Ninja Bokan discusses main influences, his return to the dance scene and more: Interview

More than set on leaving a lasting impact within the dance scene, Ninja Bokan has returned to music production in the most immersive of manners. A true warrior of life, this is one interview you most certainly do not want to miss out on.

Marking his return to electronic dance music in the most immersive of manners, Ninja Bokan is the personification of an act that has taken each adversity faced in his stride, and in turn, has re emerged stronger and more focused than ever. Having left his one passion for music, in order to pursue another passion of his, that of being a stuntman, Ninja Bokan decided to focus solely on being a stuntman during the time where the Deep/Future House era of dance music was at its peak, and with the Canadian DJ/Producer mostly releasing more hard-hitting and aggressive productions, it only felt right for him to choose a different career direction at that moment in time. Fast-forward to now, Ninja Bokan has returned to music production, with the prime reason being a near death experience faced back in 2022, and an accident that truly changed his perspective on life, and how fragile it actually is. Lifting any creative restrictions and limitations that he may have faced in the past, Ninja Bokan is more than set on leaving his own mark within our community, and in turn, we could not be any more thrilled to be joined by the man of the moment as he discusses main inspirations and influences, his return to music production, the impact the accident had on his life, his latest release ‘The Divine Gamble,’ future aspirations and so much more.

Hello and thank you for joining us! Could you provide us with an insight on the main inspirations/influences that led to your chosen career pathway in music?

“Thanks for having me back. It feels great dipping back into the scene, and conversing about my latest art once again. I grew up in the rural countryside of Canada where electronic music was non-existent. I eventually moved to Toronto for university where I started performing in live martial arts shows with a group of friends who would later all move on to be professional Hollywood movie and TV stunt performers. The live shows we performed were for the Toronto Raptors in the NBA, National Art Museums, Corporate Expos for GM/Ford, and many more. All these performances required us to move and be choreographed to some form of electronic music. I found myself starting to get quite interested and caught up in our song selections, and caring substantially about the tracks. The first major EDM show I went to was Deadmau5’s Meowingtons Hax Tour 2k11 in our hometown at the Rogers Centre. The weekend after that, I went and bought a Traktor S4, Ableton, and DJ/Producer lessons at the local Off Centre DJ School. I had no idea what I was doing, and it was awesome!”

Influenced by a variety of genres, we would like to know the origin of your signature sound, and how your return to dance music will impact your style of play going forward?

“This is an interesting one. I started to really find my sound on the second track I made after I linked up with Shaun Frank in Toronto. I was still quite new, and he spent time teaching me much deeper ins and outs of production. I learned a lot about musicality as well. ‘Bring the Monsta’ was my first major track that people really liked and played a lot, but you can see it has kind of a Future House/Big Room Feel. The next track I made felt much closer to home, ‘Do It Again.’ It was straight Big Room, however I never released it. I was told by some touring artists that, “This would have been amazing two years ago, but has no place today.” At that time Deep/Future/Tropical house had just became all the craze. Genre blurring back then like you see today with every style everywhere, just wasn’t really a thing. Nobody really cared for ‘Do It Again,’ they wanted more Kygo stuff hah. Ironically when I came back this year, I quietly released ‘Do It Again’ on to Spotify while I was working on ‘The Divine Gamble.’ I didn’t promote it because I wanted to come back to light with my actual new track. However, ‘Do It Again’ was more well received without any promo, since all forms of aggressive music were back in. Going forward for the time being, I’m going to lean into anything that you can spin nunchucks to, bench press heavy weights, or break flaming bricks using karate moves.”  

Taking a break from producing for a significant amount of time, could you talk us through then main reasoning behind this decision, as well as the main driving factor into your return to music production?

