Beatzza is the new night in Leicester, where eating pizza and listening to beats goes hand in hand. We caught up with Miranda and Jon about the to-be monthly funky pizza zone.

Who runs Beatzza?

M. Hi, I’m Miranda and I’m the manager and one of the chefs at Oscar and Rosies’ and organise the pizza side of Beatzza.

J. And I’m Jon, aka Jon1st, and I’m the resident DJ at the events and book the guest DJs etc.

Where did the idea come from?

M. Outside of Oscar and Rosie's I run a food company called The Mystery Booth with my friend Chet. We hosted a night to celebrate us launching our desserts at Oscar & Rosie's and I asked Jon to play. The atmosphere was amazing and we got great feedback from people so we both agreed it'd be fun to do another event in the future.

J. We were both big fans of the food at the restaurant before Miranda started working there. I’d been looking to find a local alternative to a bar or club to start a beats night for a few months and, after DJing there for Miranda’s event, I knew Oscar and Rosies’ was a great place to try to make it happen. 

Quite often there’s a lot of pressure to play quite hard music or music everyone knows in Leicester, and the restaurant offered an opportunity to share more laid back music I’m passionate about outside of a club setting, and make it a hang out spot once a month for fans of beats and pizza lovers alike. People are also welcome down to have a drink and just enjoy the music, there’s no pressure from us to order food - although you’d be silly not to!

In terms of the music we play at the event,  it’s mainly, but not limited to, ’Beats’, which is a general term for instrumental hip hop that can cover anything from instrumentals of rap songs to instrumental tracks by producers like DJ Shadow, Flying Lotus or J Dilla to tracks with heavier sounds by producers like Om Unit and Ivy Lab. We also play some Chicago footwork music and music influenced by it too. It’s a style of music I’m hugely passionate about, and the heavier sounds from the genre are usually what I play when I DJ outside of Leicester, but it’s been really refreshing to find this outlet to play the more laid back aspects of the sound locally. Miranda and I are also a couple, so it’s been fun to have a project we can share together too.

I also received a lot of feedback from other DJs who play beats, asking to play. In December we had Jonny Dub from Manchester’s Levelz group joins us. He’s one of my favourite DJs and regularly plays internationally at festivals like Outlook and Soundwave, so to have him play at the little canteen was a real treat!