Urban Renewal brings electronic music stateside, close to Duke

Explaining the differences within underground dance music is no easy task – distinctions can depend on variations as small as five beats per minute. However, Cooper Bethea, Trinity ‘02, rambles off the aural idiosyncrasies without ever stopping to think. Cooper, the founder and owner of the Durham-based label Urban Renewal Records, is saving music, whether he knows it or not.

By day, Cooper works as a systems programmer for Duke’s Center for Applied Genomics and Technology. By night, he transforms into DJ Cooper, playing regular shows at Ringside in Durham and occasionally touring the nation. He runs Urban Renewal out of his own home, all of his monthly wages going toward creating, mixing and producing music. The label’s first big release, Transatlantic Bass, came out in late August. The album, hailed by Philadelphia-based DJ 99 as being “mixed tighter than Dick Cheney’s buttcrack,” is a compilation of several DJs’ singles mixed by Cooper.

Cooper grew up in small-town South Carolina and attended the Governor’s School of Science and Math in Hartsville for his junior and senior years. It was in Hartsville that he learned about electronic music. He was originally interested in Drum and Base (electronic music whose beats per minute fall between 165-170), but its scene changed, and Cooper moved on as well. “Between 97 and 98, there was a schism in Drum and Base,” he explained. “The drum programming changed; it became much simpler, and I just wasn’t as interested anymore. I wanted something more intricate, more fluid.” He then progressed into 2-step (UK Garage without a bass drum on every beat) and eventually became the moderator of a national 2-step email list. “About ‘99, some people I knew told me ‘Hey, you gotta check out this 2-step stuff, it’s on all the pirate stations in London,’” Cooper said. Ever since then, he has been playing 2-step, UK Garage (130 BPM) and Breakbeat (135 BPM) at WXDU, local venues and clubs across the country.

Although Durham does have a small but substantial underground electronic scene, London is the center of the electronic world. Cooper wants to stay in the Triangle, however – at least for now. “I was thinking pretty seriously a year or two ago about what it would take to go over to London,” he said. “It’s really expensive to live in London, and it’s really hard to get work. It’s not the type of thing where I would be able to go over there and just make a living being a DJ.”

Cooper just plans on keeping the music flowing and the people dancing as long as he can. “I feel really privileged to be a part of the ‘Downtown Durham Renaissance,’” he explains, citing a term coined by The Independent this summer. “It makes me proud to say I’m from Durham.” Not giving into demands for making popular music or heavily commercializing Urban Renewal keeps it real for Cooper. “Sure, the scene’s struggling, but all the best scenes are,” he says, smiling. “I just enjoy playing music…It’s not the type of thing where I’m going to have a massive popular following or put out a number one single. I just love what I do.” Cooper’s unadulterated love for music is what will keep Urban Renewal going, even if there is no commercial success. He is saving music, keeping it genuine, and he probably does not even know it. For Cooper, it’s just about the beat.