Twice Grammy-nominated producer Wuki drops Beats I Can’t Release Vol. 2, his most inventive work yet, out now on SoundCloud, Apple Music and YouTube
There is a particular kind of creative muscle that only gets exercised when the rulebook goes out the window. For Kris Barman, the twice Grammy-nominated producer and DJ who records as Wuki, Beats I Can’t Release has always been that space. Vol. 2, out now on Apple Music, SoundCloud, and YouTube, makes a strong case that some of his most compelling work lives precisely in this ungated territory. Released June 15, it is more assured, more elastic, and considerably harder to pin down than its predecessor. Which is exactly the point.
Where Vol. 1 established the official mixtape framework for a series that had long existed across YouTube and SoundCloud in underground form, Vol. 2 arrives with a different kind of confidence. The project cuts across house, bass music, breaks, trap, and pop with the fluency you would expect from a producer who has shared credits with Skrillex and remixed Miley Cyrus to Grammy-nominated effect. The transitions feel lived-in rather than constructed. This is a DJ who understands flow, tension, and release at a structural level, and it shows.
A Producer Unleashed: What Vol. 2 Actually Does
The genre-blending here is not eclecticism for its own sake. Wuki has always operated at the intersection of underground dance culture and festival main-stage readiness. The same instincts that sent “Edge of Seventeen” to the top of the Beatport chart and kept it there, and that turned “Sunshine (My Girl)” into a social media juggernaut with north of 1.5 billion views, are fully present across Vol. 2. But here they are channeled into looser, more spontaneous territory: edits and flips that prioritize the moment over the metric, the feeling over the formula.
The series has built its cult appeal across hundreds of episodes and multiple billions of views by refusing to behave like a traditional commercial release. Vol. 2 honors that tradition while representing a genuine step forward in terms of both production sophistication and curatorial confidence. Wuki is not simply releasing unreleased material here. He is demonstrating what happens when a producer of his caliber removes every commercial constraint and chases only the musical instinct underneath.
The YouTube Live Set and Why the Format Matters
The accompanying YouTube live set adds genuine value as a visual companion piece, functioning less like a promotional asset and more like a window into Wuki’s curatorial instincts in real time. The performance format suits the material directly, underscoring the raw, improvisational energy that has defined this series since its early SoundCloud origins. Watching Wuki move through Vol. 2’s material in a live context gives the mixtape a physicality and urgency that audio alone only partially conveys.
The broader context for Beats I Can’t Release Vol. 2 is worth understanding. Wuki’s career has always tracked a parallel path: the official releases on major labels and the underground edit culture running simultaneously beneath them. The Grammy nominations, for his remix of Miley Cyrus’ “Party in the U.S.A.” and his work on Skrillex’s Grammy-winning “Quest for Fire” album, confirmed that his sound has genuine commercial reach. Vol. 2 is the reminder that reach and freedom are not the same thing, and that the most interesting version of Wuki has always lived in the space where he is accountable only to himself.
For longtime fans, this will feel like exactly what it is: a producer at the peak of his craft, operating without a safety net. For newcomers, it is as good an entry point as any into what makes Wuki one of the more interesting figures working at the crossroads of club music and internet culture today.
