A self-described ‘hard-to-place person’, GAIKA is an experimental rapper, producer, writer, visual and performance artist from South London. His debut album, Basic Volume, and his first art installation, SYSTEM, a vast experiential audio-visual sculpture, were launched simultaneously in 2018. Both projects draw directly on his Caribbean heritage. While Basic Volume is an elegy to GAIKA’s late father, a Windrush-generation immigrant, SYSTEM marked the 70th anniversary of Windrush by exploring the impact of migration on music in the UK, sound system culture and the history of the Notting Hill Carnival. GAIKA’s 2021 installation, Zemel, at the British Art Show, was a smaller-scale relative of SYSTEM, a shrine to his uncle and other Windrush-generation deportees.

GAIKA’s rich sound encapsulates the cultural melting pot that is London, and more specifically the bustling creativity of his native Brixton. Reflective and introspective yet abrasive and rhythmic, his music represents an aesthetic uncommon amongst composers in neighbouring genres. His music has been said to evoke “the sound of the memory of the club… what’s going around in your head once you’ve left, as opposed to being direct dance floor music.”