Abu Dhabi hosts inaugural Manar exhibition with 35 new public art commissions

DUBAI: Yassine Ben Achour, better known as Loco Dice, has waited a long time for this moment. Over the last three decades, the 49-year-old Tunisian-German electronic music producer has built himself into one of the world’s most renowned DJs, a pioneer who bridged the worlds of hip-hop and dance music long before that became the norm, and a tenured pillar of the influential Ibiza scene. Now, after rising to the top of Europe, he is on the brink of a true career highlight. This winter, he will finally connect back to his Arab roots for a series of major shows in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, starting with a show on Yas Island for F1 Abu Dhabi weekend on Friday, November 24. 

“I’m elated about this. It truly feels like coming home. And most exciting of all, it feels that the music that I’ve been making and the electronic scene I’ve helped build is really taking off in the Middle East — something I’ve been waiting for years to happen. Our brand of electronic music is finally exploding in popularity in the region,” Ben Achour tells Arab News. 

“I keep thinking about it: I’ve really come full circle. I grew up shaped by Tunisian Mizwad — the music of the country’s working class — and the beats of the darbouka. Those beats are still within me, and the percussion I play today still has those Arabic roots within it. To be able to finally bring that sound across the Middle East is a beautiful thing. Especially at a time of so much unrest in the world we live in, it’s very important that we can dance, and celebrate, because — especially as Arabs — that’s the only peace we have.” 

Born and raised in Düsseldorf, Germany in 1974 to Tunisian immigrant parents, Ben Achour has long had a complicated relationship with his roots. He considers himself German first and foremost, but that is an act of defiance more than anything else.  

“In my generation, we call ourselves Germans, but we have nothing to do with German culture. We don’t even eat German food. I was a 100-percent-Tunisian kid hanging out in a poor area with all the mixed-race and mixed-culture peoples, but we still all proudly identify as Germans, because this country still gave us a lot, and because we were not going to let racists define who is a German and who is not,” says Ben Achour.  

“At times I’ve had to hide who I am to fit in — to get a job, or to get on in school. It would be shocking for people to see six guys eating food with their hands, so we had to try to blend in,” he continues. “But it was very important to me to never forget where I came from — the culture that shaped me. I couldn’t forget who I really am.” 

Growing up without money, that became his only concern. He never craved fame or self-actualization. He had to struggle every day just to survive, and the only thing he could conceive of in his early years was a way to escape that. But normal jobs and formal education didn’t suit him. 

“Music was my only way out, and I’m so lucky that I found it,” he says. “It was a really rough time for me to chase a dream. I was not out there trying to keep it real; I was real enough by myself. What I needed was to keep it together. I needed to pay my rent, and this was the only thing where no one cared where I came from, or what I looked like. They didn’t ask for a diploma or try to put me in a suit. I believed in it so much — I cried so much. But it had to work, because it was all I had.”  

In the early days — before he made a radical shift to the electronic scene — he looked at the hip-hop scene of the US West Coast, and that was where he found his first inspiration. He bought every album by NWA and Public Enemy just for the lyrics on the booklet inside the CD, repeating their words to himself over and over until he felt he had mastered them. Soon, he was writing his own rhymes, and his early dancehall success earned him an invitation to tour with Snoop Dogg and Ice Cube.  

“That was one of the most amazing experiences of my life. I remember showing them my lyrics in my horrible English, and they were laughing but they understood. They suggested I read some books to mix up my vocabulary. Snoop told me, ‘You can’t just cuss the entire time, man. Tell me about growing up here — you have so many stories to tell we’ve never heard.’ He was such a chill, amazing guy, as was Ice Cube. They were my idols, and I couldn’t believe that they were also these amazing people even in private, willing to help a guy like me out,” says Ben Achour. “Being with them shaped me into who I am. And if you look at them now, they’re still on top. There’s a reason that no one looks at them as some sort of relic from another era. They are just as relevant now as they ever were. That’s because they didn’t chase respect — they just continued to be as they are. That’s exactly as I’ve tried to be, and that’s why I’ve thrived in each of those worlds.”  

It’s that mentality that allowed him to dive headfirst into the completely alien world of electronic music in the early 2000s, and thrive not by trying to fit in with the DJs around him, but by owning his hip-hop roots, blending in those styles and aesthetics, and even mixing in songs that those dance floors had never heard — a trend that he still continues. Most importantly, it allowed him to construct an inimitable attitude that has kept him relevant as times change.  

“The most important skill is learning to understand the crowd, because the crowd dictates the market, and the crowd is always changing. But you can never try to force the crowd. You have to learn to harness them, bring them into your world, and then transform yourself in a new direction without losing your identity,” Ben Achour explains. “I also must accept that I cannot force it, I just have to be me. The second I lose myself, I’ll become irrelevant very quickly.”  

Ultimately, it’s not just the beat of the Tunisian folk music that first got him dancing that is the biggest part of Ben Achour imbued in his music. Rather, it’s the strength he harnessed as a youth to redefine what it means to be German — and which enables him to continue to redefine what electronic music will become.  

“Anyone that protests when I try something new, I tell them off,” he says. “I’m going to do what I want; I’m free — and the new generation embraces that. I feel I’ve found my purpose, and I’ve 100 percent fulfilled it.”