“Why the break? It wasn’t intentional, it just happened. Career Choice. Money. Life. Musical Trends. I moved to Vancouver, Canada to take a more serious approach to stunt martial arts in movies. Vancouver is north of Hollywood California, and many movies and shows are filmed there. I released one track after my move that did fantastic. It was a remix for Kaskade’s ‘Lessons in Love,’ people loved it. It was straight Future House. Lucky Date had taken me on to help manage me a bit and teach me some tips and tricks. His artistry was also a bit closer to my style. It was a bit of a double edged sword… I was drastically gaining more momentum with every track, but was also straying further from my passion with each track as well. Ultimately, I felt I was a much more talented action artist than I was a musician. That started to take my attention away from any music. All my friends and network were much more intertwined in film industry opportunities. On top of that, everyone knows that anything in art and music does not pay the greatest unless you are literally a full time festival touring artist. (And even that could be better…) Most of the people I started hanging out with when I moved out west didn’t even like EDM, it’s hard to enjoy alone. Lastly, as I stated earlier; My taste of the current musical trend wasn’t in. I played a handful of shows in some clubs, and was constantly asked specifically to play deep & tropical house. My track selection was fine, and the crowds loved it, but I was definitely not enjoying it as much as I wished. With the combination of me being on movie sets more regularly and the other noted pieces, I found my Ableton just stopped being touched. What made me return? Death. Or the inability to actually do so, to be more specific.”

Coming stronger from the survival of a near death experience faced back in 2022, we would like to know how this incident drastically changed your life as a whole, the role it may have played in your return to music production, as well as your overall outlook on both life and music since its occurrence?

“When you get as close to death as I did, everything changes. I was in the ICU, had so many broken bones, life saving blood transfusion, and I was still expected to not make it. Then, I didn’t die and ended up pulling through… Dying is actually somewhat easy, it’s waking up and recovering to live through the rest that’s the hard part. Immobilized and bed ridden, constant surgeries, heart PICC lines, you name it… It happened for months. When something like that happens; everything that mattered, suddenly didn’t. All the things that didn’t matter, suddenly did. Money… Career… It all became worthless. I wanted to walk. Both my arm and leg were re-built and I was told they will never work properly again. When you are bed ridden during COVID-19 alone with your thoughts and the inability to move, all you can do is reflect. Decisions actually became really easy. Anything I didn’t like, I stopped doing. Relationships that felt difficult, I confronted. I laid anything to rest that was a stress in the past. As I slowly recovered into a wheelchair, and then eventually a cane, I started to enjoy the simple things in life that I used to ignore. Really simple things… Coffee, watching trees in a park, sitting in the rain… I really started to actually live again, and was very grateful about it.”

Marking your return to dance music with the release of ‘The Divine Gamble,’ could you talk us through the main thought process behind the production of this track, the lyrical impact and what it may stand for, as well as the overall message you have set out to portray through its creation?

