With New Year’s Eve fast approaching, I’m sure many of you are gearing up for a big one on the cusp of a beatiful 2016. Whatever it is your doing: skipping out on the festivities with a fat bottle of wine and some chocolates, going on an inevitably overhyped and underwhelming night out or just having a good old smash up with your mates, you’re gonna need a bit of groovy fodder to get the pulse going. I myself am hosting a modest get together and I’ve taken the liberty of compiling just about the most funky playlist I think I’ve ever created. If you’re after soul, disco, hip hop, random tunes from your teenage hood and songs that make you wanna leave your life to board the funkytrain then this is the playlist for YOU.

I started with old favourites, bit of Bey, Destiny’s Child and vintage Kanye West. Upon these foundations I built a bedazzled house of disco, adding such masters as Earth, Wind and Fire, KC and the Sunshine Band and Donna Summer. I then seasoned the mix with a bit of old school hip hop/rhythm and blues, including the likes of The Sugarhill Gang, The Jackson 5 and Heavy D & The Boyz. Finally, I added some sweet sweet soul and random bangers that I thought would compliment what was fast becoming a masterpiece. Like any artist, I feel my work is never quite finished and so, in my self indulgence and well, let’s not skirt around it, arrogance, I will keep building this monstrosity until it contains the most funkalicious combination of songs in the history of music ever.

If you yourself are hosting a shindig, I shall offer some humble musical advice for the festivities:

1. DO NOT let others force you to conform to societies lame expectations. If you like trance, play trance Goddamit! Nobody puts YOU in a corner. It’s your damn house!

2. However… DON’T kill the mood with repetition. New Year is all about freshness, fresh tracks, fresh carrots, fresh mixes. Get those creative juices flowing and don’t get stuck in a rut with the same old stuff you cart out every Saturday at your local student club night. (IE we get it guys you think Skepta is great. Get over it.)

3. DO bring out the oldies! Freshness comes in all forms young Jedis, not just through the medium of ‘new’ music. Sometimes revisiting old classics is just about the freshest thing you can do. And yeah- it’s ok to dance to music you listened to when you were 12. Whatever gets your booty shakin.

4. DO know your audience. If you’re DJing your parent’s party, ignore items 1 and 2. That is unless you think parents suk in which case highlight 1 and 2. For the good children out there- don’t be a fool, stay in school. Churn out the obvious. I’m talking ABBA, Queen, the full Monty. Parents are simple creatures, they simply want to be drunk and screaming along to the same old stuff they’ve danced to at weddings since their mid-twenties.

5. DON’T take yourself too seriously. Even if you’ve DJed loads at sik club nights and even siker raves in fields, none of that matters when it comes to New Year’sEve. Put your ego in a box and lock it up with the expensive booze. You must abandon all pride and be prepared to dance like a tween to Britney, sing along to music you shouldn’t know the words to and indulge other people’s weird and wonderful music tastes. Live your life. Don’t worry about what the lads will have to say about it.

Have a groovtastic New Year and let your spirits run wild and free.

May the force be with you,

Emma x