Mochakk is a fully-fledged dance music phenomenon

It's been two-and-a-half years since Mochakk burst onto the global electronic music scene with a viral TikTok—49-seconds of his enthusiastic DJ dance moves set to PAWSA's ‘Roll Play’. (At the time of writing, the clip has 1.3 million likes, just shy of the 1.4 million followers he has on that social media platform. On Instagram he now has 1.7 million.) Not all artists are ready to ride their 15-minutes of fame to something bigger, but the ‘False Need’ producer, who is still just 24-years-old, seems born ready.

In 2022, Mochakk showed us what he’s capable of. He went from booking his first gigs outside of his home country of Brazil to popping his Ibiza cherry playing DC-10’s beloved Circoloco party, remixed the Martinez Brothers (‘Rizzla’ featuring Gordo and Rema), released hot tunes on Nervous and Black Book Records (‘Da Fonk’ featuring Joni and ‘False Need,’ respectively), and launched his MOTRAXX label, to name just a few highlights. The following year, he made his Cercle debut in Seville, played huge festival stages at Sónar (in Barcelona and Lisbon), Coachella and ARC, and became a Circoloco regular, even playing their Ibiza season opener and closing out the year with his debut on their label, ‘Jealous’. His first release of 2024 will also drop on CircoLoco Records, an energetic six-track EP entitled ‘Locomotiva Ibiza 2099’, with part one coming July 26.

Mochakk’s upbeat, eclectic sound and infectious energy has had him playing a whirlwind of major gigs around the world several times over, but perhaps the most important are his Mochakk Calling parties, where he gets to book the openers, curate the space and showcase his expansive sound and skater-influenced aesthetic.

We caught up with the fast-rising Brazilian DJ/producer during his much-hyped, ice-cream-filled New York takeover in June, where we witnessed first-hand his star power and the loyal fanbase that idolizes him. The celebratory occasion marked the debut NYC edition of this new party series, which he launched in Los Angeles' famed 5,000-capacity rave venue the Shrine last year and has (quite quickly) sold out in all six cities he's hosted in so far.

“It's completely unbelievable. I'm pinching myself every day,” the artist born Pedro Maia says about every Mochakk Calling show selling out, with a giggle between bites of a Shake Shack burger.

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“I wasn't sure that we would sell out or sell fast for shows like Lisbon. It was one of the places where we haven't had many of our own events, I was always playing a festival or a club with other people in the line-up. And it started selling really, really fast. It's been surprising to see the speed that things are going for these events. I'm super happy about how people are accepting and becoming a part of it."

Mochakk is not limited or restricted by genre. His eclectic, energetic DJ sets include classic house, tech-house, techno, Brazilian rap, American hip hop, Latin rhythms, and plenty of playful surprises. When he posts his sets on SoundCloud, he usually doesn't add a genre tag, although a groovy, funky three-hour one he played at a 2023 Ibiza afterparty is labeled storytelling. His voracious musical appetite is also reflected in his productions; for example, the A-side of his debut MOTRAXX release is based on a sample of a jazzy Kool & The Gang deep cut, while the B-side reimagines Black Star and Common into a vibey, breezy house jam.

The ‘Respirando’ producer is a music nerd through and through. If this was still the vinyl-era, he'd be one of the DJs that prided himself on spending hours crate-digging in record stores. But he's a child of the internet, one who grew up in a music-filled home with funk and disco from his mom and rock from his dad and took it upon himself to continue his music education. By the time he was 13, he was making hip hop beats, and his penchant for rap and banging kicks remains a core element of his sonic identity. He started DJing at 15 around São Paulo, and when he started releasing music, he started getting booked across Brazil.

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"For me, what makes a good sample is chopping it in a way that surprises you, but at the same time, feels effortless. It has to feel like that was already the initial idea of the thing. If it doesn't feel like a sample, it feels almost magical, like Dilla, for example. Also, every instrument on that Gotye track ‘Somebody That I Used to Know’ is a sample. There's even a Brazilian sample for the main guitar line from Luiz Bonfá. It doesn't sound like it was sampled. It has to have a good blend of the timbres and textures," he posits.

"[If the] textures of your synth sounds don't make sense with the sound universe of the original composition where you're sampling from, then they don't marry well, and it doesn't create that solid feeling of ‘this was always meant to be this record’."

Mochakk Calling is his space to showcase not only his eclectic music taste along with booking some of the other DJ/producers he admires, it’s a playground for him to further explore his other creative passions; namely fashion (which he studied in college), curation and visual design. And the fans are eating it up.

The New York edition marks the first with full production. The theme was inspired by press photos he shot with old landline telephones, as well as the urban landscape of São Paulo. “The visual aspect of it on the stage and the design of everything that we're doing is inspired by the chaos of São Paulo city, with lots of poles and exposed wires, metal signal towers and stuff like that. We're trying to bring a little bit of that chaotic urban landscape to the party," he tells us.

