{"product_id":"ahadadream-p-ki-pee-star-kay-eye","title":"Ahadadream - P*KI [pee-star-kay-eye]","description":"\u003cp\u003eIt’s time for Ahad’s biggest move yet: his first full-length album, P*KI. Powerful, deeply personal and unapologetic, the album is rooted in the dancefloor and in Ahad’s belief that club culture is a space where he can “exist completely authentically.” By reclaiming a word he has personally been confronted with, Ahad transforms P*KI (pronounced Pee-Star-Kay-Eye) into a statement of joy, pride, celebration and self-love. The album’s singles capture that spirit: ‘Put That Banger On Next’, featuring London MC Capo Lee, brings a high-voltage grime energy; ‘Make Space’ is a euphoric tribute to the diverse communities who find solace in London nightlife; while ‘Left \/ Right’, made with Dismantle and Jam-akabi, delivers a dark, futuristic breaks sound built for warehouse dancefloors. Across the record, Ahad’s signature UK club sound is pushed further, with tracks drawing on everything from gqom and drum’n’bass to South Asian classical instruments, Punjabi folk and devotional music such as qawwali.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAhad Elley doesn’t just have a dream: he has a clear mission. The British-Pakistani DJ, producer and curator known as AHADADREAM is one of the most exciting talents in dance music, releasing top-tier club bangers, playing rowdy and celebratory DJ sets and championing South Asian creatives around the world. He’s created a signature sound with thrilling ripples of percussion and kinetic rhythms from across the bass spectrum. And with the Dialled In platform and new label, he’s also spearheading a global movement. “Everything that I do is to inspire the next generation,” he says.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAhad’s star has been rising over the past few years, from the London underground to the forefront of electronic music. In 2023, his Boiler Room went viral, followed by breakout single ‘TAKA’ with Skrillex and Priya Ragu, which was crowned BBC Radio 1’s Hottest Record and Essential New Tune, as well as reaching #3 in the UK’s Official Asian Music Chart. The British DJ Pete Tong named Ahad his ‘Future Star For 2024’, comparing his insider appeal to Bicep, and the DJ Mag Awards nominated Ahad for Best DJ. That summer, he made his Coachella and Lollapalooza debuts, playing to enormous crowds and bringing his unmistakable sound to rapt new audiences.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCloser to home in 2025, Ahad headlined and curated an incredible three-room takeover at London club Fabric, filling the iconic space with both emerging talent and his heroes including Roska, Baalti, Jolie P and the PRÍNCIPE crew from Lisbon. Continuing his hot streak of must-see b2bs, Ahad appeared as part of Nia Archive’s lineup at Manchester’s Warehouse Project, playing back-to-back with Eliza Rose. That same year, he took Dialled In on tour across South Asia for the first time. And in 2026, Ahad followed ‘TAKA’ with the peak-time low-end thumper ‘Bass Dhol’, with Skrillex and Raf- Saperra, the first single on the all-new Dialled In imprint (via Island Records). It went to #1 on the Official British Asian Music Chart, knocking Fred Again, Sammy Virji and Winny off the top spot.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNow it’s time for Ahad’s biggest move yet: his first full-length album. P ★ K I is a powerful and deeply personal artistic statement that is unapologetic, both in its dancefloor-focused tracks and in its nuanced message. For Ahad, calling his album P ★ K I (pronounced Pee-Star-Kay-Eye) is about celebrating how club culture is where he can “exist completely authentically,” he explains. “This is a word that I have personally been confronted with but I’ve chosen to reframe it within a positive body of work that is all about joy, celebration, pride and self-love. I’ve always viewed the dancefloor as a space where you can loudly and defiantly be your whole self.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe album fully lives up to that loud defiance. Its first official single, ‘Put That Banger On Next’, Ahad’s link-up with London MC Capo Lee, pulls no punches with its high-voltage take on grime and Ahad’s signature UK funky-inspired beats. Next up, Ahad delivers the euphoric bounce of ‘Make Space’: a “love letter to the diverse crowds that I’ve come across through my time in London nightlife.” The track is about the club being a “place of solace for marginalised communities which might not feel celebrated elsewhere in their day to day,” says Ahad, a sentiment that’s amplified by the song’s warm synths and fizzing atmosphere. Third single ‘Left \/ Right’, a collaboration with UK bass producer Dismantle and grime pioneer Jamakabi, is an irresistibly shadowy, futuristic breaks track that was made for dank warehouse spaces with sweat dripping down the walls.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eP ★ K I drills down into the speaker-shaking sounds that make Ahad’s music so distinctive, often sampled from South Asian classical instruments or traditional devotional styles of music like qawwali. The album’s opening track could only have been ‘Tere Bin’, which balances the epic orchestral sweep of ‘Tera Bin Nahin Lagda’ by legendary Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan with a galloping low-end rhythm, while other songs are indebted to Punjabi folk music. “My first ever experience of loud music was at a dholki, a wedding function in Pakistan that is centered around the dhol drum, an instrument I now sample a lot,” says Ahad. “Everyone would be sitting around the dhol, singing and playing this one rhythm. That hypnotic repetition was instilled in me from a young age.