Reuben Green & Dancefloor Education

A Five-Fold Conversation with Ruben Green, hosted by Azul Monad

Tell us, who you are, what we are doing here, what's that music in the background, and how you got to being in this place today.

RG: I'm Reuben Green, and we are outside DanceFloor Education. This is an event that I thought of many moons ago, when I was in Bournemouth university, between the age of 18 to 21. There was a night in a club there at the Winchester, so anyone who's from Bournemouth, of a certain age, will know about the Winchester. By coincidence I arrived to the club and a Latin band was performing. Their set was finished in about five minutes then my set was meant to begin. So I jumped on the stage, and I started performing. They were enjoying the music I was playing. I was playing Sofa house, Latin house, but decided to start with some more Latin jazzy house, because it suited what they were playing, and they decided to play on top of me DJing. I had not experienced that yet. I was 19 or 20, and it was amazing. I said to myself, I think one day I'm going to do a gig where the band and I play together. I am a DJ, and the band perform. I've had that in my head for a long time. Lots of things happened. I went on to have a good career, became a radio presenter, and this opportunity was brought to me here at Bricks because a friend of mine wanted a poster made for her gig. So I made her poster for an event here at Bricks, and the people at Bricks got in touch with me and said, "I love your artwork and came across your page, we like what you do, would you like to do something here with us? And the rest is history.

In short, Dancefloor Education is an event that was formed or born from when I was in university that has evolved so much. This particular event is trying to educate the world on UK dance music. Jungle, broken beat, UK garage, UK funky, Grime, all those sounds that we love here.

Soulful House is not tied to the UK, but those who are from the UK, we had a little pocket, the Parempes, the DJ Pioneers, there were certain releases that were very UK based. That UK dance floor feeling. I found a band that understands dance music, and a band that releases dance music. We've got an incredible band here. I'm so lucky. Arthur makes Jungle and Garage, Ruby makes House, R&B, disco and future R&B. Creature makes Broken Beat because he started doing dancefloor and was inspired. Our vocalist, Indigo is a fan of that sound already. Then we tried to provide that in live form. The exchange with a live band to a room is beautiful. We've been doing it since August 2025.

We're currently in June 2026. It started on Sundays, now it's Thursdays. It's free. It's for the community. Theres always a jam element where people can come and play. The gentleman interviewing me right now is fresh from the stage He just performed for us, and that's what it's all about

Who educated you about dance music when you were younger?

RG: I'm very blessed. My mum and dad are into dance music. My dad likes a lot of acid jazz, but I'll get back to my dad soon. My mum was loosely into garage soul music, the Jill Scotts, the Luther Vandross. I know that's not the same genre, but that voice is really apparent in the soulful house that I like. So that music I grew up on listening to matched the soulful house that I started digging. My acid jazz influence from my dad is really important, because that left lane sounds is a big reason for a lot of the music that l ended up discovering. You know, there's an album called Acid Jazz Volume One, and it's got lots of little squares, black, red, green, yellow, if you know, you know, and Jamiroquai was on there, the brand new heavies are on there, Us3 were on there with that Cantaloop tune that educated me a lot on tunes that like. In short, my parents introduced me to dance music. My dad's youngest brother, who's only 10 years older than me, you can imagine being nine years old and they re 19, is banging grime and garage, he was my idol. Also my mum's brother in Newcastle, I started showing him what I was into.

He got really into grime as well, he must have been in his 40s when I was nine or 10. He started digging into it in a different way, and that widened my ears. My dad's sister was really into UKG and Soulful House, so that also widened my ears.

A lot of it I have to say is from my own discovery, through me digging. I didn't realize then, but I was a super nerd of music. I was listening to a lot of radio shows. I was going to extreme measures to find music. I used to get dropped to school, and we'd be listening to the radio on the way over, and we were getting frustrated. Every now and again a song would come on that we loved, but mostly it's songs that we didn't like. My granddad got me these really small weird decks, had white mixers about as big as two CDs, and I started mixing and playing with effects. Then I got DJ 2 GO's, again from my granddad, and started mixing albums for the car journey to school with songs that everyone in the car would like. So that's my mum, that's my two neighbors, their mum and myself. That was the beginning of my DJ career, and that was also the beginning of me actively seeking new music.

Can you tell us about the origins of dance music in this country?

RG: We're very blessed here in the UK with the sounds that we've created, I wouldn't be able to answer that question with just a simple sentence. It's very dependent on each genre, you know. Here at DanceFloor, we did disco, for example. Disco is one of the most important genres for our sound, because it was one of the first genres that allowed segregated people, a niche group of people to enjoy sound that they liked. That's black gay community in America enjoying a sound that they weren't able to explore and enjoy before. Same with House, same with Funky knuckles with Chicago House in Chicago, and all of those guys. First of all, I've got to talk about them before I talk about the UK. Often the sounds that we made here come from what they were exploring. So let's go with garage. Garage actually started off being more like 115 bpm in America, literally resonating a sound of a garage, and we brought it here, and so did France at a similar time, and we started to make the sound that was called UKG. That was us at a time where grime wasn't coming yet, but we had this vibe where it was a little bit faster, and we had hip hop that was a little bit faster, and we didn't know it yet, but we had Miss Dynamite, and So Solid Crew forming. This was their formative years, and while they're forming that sound, we need to then fly to Jamaica. It's very complicated, but Jamaica sound system culture was influenced in the UK, so we got Jungle, and Jungle is definitely a black genre that fused that movement, that happy sound, but also with lyrics and rap that definitely became garage, that became grime, and we had a little branch on the left that became dubstep, we had another branch on the right that became UK funky, and we just keep moving and grooving. You need to interview me for about two hours for me to go through the dance inception, but thats a little bit of it.

What would you say to other third spaces and businesses like Bricks across London, across the country, and how they can further platform musicians and music artists?

RG: You've touched on a lovely point. Bricks is a very special venue. Bricks has allowed something like this to exist for almost a year now. Were in June. We started last August, where they are willing to try something different, and they are willing to try and bring a new slightly unique concept to life and champion it, pay us, and allow us to bring people here every time, which enables me to make it free. Life is so expensive, so to have a night that is free makes it accessible.

We integrated a jam into the night so that if you are not a professional musician yet, but you want to get there, we can give you the space to hone your craft.