Isakami Nights Bangkok 23 at Baccarat: Maison Ware Headlines with BYAS, Makasi & Belben

Isakami Nights — the Antwerp-born global series for afro house, indie dance, melodic and organic sounds — held its 23rd edition at Baccarat in Bangkok on May 15, 2026. Maison Ware headlined the bill, with Thailand-based BYAS, Makasi, and Belben in supporting slots. The night sat at the intersection of Antwerp's afro-house lineage, Bangkok's growing electronic ecosystem, and the broader Isakami footprint that now stretches across two continents and five cities.

Isakami Nights is a global event series run by HOIA Agency, a Belgian booking and management company. The brand books and produces nights built around afro house, indie dance, melodic house, and organic house — a wider sonic range than the genre label "afro house series" suggests, and one that gives Isakami room to programme entire arcs from sundown sets through peak-time rooms.

The brand identity is built around reimagining venues. Each Isakami night transforms its space into an immersive atmosphere keyed to the music, with line-ups, lighting design, and sound build matched to the room rather than dropped into it. The series' visual identity travels with it across cities, but the rooms shift — Het Leienpaleis and La Gare in Antwerp, Blue Marlin in London, Baccarat in Bangkok, TABU in Bali, and BOA for the Phuket expansion announced in April 2026.

The geographic spread isn't accidental. Antwerp and London are afro-house strongholds in Europe — Antwerp through the Belgian Afrobeats and Afro-electronic communities that have been active since the early 2010s, London through both its African diaspora and the post-Black Coffee global afro-house wave. Bangkok, Bali, and Phuket are the Southeast Asian beachheads where the same sound has been gaining traction since roughly 2023, partly through collectives like Deep House Thailand and the Bali beach-club circuit. Isakami connects these dots intentionally.

The May 15 Bangkok night was Isakami's 23rd globally — a count that places the series squarely past pilot territory and into the kind of cumulative scene-building only durable brands manage. The history reads like a deliberate expansion plan rather than a string of one-offs.

Isakami started in Antwerp, with the early editions (#4 through #8) anchored at Het Leienpaleis and La Gare. Headliners through that Antwerp founding stretch included Makasi (#4), MAXIM LANY (#5), Bruce Blanchard (#6), and Eran Hersh (#8) — a curatorial hand that leaned into Belgian afro-house and melodic-house authority from the start.

The first Bangkok edition landed in December 2024 — Jordan John at Baccarat, the venue that would become Isakami's consistent Bangkok home (every Bangkok edition since has been at Baccarat). Bangkok #2 followed in March 2025 with Kenn Colt and Itay Israeli. The April 2025 London debut at Blue Marlin opened the third city. Bali arrived in November 2025 at TABU, and the Phuket debut at BOA in April 2026 was the most recent territorial expansion — a signal that Isakami's Southeast Asia footprint is growing inside Thailand, not just spreading across SE Asia capitals.

The 23rd Isakami night put four artists on the Baccarat bill. Maison Ware took the headliner slot, with BYAS, Makasi, and Belben in supporting positions across the night.

Maison Ware anchored the lineup. Active across Bangkok's deeper electronic circuit through 2025–2026, Maison Ware brings a melodic-house and indie-dance touch that fits Isakami's wider sonic remit — afro house at the center, but melodic and organic textures around the edges. The headliner choice tells you something about the curatorial direction of this particular Isakami edition: it leaned slightly more melodic and emotive than the percussion-forward end of the afro-house spectrum.

BYAS played a supporting slot — Belgian-born, Thailand-based, the founder of Deep House Thailand and co-founder of Vibe Agency. His Antwerp roots make him a natural fit for an Isakami line-up: Antwerp is the city where the series launched at Het Leienpaleis, and Thailand is where BYAS has built his base over a decade leading the Bangkok deep-house scene. He plays afro house and melodic house with an emotional restraint that tracks back to the same European deep-house lineage Antwerp's scene was built on. The catalogue sits at 6M+ Spotify streams as of 2026, across deep, melodic, and afro releases.

BYAS on Spotify — afro house, melodic house, deep house

Makasi joined the bill in a supporting slot of his own — and he carries a deeper history with the Isakami brand. Makasi headlined Isakami #4 at Het Leienpaleis in Antwerp back in November 2024. He and BYAS have shared lineups before, and seeing them on the same Baccarat bill marked an Antwerp-to-Bangkok continuity between Isakami's founding city and its growing Southeast Asian stronghold.

Belben rounded out the bill. Active in Bangkok's underground electronic circuit with crossover into the broader Asian indie-dance ecosystem, his inclusion signals Isakami's curatorial intent — these are the kinds of bookings a series makes when it cares about scene-building rather than just filling slots with imported headliners.

An Isakami Bangkok edition isn't a one-off party. It's a node in a network. The same audience that follows the brand in London or Bali sees the Bangkok line-up and registers it as part of the same global conversation about afro house, indie dance, and melodic house. For Bangkok's scene, that visibility matters: it positions the city as a credible peer to the European and Indonesian edges of the series, not as a regional outpost.