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThrough his travels as a DJ, he saw links between Latin and African styles of club beats, from baile funk to kuduro, and was keen to see whether he could create a similarly expansive sound that was distinct to his community of electronic music fans. “We’ve got bhangra, but there was a lack of a more contemporary South Asian dance music genre,” he says. “I felt that my music, with its drum beats that echo my heritage, could be an exploration of what that could sound like.” But though he’s inspired by his heritage, he’s not held to it. “Although I try to include it in my music where possible, it’s never about limiting myself,” he explains.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe album is an embodiment of his DJ sets, hotwiring genres like gqom to drum’n’bass, with a boisterous spirit and a high concept hook – see the hypnotic stutter of ‘BAPBAPBAP’. But P ★ K I is also a chance for Ahad to expand his sound with more collaborators. On Carnival heater ‘Stupendously’, which has the horns-blasting energy of an afternoon spent among the sound systems, he teams up with MC Jolie P, founding member of the Sexy Lady Massive collective, and Amsterdam-based Afro-Diasporic producer Lamsi. And none other than Eliza Rose appears on the seriously thumping ‘Hyper’, which includes Ahad’s most delirious drops and blends of drums and percussion yet. “My approach to collaborators has always been what feels organically right, in terms of a personal connection,” says Ahad. “I’ve ended up working with people after meeting them in the smoking area at a party.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs much as the album evokes big nights out, P ★ K I also charts Ahad’s story to date, through moving to the UK, immersing himself in London club culture and becoming the intentional artist that he is now. He relocated from Pakistan to England with his family in his early teens, settling first in Surrey. He says that it was “a huge culture shock. I had a strong Pakistani accent so I was an easy target for kids to throw digs at.” It wasn’t helped by the media representation of South Asian people in the UK at the time, he adds. “Apu from The Simpsons was always the butt of the joke – it was this huge caricature of what our culture is. It was only when I moved to the UK that I realised that P ★ K I was being used as a slur. This album is a reflection of that journey.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHe found a sense of identity in the dizzying rhythms of UK club music. As he started going to underage raves, Ahad heard tracks like ‘Original Nuttah’ for the first time. “It totally blew my mind,” he says (and still does – he dropped the jungle classic at the recent House Against Hate event in London’s Trafalgar Square). Later on, in London as a student, Ahad’s adolescence was shaped by foundational bass nights like Butterz, where all manner of electronic sounds like instrumental grime and UK funky would collide. In 2017, he crystallised these influences by starting More Time with Sam Interface. Described by DJ Mag as “the foremost champions for UK club music” with a global edge, the label releases artists from the likes of Ghana, Trinidad and Taiwan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAs well as being a champion of club music and its myriad global hybrids, Ahad is a key driving force behind South Asian representation in UK culture. When he was working behind the scenes at Boiler Room, he gave breaks to then-upcoming DJs like Jyoty, as well as through his early events called No ID. That sensibility shifted into Dialled In, which Ahad co-founded in 2021. Now in its fifth year, the festival has bloomed into a crucial creative community and a cultural force, with stages and parties at institutions from Glastonbury to the V\u0026amp;A Museum. “Growing up, I never had role models that I felt I could look up to in this space,” he says. “We’re not just building platforms, we’re providing confidence for people to feel like they belong.”\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThough he’s a headline artist these days, it’s Ahad’s forward-thinking, boots-on-the-ground vision that is truly changing culture away from the screen. He knows that his debut album might at first seem confrontational, but he hopes that listeners and music fans pull back the layers and see the bold vision at its core. This is his uniqued story, as he wants to tell it. “Art has to be authentic,” says Ahad, “and everything on this album is authentic to my experience, it’s my full self. The intent for this release is to spread joy and positivity to people of all kinds on the dancefloor, should they choose to participate. I hope that everyone joins me for the ride.”\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Island","offers":[{"title":"Blue LP","offer_id":57273441747324,"sku":"HJM-12486","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true},{"title":"CD","offer_id":57273441780092,"sku":"HJM-12487","price":13.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0633\/9022\/0535\/files\/UNI_20260812_1000_090413_209_p_ahadadream_-_p_ki_-_album_artwork_002.jpg?v=1786528074","url":"https:\/\/heyjoemusic.co.uk\/products\/ahadadream-p-ki-pee-star-kay-eye","provider":"Hey Joe Music \u0026 Coffee","version":"1.0","type":"link"}