“The track has a darker undertone with a feeling of needing to persevere & be resilient, and to do as long as necessary until all the adversities have been overcome. However, also having some form of mysterious divine powers at play with the process. Overall, the track is just an audio decorated recap of my recovery process. The first half is the game against the Devil, which represents waking up in a hospital bed, learning to walk again, having so many surgeries, and the grueling constant rehabilitation process. The amount of physical pain with the countless broken bones everywhere, was just the worst. Even with my concussion and brain bleed at play, it’s very rare for survival. The fact that I ended up retaining all the cognitive function I originally had is another blessing on its own. Almost nobody gets to leave the neurological ward in a hospital without requiring caretakers for the rest of their lives. It felt like the Devil let me live, but I had to go through his crucible of torture and pain to harness a normal life again that seemed impossible to attain. The second half of the track is the game with God. I feel like he offered me a new outlook on life to “break” into, if I treated this second chance differently. Many months after the accident with constant painful rehabilitation, I managed to escape the hospital, wheelchair, and then finally a cane that was used for walking assistance. I was cleared to walk and run again, but I couldn’t do any contact to my bones for the time being. I decided I was going to try all the things I thought were too “soft, slow, or lame” in the past. I took up Hip Hop lessons, Painting, EDM Shuffling, Yoga, Spin Class, and others… I was doing so many things that were artistic, but I was absolute sh*t at hahaha. Like super beginner. Head first into a dance and yoga class with almost all girls and no guys, and I have no idea what’s going on… and I’m just trying to survive. I never felt more alive! Being uncomfortable was incredible. It had been so long since I had done something for fun and I was no good at. I decided to do all these things for months as my second piece of recovery until my bones were cleared for contact and high impact by surgeons. After all that, I was planning on sliding back into martial arts, gymnastics, full contact rugby ect. Over this second phase of recovery, something very interesting happened. I became so much more balanced… I became more empathetic, caring, loving, ect. A softer side of me arose. I was also meeting all the right people in these places where everyone wanted to have fun, connect, and enjoy themselves instead of being a friendly mutual acquaintance that was also looking to work together to advance their career. ‘Winning the Angel from God’ has both literal and symbolic meanings. The symbolic being the gift of joy and happiness from discovering all these new social arts where they are solely done for fun. The literal meaning is the fact that when I decided I was finally physically and mentally ready to try dating again, the cosmos set me up with a traditional loving and caring latina from south america who just so happened to also be a kinesiologist. (They appreciate talented sports movement men!) On our first date, she offered to drive me home and we stopped for McDonald’s while she played EDM House, Hardstyle, and Dubstep, while asking me if liked that kinda stuff. It was hilarious… We’ve been together for some time now, and I’ve always joked that it seems God gave me an angel for everything I overcame. She’s my biggest supporter. She introduced me to her group of friends/EDM enthusiasts that you can all catch at many festivals that they travel to and from. They wear matching outfits/jerseys and are called the “Handsome Boyz” (Girls included too, not just guys).”

Combining techno and hardstyle in the most immersive of manners, we would like to know how this infusion came to life, as well as the direction that you will be taking when moving forward in our community?

“This was the very first track I ever made where there was a very clear feeling and structure from start to finish. I also just did whatever I felt like. It was for me. I instantly became way more creative and worked with so many different elements I never dared to touch before. I worked with way more natural imperfections. For example, panning weird winds to one side way more than the other. Having cogs and gears grind to a stop, but very subtle and softly in the background. Crows cawing. Most importantly, there is a ticking clock that changes pace and pans from side to side to really represent our constant relationship with time. I wanted the theme to be fast at 155 BPM with the techno bringing in the darker confined boiler room feel, with a bit of a heartbeat thumping. I was confined in a hospital bed in a small room trying to break free. The hardstyle piece represented the final stages of needing to “smash free”. I built two different hardstyle sections. The first is more aggressive and is not as melodic. It represents smashing out of my wheelchair and cane and back into walking again when I was free of the hospital. The second hardstyle section is less constant and follows a melody I wrote. The melody still follows a form of perseverance and overcoming. I wouldn’t say it’s happy, but more feeling determined to smash free to earn happiness. It was when I was finally fit enough to return to backflips, jump kicks, and performing Hip Hop routines with new friends. I think I will always probably be mainstage/future rave/techno. More aggressive dark undertones of perseverance. I don’t think I’ll ever go full hardstyle at the moment. However, I do like hardstyle hybrids a lot. It was needed for the vibe of this track. I don’t really care for genres, and I do want to go with what feels right. I don’t know if I could ever make a feel good happy go lucky song. I don’t even know where to start with that hahaha. But it’s also not a “Never”!”

More than set on leaving a lasting impact within the dance scene, we would like to know what the future holds for Ninja Bokan, always in terms of new music and live performances?

“The goal is to make more music. I’m still a bit slow at the moment due to all the Physiotherapy, Kinesiology, Registered Massage Therapy, and Occupational Therapy that I’m going trough. It is a lot on top of all of my sports and hobbies. It really has been a full time job. I’m getting close to reaching the end of that though. Live performances and hitting the stage can come back whenever that time is right. I want to focus on getting a solid production platform again. I still have many months of recovery to finish straightening my arm for good.”

Remarkable in every sense of the word, we will most certainly be keeping a close eye on Ninja Bokan and all his future endeavours within the dance scene, but for the time being, you can stay fully up to date by following him on Facebook, Soundcloud and Spotify!