“Yo Tape B, Show ‘Em How It’s Done”: How the Rising Bass Superstar Channels Nostalgia Through His Music

In the twenty-tens, if you found yourself listening to artists like Rae Sremmurd, Wiz Khalifa and Lil Wayne, you were in good company. So did Tape B, the barnstorming dubstep and bass music producer who is channeling the nostalgia of their timeless hip-hop to cultivate his beloved "Old School x New School" style.

Tape B's real name is Kemal Berk Alkanat, though he'll introduce himself as Berk since his first and middle names got switched in the midst of his move from Turkey at just three years old. Now 26, the DJ has found himself on a snowballing trajectory to superstardom.

Though his steps into electronic music's limelight are fairly recent, Alkanat has been producing music for 10 years. That means his Tape B project was well underway at the young age of 16. But it wasn’t until recently—through a pandemic-spurred move home to Boca Raton, Florida—that Alkanat had a lightbulb moment leading to his now-signature sound.

"I was in this rut where I can make good music but I just don’t know who I am or what kind of music Tape B is," he recalls in an interview backstage at the dazzling Breakaway Festival in Minnesota. 

Through listening to dubstep from the iconic UKF channel along with loads of SoundCloud rap, Alkanat says he experienced an epiphany of sorts, deciding to remix the music he used to listen to in high school since he was home and "everything felt nostalgic" at the time. As it turned out, adding newfangled sounds to long-since popularized tracks seemed to fit what he wanted: a vibe of his own.

"It clicked immediately after I made the first three," he recalls. "I was like, 'Yo, I’m actually pretty good at making these remixes.'"

Though the songs he reworks are fairly recognizable among fans, Alkanat adds, he chooses their subject matter based off of his own perception of nostalgia.

"I always try to keep it something niche to me where no one else is remixing it," he says.

As his music grows increasingly popular music, Alkanat highlights another element that has become a signature: vowel bass, the deep and growling sound he endearingly refers to as "the yoys." This slithering sound is in the underbelly of his fan-favorite remix of PEEKABOO and LYNY's trap hit "Like That."