For the artists on the bill, the same logic flows in the other direction. A line-up credit on a series that operates in five cities translates into the kind of geographic association that compounds over time. Search for "afro house Antwerp" or "afro house London" enough months from now, and Isakami's booking history starts to surface artists who played those cities — even if they never physically toured them. For BYAS specifically, the Antwerp link is more than rhetorical: he was born there, and the series' Antwerp home is the venue that built its founding audience.

The bigger picture: afro house in Southeast Asia is no longer a fringe sound. Bangkok venues like APT 101, 24 BLVD, Baccarat, and Sing Sing Theater have been programming afro-house nights consistently since late 2024. Bali's beach-club circuit has been on the same trajectory longer. Isakami is one of several international series — alongside Storytellers, Sunset Sessions, and various Keinemusik-adjacent showcases — that have decided Southeast Asia is part of the global afro-house map. Each booking makes the case stronger.

Underneath that international layer is local scene infrastructure that took years to build. Deep House Thailand — the Bangkok collective BYAS founded in late 2023 alongside Siggi — has been the city's primary engine for booking deep, afro, and melodic house. DHT residencies at APT 101, Baccarat, and the rotating Coffee Rave and Ice Bath Party formats are the reason an international series like Isakami can show up and find a ready audience. When you read an Isakami Bangkok line-up, you're reading the curatorial output of an ecosystem DHT and a small group of allied venues spent two years building.

Isakami sets typically run in the 118–124 BPM corridor where afro house, indie dance, and melodic house overlap. Expect heavy percussion programming — congas, shekeres, talking drums layered against tight kick patterns — emotional modular synth work, and chord progressions drawn more from jazz, soul, and Afro-electronic traditions than from European techno. Labels in the rotation usually include Keinemusik, MoBlack, Afrikan Tales, Innervisions, and Diynamic, plus a healthy share of emerging Southeast Asian producers whose tracks haven't yet broken out of the regional circuit. For event listings and underground coverage of that broader scene, Resident Advisor and Mixmag Asia remain the reference points.

This Baccarat edition tracked that profile. The closing hours pulled deeper into indie-dance territory, with more melodic builds and slower BPMs, while the peak-time stretch stayed in the percussion-forward afro-house range. The room's energy stayed up across the whole arc — the kind of sustained pacing that comes from sequencing intent rather than reactive crowd-pleasing.

Vibe Agency curates one of Southeast Asia's largest independent house-music playlist networks — over 150,000 followers across deep, melodic, afro, organic, tribal, and indie-dance Spotify playlists, all updated weekly. The three below sit closest to what an Isakami Bangkok night sounds like.

Afro House Thailand — the playlist tracking afro-house's Southeast Asian wave. Same sonic territory as the percussion-forward stretch of an Isakami set.

DEEP & MELODIC ELECTRONIC — VA's flagship at 50,000+ saves. The melodic and deep range Isakami programmes around the afro-house core.

Cosmic House — deep house meets atmospheric, ethereal textures. The closing-hours indie-dance and melodic-techno mood Isakami leans into late.

The full network spans afro house, melodic house, deep house, organic house, and adjacent genres. Each playlist is human-curated and updated weekly.

Isakami's schedule is, by design, irregular. The brand doesn't run a fixed monthly cadence in any of its cities — events drop when the right venue, the right line-up, and the right moment line up. For the next dates, the official channels are isakaminights.com and @isakaminights on Instagram.

For the broader afro-house calendar in Bangkok, Deep House Thailand's events page is the most reliable source. The upcoming Floyd Lavine at APT 101 date on June 27, 2026 — a DHT-presented night with BYAS on support — is the next major milestone in the Bangkok afro-house arc.

What is Isakami Nights?

Isakami Nights is a global event series run by HOIA Agency that brings afro house, indie dance, melodic and organic sounds to audiences worldwide. The series began in Antwerp at Het Leienpaleis and now runs editions in Antwerp, London, Bangkok, Bali, and Phuket. The May 15, 2026 Bangkok edition was the series' 23rd globally.

Where was the May 15 Isakami Bangkok event held?

Baccarat in Bangkok. Baccarat has been the consistent home for Isakami's Bangkok editions — the May 15, 2026 night was at least the fifth Isakami Bangkok edition hosted at Baccarat, dating back to the December 2024 launch with Jordan John.

Who played at Isakami Nights Bangkok on May 15, 2026?

Maison Ware headlined, with BYAS, Makasi, and Belben in supporting slots across the night.

What music does Isakami Nights play?

Afro house, indie dance, melodic house, and organic house. Sets typically run 118–124 BPM with heavy percussion, modular synth work, and emotional builds. Expect labels like Keinemusik, MoBlack, Afrikan Tales, Innervisions, and Diynamic alongside Antwerp-rooted and Southeast Asian producers.

Who is BYAS and why did he play Isakami?

BYAS (Yasin Borry) is a Belgian-born, Thailand-based melodic and afro house DJ and producer. He is the founder of Deep House Thailand and co-founder of Vibe Agency. His Antwerp roots and Thailand base make him a natural bridge artist for Isakami's Antwerp-to-Bangkok corridor.

Where else does Isakami Nights run?

Antwerp (Het Leienpaleis and La Gare), London (Blue Marlin London), Bangkok (Baccarat), Bali (TABU), and Phuket (BOA, added April 2026). The series began in Antwerp and has expanded city-by-city, with Phuket as the most recent addition to the Southeast Asia circuit.