New York was a fitting place for it, as he feels a deep visual and sonic synchronicity between his hometown and the ‘The Big Apple’, which he says “feels like home.”

“For some reason, every time I come here, I think of jazz and hip hop influenced by jazz, like '90s and early-2000s hip hop. It matches the visual of the city so much, this massive urban landscape, the concrete jungle. It feels very similar to São Paolo to me, so that's also the stuff I listen to a lot during my week when I'm home. I feel like bringing those influences into what I'm playing this week,” he explains.

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Maia's favorite part about throwing his own parties is that he can really curate the music and visuals to fit the vibe and look of the space. “When I play sets, the visual aspect of the venue or the place drastically affects the music that I'm playing. I just feel like I have to play something that matches the visual part of it, so the experience is more married in the senses,” he shares.

"That extends to the line-ups as well, trying to always find people that have something to do with that space and with that area sometimes, and also with the soundscape that we're envisioning for the project.”

A sprinkling of old phones adorn the DJ booth, party flyers and on-stage visuals, and he has a folder of phone-themed bangers to tastefully drop into his sets—he names Josh Butler and Botan's classic ‘Call You Back’ as one of his favorites to get the dancefloor going. Near the end of his lively NYC Calling set, as he explores darker sounds, he plays Ellen Alien's shimmery techno punisher ‘Call Me’.

Mochakk's two-day New York takeover began in an eye-catching custom red ice cream truck emblazoned with faux graffiti, vintage cell phones and, you guessed it, an image of Mochakk on the phone. He had teased the pop-up the night before and provided a link to sign up for text alerts. The locations had only been sent out about 30 minutes prior, yet still, at 3:PM on a Friday, fans were already patiently lined up to be handed a frozen treat (with coordinated packaging) from the ‘NO8DO’ producer himself. The excitement was palpable at each stop, as guests anticipated their chance to get up-close to their DJ hero.

“It’s such a privilege to meet him and that he’s in my city that I grew up in,” Nadia, who has been listening to his music for over a year now, said. “She’s always talking about meeting him,” her friend Corrine added. Sister DJ duo Makenzie and Molly ran over to the first stop after doing an interview for their EDM blog Sisters with Synths. Their friend that works at Armada told them about the pop-up because they knew they're huge fans.

Some fans responded directly to the theme, like Cameron, who was clutching a large inflatable cellphone. He ordered it online weeks before the party, and was equally excited for the pop-up. The night before, when he didn't know the location (“I was getting desperate”) he did some sleuthing and saw that Maia's dad had left positive comments in response to fans' writing on his son's Instagram posts. Cameron DMed the senior Maia, who shared the details with him.

When it was time to move to the next ice cream stop, Mochakk's team of charming Brazilian creatives was too big to fit in the (non-air-conditioned) ice cream truck, so they piled into an unmarked white van with his press team and I. One (tall) guy didn't get his own seat and leaned in over the others as best he could. “Don't worry, that's traditional in São Paulo,” Felipe, who does the eye-catching visuals, jokingly said with a smile. It was his first time in New York, which, like Maia, reminds him of their home city.

As we approached Washington Square Park, we watched fans clock the truck and sprint to it before it had even parked.

Distance and borders are arbitrary to his most loyal fans. Peter, Anthony, Maggie and Eden, who were at the second ice cream stop, flew down from Toronto for the weekend just for Mochakk Calling. They brought him a special lime green bag of Doritos, a modern gift for a young king.

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At the third and final Dimes Square ice cream stop, super fan Aline offered Mochakk a mug from his favorite soccer team of their shared hometown of Sorocaba, São Paulo. He wore an ear-to-ear grin as he accepted the present, which was not the first from her. (She showed me photos of a homemade banner she'd given him at Space Miami, and a mini DJ set-up she was making out of LEGO bricks with her 5-year-old son.) Aline and her husband, an American, live in south Florida and also flew in just for his set. In fact, they travel to all of his U.S. shows outside of Las Vegas, with New York marking the twelfth time they've seen him play.

Doling out ice cream bars, smiles and selfies was plenty to get Mochakk's fans pumped, but he wanted to play them some music too; an appetizer for Saturday. The party was waiting for him around the corner, a closed-off street fully packed with thousands of patient daytime ravers of all ages. He played out of the open window of a café, serving beats to the hungry masses.

There was also literal sustenance served from the café window. A perfectly timed pizza delivery from Shant of Renegade NYC, the small-but-mighty party crew that organized the pop-up, elevated the party even higher during ‘Da Fonk’, Mochakk's groovy Nervous Records tune that remains his biggest DJ weapon. The crowd cheered as the DJ got his slice, before the remainder was passed out the window to the dedicated revelers in front—who doesn't dream about having pizza delivered to them in the middle of the dancefloor?

