In Focus 009: Southpoint

Over a decade since their launch in 2015, Southpoint has gone from being an underground label project to one of the UK’s best independent club music imprints, releasing UK garage, bassline, house, and grime.

In 2025 alone, Southpoint releases surpassed an impressive 20 million streams, with music from artists including TOM LECHEF, Bushbaby, and Clarcq heavily featured amongst their current crop of standout releases.

Ahead of a new run of tracks across the second half of 2026, we caught up with founders Jay and Josh to discuss the label’s humble beginnings, their current approach to A&R, lessons they’ve learned, and the future direction of the label.

The pair also delivered an exclusive all-Southpoint mix, featuring 32 tracks from their own catalogue. Get the full tracklist and stream In Focus 009 from Southpoint below.

You launched Southpoint more than a decade ago in 2015, what initially inspired you to start your own record label?

Jay: It felt like Brighton as a city had lost its underground edge. Every event had become a champagne VIP social, whereas we had grown up with four or five top level underground events popping off each night. We wanted the city we grew up in back.

Josh: For me, it came from wanting to build the thing I felt was missing. I had moved to Bristol to study audio and music technology, and although the course wasn’t right for me, I completely fell in love with the city’s underground music culture. When I returned to Brighton, there were loads of talented artists, but it didn’t feel like there was a central platform connecting everyone.

Jay and I had grown up together and come through grime music together, so we started meeting regularly and talking about what Brighton needed. Those conversations eventually became Southpoint. There was no grand business plan. We simply wanted to bring people together, create opportunities, and build the kind of fair, transparent label we would have wanted as artists ourselves.

And what were some of the biggest hurdles you faced in the very beginning?

Jay: Being completely self funded and working from the ground up. We are extremely DIY in a lot of what we do. If we didn’t have the funds to make something happen, we learned to do it ourselves, which meant that time was always our biggest hurdle.

Josh: Being taken seriously was probably one of the biggest hurdles. Neither of us entered the industry as an established artist with a large audience, an existing network or any outside investment. We had to build trust and relationships one release at a time.

We were also learning everything from scratch while working other jobs and studying. Distribution, contracts, royalty accounting, pitching, artwork, events, and marketing all had to be figured out as we went along. Being completely self funded meant that if we couldn’t afford to outsource something, we had to learn how to do it ourselves. It was difficult, but it gave us a genuine understanding of every part of the label and made Southpoint incredibly adaptable.

You’ve since signed music from names like TOM LECHEF, Bushbaby and Clarcq. What’s your typical process when it comes to finding and signing good music?

Jay: The go to method for me is that the track has to feel authentic to that producer. We don’t want to sign what has already happened. We want to have a completely original feeling catalogue, which usually means one release to the next sounds completely different.

Josh: Jay naturally leads on a lot of the sonic A&R, while I tend to look at the wider picture around the artist and how we can build the release properly.

The music has to connect with us first, but beyond that we’re looking for a clear identity, genuine passion, openness to feedback and the desire to build something long term. Music reaches us through demos, recommendations, existing relationships, DJ sets, and social media, but we have always preferred finding artists early and helping them develop rather than chasing whoever happens to be having a moment.

Our schedule is already mapped into Q2 2027, so we have to be selective. If we sign somebody now, it is because we genuinely believe in them and see the release as the beginning of a relationship rather than a single transaction.

Now with more than 500 releases and over 1,500 tracks released, what are some core lessons you’ve learned the hard way?

Jay: A track could be exceptional, but without genuine investment, consistency, and belief from the artist, it will never achieve what it could. As a label, we can fill in all the forms and make all the introductions, but it’s the artist who needs to lead the parade.

Josh: One of the biggest lessons is that good intentions are not a strategy. In the early years, enthusiasm could make us say yes too quickly or take on more music than we could properly support. I’ve learned that a label has to be honest about where it can add value, set clear expectations from the beginning and build systems that protect both the artists and the team.

