Roots Saigon featuring Funk, Disco, and Soul.

Event Details

Scientific Sound Asia presented the second edition of Roots Saigon at The Local Saigon, continuing the series with a daytime garden event centred on Soul, Funk and Disco. The format combined DJs with food, clothing, market stalls and drinks specials, giving the event a broader cultural feel rather than operating as a straightforward club session.

The garden setting suited the warmer musical direction of Roots Saigon. Guests could spend the day listening, dancing, eating and browsing the stalls while the music moved through Soul, Funk and Disco.

Drinks specials from Huda ran between 2 PM and 6 PM, helping shape the earlier part of the day into a relaxed social gathering. The combination of music, food and independent stalls gave the event the feel of a small garden festival rather than a conventional late-night party.

DJ Psycho-UK and DJ Global B formed the published line-up. Their different backgrounds gave Roots Saigon 2 a mixture of British underground influence and a direct Vietnamese connection to the local music community.

DJ Psycho-UK, also known as Bearhead, brought selections rooted in Hip Hop, Funk, Soul, Disco and wider sound system culture. The East London DJ began mixing at the age of fourteen and had spent decades moving between different strands of underground music before becoming based in Ho Chi Minh City.

Hip Hop was one of the earliest foundations of his record collection, but its relationship with Funk and Soul made the Roots Saigon format particularly natural. Breaks, basslines and samples from older records could sit comfortably beside Disco and other groove-led selections throughout the daytime programme.

His broader background also includes Acid House, Hardcore, Jungle, Drum and Bass and House. For Roots Saigon, however, the emphasis moved towards the warmer end of that collection, allowing the music to remain suited to an outdoor garden setting and a crowd arriving throughout the day.

DJ Psycho-UK’s appearance also connected the event with the wider history of Scientific Sound Asia. The organisation had already developed events across Hip Hop, House, Techno, Jungle and Drum and Bass, while the Roots concept created space for Funk, Soul, Disco and other musical foundations behind those later styles.

DJ Global B added the Vietnamese connection to the line-up and brought his own long-standing interest in rhythm-led music. His love of music began at a young age and was shaped by Disco, Funk and progressive beats, making his selections well suited to the direction of the day.

His approach added another interpretation of the Roots idea without requiring the event to remain fixed to one period or sound. Disco and Funk could provide common ground, while more progressive selections gave him room to move the music forward as the day developed.

The combination of both DJs gave the event a balance between classic influences and broader underground experience. DJ Psycho-UK could draw from decades of Hip Hop and sound system culture, while DJ Global B brought his own connection with Disco, Funk and progressive music.

That balance was important because Roots Saigon was never intended to become a nostalgia event. Older musical influences remained central, but the aim was to use them as living dancefloor material rather than treating the programme as a retrospective.

Food formed another significant part of the daytime format. Guests could remain at the venue for several hours without the event becoming solely about standing in front of the DJ booth, making the garden a more relaxed place to spend the afternoon.

Clothing and apparel stalls extended the day beyond music and food. Independent sellers could become part of the event while guests browsed between DJ sets, reinforcing the wider cultural approach behind the series.

Market stalls added another social element and helped create a setting where people could move around freely rather than remain fixed on a single dancefloor. That flexibility suited the daytime schedule and encouraged a different pace from Scientific Sound Asia’s later-night club events.

The musical relationship between Soul, Funk and Disco also made the programme coherent despite its breadth. Soul supplied vocals and musicianship, Funk added rhythmic weight and bass-driven grooves, while Disco carried many of those elements directly onto the dancefloor.

Those styles also provided important foundations for later House and Hip Hop production. The Roots concept used that shared history naturally, allowing the DJs to move between genres according to rhythm and mood rather than strict categories.

The second Saigon edition continued Scientific Sound Asia’s wider effort to turn radio and event concepts into recurring physical gatherings. Its current platform connects events, the radio station, DJ agency and music news across underground music in Asia.

At The Local Saigon, that wider network was expressed through a simple daytime formula. DJs, food, drinks, clothing and market stalls came together around Soul, Funk and Disco without the need for a more complicated club presentation.

Roots Saigon – Second Edition therefore continued the series with DJ Psycho-UK and DJ Global B providing the music in the garden. Warm grooves, Huda drinks specials, independent stalls and a relaxed daytime crowd gave the event its own place within Scientific Sound Asia’s growing archive of Ho Chi Minh City events.