Ruf Dug

Nearly two decades in and Ruf Dug still moves like someone with something to prove - because the music demands it.

Growing up between Manchester and Ibiza, a certain kind of life was always going to find him. But it was getting swept up in Sydney's squat party scene in the early 00s that truly lit the fuse. The DIY-or-die ethos he found there has informed every move since - as a DJ, producer, party starter, broadcaster, writer, venue operator, and now mentor to the next wave of underground talent. Multidisciplinarian is underselling it.

That independence has made Ruf Dug a difficult artist to neatly categorise, which is exactly the point. His productions move freely between house, boogie, ambient, street soul, digi-dub, oddball pop and sounds with no obvious name at all, landing releases on labels including Rhythm Section, International Feel, Shall Not Fade and WOLF Music. Along the way he's earned support from DJs and broadcasters as varied as Moxie, Moodymann, Ben UFO, Gilles Peterson, Jamz Supernova, Colleen 'Cosmo' Murphy and Bradley Zero. He's never chased the industry so much as lapped it, carving up new cultural territory and waiting - sometimes patiently, sometimes not - for everyone else to catch up.