I’ve also learned not to judge a release entirely by its first week. Some records take months or even years to find their audience, and long term catalogue value is often built quietly. Not every great track is necessarily right for Southpoint either. Knowing when to say no can be just as important as knowing when to sign something.

You release underground genres but you’ve also seen mainstream success across radio and streaming. Has a wider audience changed how the label operates at all?

Jay: I wouldn’t say so. In the early days we were receiving a lot of airplay for grime and 140 style releases. The sound has shifted towards garage and house much more over the last five years, and the avenues we have followed within that sound are seemingly well appreciated by the tastemakers of today. Chasing what radio DJs and presenters are playing would mean we are already behind the curve.

Josh: It hasn’t changed what we sign, but it has changed the scale at which we can operate. We plan campaigns further ahead, think more globally and have access to opportunities that simply weren’t available to us during the early years.

However, radio and streaming data and wider industry attention should support the A&R rather than dictate it. Some of our biggest successes have come from records that were created for underground clubs and communities but travelled far beyond them naturally. That is always more exciting than trying to manufacture something for a mainstream audience.

For us, wider success is an outcome, not the starting point. The challenge is growing without sanding away the identity that made people connect with Southpoint in the first place.

What label continues to impress you besides Southpoint?

Jay: I’m a sucker for simple underground consistency. In The House are a really cool outfit because they keep it simple. Garage Shared also do a fantastic job of consistently releasing exciting new talent, and of course Time Is Now releases always seem to bang.

Josh: ec2a continues to impress me. It has built a really clear identity and community around the label while still giving individual artists room to be themselves. Everything feels culturally connected, from the music through to the physical products and wider presentation.

It’s a great example of an underground label becoming globally recognised without diluting what made it exciting in the first place. That balance is extremely difficult to achieve.

What does the rest of 2026 have in store for you and your team?

Jay: More needle pushers. We spent the first half of the year introducing a wide range of new talent to the roster, and the second half of the year is all about elevating them alongside the rest of the established roster. There are some absolute sizzlers on the way.

Josh: The second half of 2026 is about elevating the artists we introduced earlier in the year while creating bigger moments for the established Southpoint roster.

There is major new music coming from Bushbaby, SHUFFA, TOM LECHEF, MUCKANIKS, BUTCHABOI and plenty of others, alongside new artists we’re excited to introduce properly. We’re also continuing to build the SAMPLER series and developing more ambitious campaigns around key releases.

The schedule is already taking shape well into 2027, while the management side of Southpoint continues to grow internationally too. The aim isn’t simply to release more music. It’s to build stronger artist stories, create lasting catalogue value, and make sure our second decade is even more impactful than our first.

Tracklist:
01. Tonton – Bones
02. Olivar – No Service
03. THIRTZY & Tuff Culture – Future
04. TOM LECHEF – Don Dada
05. Rich Ellis – Sinkhole
06. No Boundariez – Chemistry
07. Tonton – System
08. Rayment X Jaynie – Bring It Back
09. THIRTZY – Good 4 Me
10. MUCKANIKS & Sleazy F Baby – Greedy
11. Tonton – Membrane
12. Newsham – 2 The Beat
13. Olivar – Rock The Bass
14. JPN – Voices
15. MUCKANIKS – Where Da Floor
16. Mark Vox & Dee Panch – Vibes
17. Yoto Swords – Demise
18. JNG – I’ll Take Ya
19. Rich Ellis – On Time
20. No Boundariez – Shivers
21. THIRTZY – Bully
22. Rayment – Something To Remember
23. TOM LECHEF – Operator
24. Rich Ellis – Keep It Going
25. Zacattacq – Gearshift
26. Derteedisco – Refuse To Be Silent
27. Tori Pepper – Like That
28. JNG – Cuttin’
29. TOM LECHEF – Where U At
30. Esdaile – Flow Fadah
31. Olivar – Need U
32. BUTCHABOI & Lotrax – Magic

Find more mixes here.