system. I call Dan and I say to him: “It’s nice weather, I’ve just spent the week working on it, I want us to go and test it”, says Jay cheerfully. At a time when major health constraints are restricting public gatherings, “people were very moved, he says. They said: ‘But that, normally, I don’t even have the right to experience it’.”