JOKESONYOU and DJ IP on ‘OTTF’, Revisiting Hardstyle and Finding New Ground Together
- Undrtone Blog
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
For two artists who usually operate in very different corners of electronic music, JOKESONYOU and DJ IP found surprisingly natural common ground in classic hardstyle.
Their new Teletech single ‘OTTF’ was born during a writers’ camp in Belgium, where conversations around mid 2000s hardstyle, Showtek’s ‘FTS’ and the renewed appetite for harder rave sounds gradually developed into a track that pushes both producers outside their usual lanes. JOKESONYOU is better known for bouncy techno and house crossover records, while DJ IP comes from a more trance-led background, but the contrast became one of the project’s biggest strengths.
Although the pair had already worked together online, Belgium marked their first time properly sharing a studio.
“We had been talking about old-school records and how much we wanted to capture that sound,” they explain. “When we finally got put in the same room on the last day, everything just clicked.”
That existing relationship helped. Their first collaboration, ‘Ready To Fly’, had already landed through Teletech, while both had developed a strong understanding of what the other brought creatively.
Joey first discovered DJ IP through his Pegassi collaboration ‘Wanna Feel’, before reaching out directly.
“Jip is one of the most talented producers I have ever met,” he says. “His ability to write and layer different melodies is something that continues to blow my mind when we’re in the studio together.”
For Jip, JOKESONYOU already felt like an artist with a clear identity before they met.
“He came into the scene pretty suddenly with insane bangers like ‘Get Personal’ and had a distinct sound from the start,” he says. “His tracks were high energy and quickly became highly sought after.”
With that foundation already established, moving into hardstyle territory never felt particularly forced. Around the time of the camp, older records were appearing more frequently in DJ sets and festival moments, giving both artists a strong point of reference.
“We wanted to bring back the reverse bass, big phat lead, hype-style announcer vocals and classic hardstyle fills from the mid 2000s.”
Rather than recreating that era exactly, they looked for ways to pull it into the present. The most obvious twist came through the vocals, pairing Dutch vocalist Sebastiaan van den Berg with Australian vocalist Coco Bevan.
“Our initial plan was to stick to the familiar Dutch male hype announcer,” they explain. “But having Coco at the camp opened up another possibility.”
That quickly became a back and forth vocal concept.
“We started playing with a question-and-answer approach between the two voices, and that’s when the track really started to feel unique. It kept the nostalgic energy while giving the vocal a dynamic that we hadn’t heard much in this kind of record.”
The writers’ camp environment helped those ideas move quickly. With multiple artists in the same space, experimentation could happen immediately rather than through endless file exchanges.
“That’s one of the best things about a writers’ camp. You have different artists in the room, and ideas can happen naturally in the moment.”
Their individual production strengths also became clearer as the record developed. Joey gravitated towards bass design and detailed finishing touches, while Jip focused more heavily on the initial idea and melodic writing.
“We both love making a banger, so bouncing ideas off each other made the process much faster and helped us avoid overthinking things,” they say.
“The vocal was a great example. We wrote the melody together, Joey quickly wrote the lyrics, and it all fell into place really naturally.”
Even the main melody almost went somewhere completely different. Jip had originally written a darker, more introspective version, before the pair decided the final record needed something more uplifting and immediate.
“We both liked that idea, but decided to push it in a more party-starting direction,” they explain. “We still like the original version though, so who knows, maybe we’ll release it someday.”
That sense of collective release became central to ‘OTTF’. The track was designed specifically for the moment in a DJ set when the crowd is already fully engaged and ready to be pushed further.
“It’s that moment when the crowd is fully immersed in the set, phones are in their pockets, you’ve just played a banger and everyone is ready for more,” they say. “That’s when ‘OTTF’ comes in to take the energy up another level and really unite the crowd.”
Early support suggests the idea has translated beyond their existing audiences. VTSS, Marlon Hoffstadt, Pegassi, KI/KI and Johannes Schuster have all backed the track, with one moment in particular standing out.
“For us, it was seeing a video of Johannes Schuster playing the track. The crowd’s reaction said everything.”
Since then, ‘OTTF’ has become one of the most requested IDs arriving in their messages.
The collaboration has also reinforced something both artists already suspected: stepping outside familiar territory can be far more productive than protecting a fixed identity too closely.
“The track is a bit harder than what we usually make, but we’ve both picked up elements and techniques that we can carry into our other projects,” they say. “We both love a challenge and trying something new.”
More importantly, neither seems particularly interested in treating the experiment as a one-off.
“This wasn’t our first collaboration, and it definitely won’t be our last. We really complement each other’s production styles.”
For JOKESONYOU and DJ IP, ‘OTTF’ works because it doesn’t try to disguise the distance between their usual sounds. Instead, it uses that gap as the creative starting point, reconnecting with the emotion and energy of classic hardstyle while leaving enough space for both artists to bring something of their own.
