Big Beat set to launch from Georgia Freight Depot

It’s a Wednesday night at DJ BabeyDrew’s house, and things are getting contentious at the kitchen table. The DJ is hovering over a trio of Big Beat Festival staffers, barking out orders as the 20-somethings stare, fixated on their Macbook screens, sending invites via social media. The event is just less than two weeks away and, aside from the cool, calm demeanor of DJ Mars lounging in the kitchen (also glued to his computer), everyone seems to be on edge.

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The nervous energy is all centered around the inaugural Big Beat Festival, a one-night affair featuring more than 20 DJs on two stages. Taking place the day after Christmas, the event is expected to draw a crowd that pushes the Georgia Freight Depot’s 1,500- to 2,000-person capacity. Spearheaded by DJs BabeyDrew and Mars, along with Taiye “the Wild Afrikan” Samuel and Buckhead club impresario Adam Grietz, the show is meant to be a cross-genre celebration of the city’s local turntablists and beyond.

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“I was like, ‘Let’s create a festival that’s all-encompassing,’” says Mars, adding that their target market is 18- to 24-year-old partygoers. “I look at those kids; they don’t just go and listen to just trap, just reggae, or just hip-hop or just dance music — they listen to everything. So I wanted to build a festival that was relative to that thought process.”

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If Big Beat’s lineup is any indication, the four partners have succeeded in amassing a talent list that’s both respectable and eclectic. Headliners include drum machine wunderkind AraabMuzik, Walshy Fire of Major Lazer, New York hip-hop legend DJ Scratch, and Leah Culver, aka MK Ultra, to go along a prominent list of locals such as Speakerfoxxx, the WERC Crew, Midnite Panda, and Mix Master David.

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Both BabeyDrew and Mars will have sets as well, and Samuel will hold down hosting duties along with D.R.E.S. tha Beatnik and Fort Knox. Much like Mars’ book Art Behind the Tape that celebrated the stories and artists behind classic mixtape covers and artwork, Big Beat also puts the focus on the DJs, an oft-overlooked but crucial part of Atlanta’s musical fabric, Mars says.

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“New York City’s party scene, the DJs are the epicenter of that,” he says. “That’s never really been like that in Atlanta because of the infrastructure, but the community is there.”

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Thus, the idea is that Big Beat can be that bridge, the missing link between the city’s music lovers and the men and women behind the mixing and scratching. That’s the case regardless of whether or not the city is showing the amount of respect due. “My job with this isn’t to wake up those who are sleeping,” Mars says. “There’s a whole slew of people who are awake, so that’s who are our focus is.”

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The event itself is also a sort of reflection of the relationship between its two biggest producers in BabeyDrew and Mars. The two men have had a loose partnership that spawned when Mars was working with Ne-Yo and BabeyDrew was the tour DJ for Chris Brown. In the 10 years since their first meeting the two men have been discussing the prospect of doing a collaborative project, but those discussions never materialized into something concrete till now. Watching BabeyDrew’s trajectory into the world of EDM and dance, Mars figured it only made sense for he and Samuel to bring the former on board.

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The task at hand now isn’t so much finding a space in an already saturated festival market or trying to get people out to a party the day after Christmas. Just like any good DJ mix, the trick for Big Beat will be in its production fluidity. After all, having no set sound expectation can be both freeing and frustrating for a consumer not necessarily looking to sit through three hip-hop sets to get to Leah Culver. “I can’t say the EDM crowd is open to everything or every genre of music because they’re waiting for a rise and a drop and some form of instruction,” BabeyDrew says.

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Mars argues the crowd at Big Beat — which has already sold out of early bird tickets — isn’t your “radio consumer,” and thus has no problem with straying out of its acoustic comfort zone. “They are the same kid who’s listening to five different subgenres in his iPod,” Mars says. “He’s not stuck to the radio playlist. He’s listening to everybody.”

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The Big Beat partners hope their showcase for the all-accepting music lover can help turn the fest into an annual occurrence that expands beyond Atlanta. Ideally, there’d be one big event in the city, with several smaller events throughout the year, some of which take place outside the city and region’s limits.

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“You’ve got these great DJs with no place to go. The best that a lot of them can hope for is to maybe get on the Atlanta stage at TomorrowWorld, and they’re better than that,” Mars says.

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However, the team knows the process will be a slow one, but they’re proud to have an event to call their own, one free of the corporate choke hold on the bigger DJ-based festivals. “They’re thinking dollars and cents. That matters to us but for this first one we don’t care if we don’t make money off it,” BabeyDrew says. “As long as what we do is successful and we are able to showcase what is our vision, that’s the most important thing. It’s for the DJs by the DJs.”

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For Mars, the measure of success is even simpler than that. “I want to make sure that the people who come, the people who walk through that door, have a great fucking party,” he says. “I want to see T-shirts wet. I want to see people walking out with steam coming off their heads.”