‘Da Fonk’ led to soulful deep house from Kerri Chandler (in a moment of unfortunate timing, the system briefly went out during ‘You're In My System,’ though everyone just cheered through the silence) and MJ Cole. After playing his latest tune—the Loletta Holloway-sampling ‘Jealous’— a groovy Latin house cut from Oscar G, and some more high-energy Brazilian tunes, Mochakk selected a perfect, unexpected calling-themed closing track—Usher's 2002 hit ‘U Don't Have to Call’. He brought it in pitched up, but then let the full song play out, unedited, unremixed, in all its Neptunes-produced glory. The party was over (for now). As the Brazilians piled into the van to leave, they were mobbed by a group of fans freaking out over their brief, confrontational interaction–aggressively reaching for Mochakk like he was their Mick Jagger.

Mochakk fits in and has found a place for himself alongside other big-name tech-house and house-leaning DJs, but he's always brought his full self and never tried to blend in. His skater boy aesthetic remains (skateboarding is his close-second love to music) and influences his visuals. Most of his Tweets are in his native Portuguese, and he's always proudly repping Brazil and bringing a wide range of Brazilian music into his sets. (The themes featured on his six Instagram Highlights include his tour dates, Brazilian music, and skateboarding.) When talking to fans and observing their merch, the other DJ names that came up often were John Summit, fellow Brazilian Vintage Culture and Seth Troxler, who’s become a mentor to Maia since they've shared quite a few Circoloco bills. Brazilian flags, soccer jerseys and other memorabilia feature heavily in Mochakk's crowds.

Just 24-hours after fans started lining up for ice cream, even more (2500 to be exact) descended upon the crane-lined Brooklyn Navy Yard for the main event. Three-and-half hours after the doors opened, Mochakk took over the decks for a winding, energetic two-and-a-half-hour set, giving him even more space to play than he did at the pop-up. Case in point: At night, he played a strange, trippy opera track that he mixed in with a tech-house beat—and people were down with the weirdness. (He played this track during the afterparty as well, and I was honestly happy to hear it again.)

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He fittingly soundtracked the sunset to Waze & Odyssey's ‘Down With Tha’, to which the audience went off to and everyone backstage pulled out their phones at the same time to record. As he frantically, expertly mixed in LF System's infectious groover ‘Dancing Cliché’, it would've been impossible to not dance frantically at any point from there on out. Right at glittery dusk, as the last peek of orange faded and the sliver of a crescent moon shone above, he dropped ‘Da Fonk’, and everyone's hand shot up as if on a rollercoaster. As the day descended into a glittery dusk, he went darker and harder, preparing revelers for the afterparty, which went until 5:AM at the nearby Storehouse, a massive 5000-capacity warehouse.

The sold-out party and afterparty (cheekily called Mochakk Calling Again & Again) were thrown in conjunction with NYC rave behemoth Teksupport, which hosts Time Warp and Circoloco's New York events, along with parties from big name DJs across tech-house, house and techno, including Charlotte de Witte, Loco Dice, John Summit and Eric Prydz. At Teksupport parties, there's a VIP ticket tier that offers backstage access behind the DJ decks. Alongside familiar NYC rave scene faces, some of Mochakk's most dedicated fans were there, including Aline and her husband, of course.

Aline's in her late-30s, likely in the upper age range of his fans, as many others appear to be Gen Z. The impact he has had on her life, and the fact that she shares it with her husband and now her young son, is truly heartwarming.

“This is the best day of my life. Well, second, after having my son,” Aline tells me with a laugh. She sort of ran away from Brazil to the U.S. and went out a lot back then, but stopped for 10 years, until Mochakk brought her back out to the dancefloor. His shows have become a special place for her, her one space to let loose outside of motherhood, work and home life. She's already brought her son into the mix, playing Mochakk's music for him at home, which he loves.

Maia, who went to fashion school shares his love for street style and playful graphics through his merch; his goal is to have a special-edition t-shirt for each Mochakk Calling party that nods to the city it's in. The merch shirt he and some of his team wore, and was sold at both parties on Saturday, featured a plethora of vintage calling-themed graphics in white-on-black, with a glitchy six-armed Mochakk holding old phones, pagers and computers in each hand, with "Available 24/7!" printed below him. Given his non-stop tour schedule, it's almost true.

Mochakk Calling headed to São Paulo and Lisbon in July, with dates lined up for Puglia, Italy, in August, and Paris, Denver and a return to Amsterdam during ADE in October, with more cities to be announced for 2024. The São Paulo line-up will be all Brazilian artists, offering a taste of the breadth of dance music talent there.

"We're calling everybody," he says with a grin.

Check out upcoming Mochakk Calling parties here; ‘Locomotiva Ibiza 2099’ comes out on July 26

Ana Yglesias is a freelance journalist, follow her on Twitter