DJ Decks

Eskulap, 1996

Dariusz Działek was born in Poznań on 9 October 1976. He began DJing in 1996 after a spell of nights at the city's Eskulap club, and played his first public set in 1997. In 1998 Ryszard Andrzejewski — Peja, who had started Slums Attack in Poznań in 1993 with Marcin 'Iceman' Maćkowiak — asked him to take the DJ chair in the group. Działek accepted and kept the job for seventeen years, working across seven Slums Attack studio albums as both turntablist and producer.

The turntable work was never decorative. In 2001 he placed fourth in the European final of the Vestax Extravaganza DJ championships, and the cuts he learned there became the joinery of the Slums Attack sound: a hook scratched in rather than sung, choruses built from two or three bars of someone else's voice. Alongside the group he produced for WWO, Pięć Dwa Dębiec, Fenomen, Onar and Kaczor, and in 2012 Machina magazine placed him second in a ranking of Poland's twenty best hip-hop producers. Between 2009 and 2013 he collected a run of DJ of the Year and Producer of the Year prizes.

He has also kept a life well outside music. He plays rugby on the wing for KS Posnania in the Polish extraliga, co-owned the Terrorym clothing shop and brand between 2011 and 2015, and runs La Bomba Studio, where most of his own records are tracked. He is married with two daughters.

The record that did 70,000

Na legalu? arrived on 15 December 2001 through T1-Teraz Records and became the record everything else in the catalogue is measured against. Działek produced it with Peja and Magiera, with his own hands on 'Być nie mieć', 'WOS' and 'Randori'. It reached number ten on the official OLiS chart, was certified gold in January 2003 at 35,000 copies and went platinum that August at 70,000 — numbers that in the Polish market of the early 2000s put a street-rap album from a Poznań estate alongside the major-label releases of the day.

The album took the Fryderyk for hip-hop album of the year in 2002, the first time Słums Attack's work was recognised by the mainstream Polish industry prize. Tracks from it — 'Jest jedna rzecz', 'Głucha noc', 'Mój rap, moja rzeczywistość' — remain the ones audiences arrive expecting. A two-disc deluxe edition with remixes and live material followed in 2014.

Eight Mixtapes

Running in parallel to the group, Działek has built a solo body of work that functions as a census of Polish rap. The first instalment, Rapa attack odsłona pierwsza, appeared in 1998; Mixtape Vol. 1 followed in 1999 and Vol. 2 in 2000. The format is consistent — he produces the beats, invites rappers from across the scene's factions onto them, and cuts the whole thing together — and the chart returns rose steadily as the series went on. Mixtape Vol. 3 (16 August 2003) reached number sixteen on OLiS and Mixtape 4 (5 September 2008) number eighteen. Mixtape 5, in 2016, got to number two. Mixtape Vol. 6, in 2018, went to number one.

Mixtape 7, released on 9 October 2020 through StoproRap, is the most ambitious of them. Across twenty-three tracks, threaded with a recurring 'Radiostacja Raptime' interlude, he put Polish rappers including Paluch and O.S.T.R. next to American guests — The Beatnuts, Kool G Rap, M.O.P., Ras Kass, MC Eiht. It topped OLiS in its release week and was certified gold in February 2023. He recorded it at La Bomba, with mastering by Michał 'Eprom' Baj.

Mixtape 8, in December 2022, went back to an all-Polish guest list and got a rougher ride. Reviewing it for FollowRAP, Robert Połomski argued the rappers, not the producer, let the record down — that several verses sounded dashed off, that Działek had to chase people for lyrics, and that expected guests never filed anything at all. The same review singled out the title track 'Osiem', with Kasta, Pysk, KęKe and Ero, and 'Kawałek Ziemi' with Oliver Olson, Opał and JANEK, and was unambiguous about the cuts and scratches being the most assured thing on the record. Separately, three of his singles have gone gold: 'Jakoś idzie' in 2018, 'Siedem' in 2020 and 'Biernik (kogo? co?)' in 2023.

Seven years of nothing, then the handshake emoji

In December 2015 Peja published a long statement announcing that he and Działek had split, writing that their paths had parted under circumstances he found unexpected and that he could see no prospect of dialogue. He was explicit that the decision had not been his alone. The two then did not speak for roughly seven years. Działek later described the trigger as nonsense that had been allowed to escalate.

The thaw was public and gradual — the mutual digs tapered off over several months — and became official in October 2023, when Peja announced that Działek would appear as a guest at his thirtieth-anniversary concert on 11 November 2023 at the Poznań International Fair grounds. Działek replied in the comments with a handshake. Neither of them had been idle in the interim: Peja put out close to ten albums, Działek kept producing and kept the Mixtape series going.

depeche_mood, SLUG and a single in August

The reunion produced records rather than a nostalgia circuit. depeche_mood landed on 6 December 2024, the first Slums Attack album in twelve years. A year to the day later, on 6 December 2025, came SLUG: ten tracks, all produced by Działek, mixed and mastered by DJ Eprom, with guest turns from Gandi Ganda on 'City Break 2', Wojtas of WYP3 on 'Męski świat', VBS on 'Najważniejsze' and PiH on 'Czas nie leczy ran'. Pre-orders opened on 6 November 2025. The most recent release is the single 'Na swoje', again produced by Działek, issued on 5 August 2026.

Through 2025 the pair worked the material hard on stage: Poznań's B17 on 1 March, Kwadrat in Kraków on 11 April, B17 again on 26 September for Peja's forty-ninth birthday, Progresja in Warsaw the following night, and Lizard King in Toruń on 23 October. The 2025 shows sold VIP tickets bundled with a CD or shirt and a meet-and-greet. They were also added to the bill for the Baltic Drive Festival at Kołobrzeg-Podczele, held 7–9 August 2026.

Playing the album front to back

On 4 August 2026 the pair announced a run billed as PEJA x DJ DECKS x SLUMS ATTACK – 25 LAT NA LEGALU?, marking twenty-five years since the 2001 album. Eleven dates went on sale, opening at Progresja in Warsaw on 30 October and closing at Pod Palmą in Rzeszów on 19 December, with Kwadrat in Kraków on 13 November, CK A2 in Wrocław on 14 November, Pawilon 3A at the Poznań International Fair on 21 November, Dom Kultury in Lublin on 28 November, Lizard King in Toruń on 29 November, B90 in Gdańsk on 3 December, Scenografia in Łódź on 11 December, Kosmos in Szczecin on 12 December and Zmiana Klimatu in Białystok, an over-18s show, on 18 December. Ticket sellers also list a Katowice appearance at HYPE RAP FEST on 26 February 2027.

The premise is straightforward and stated plainly in the billing: Na legalu? performed complete, then a run through the rest of the catalogue. Progresja's own listing describes the album as a turning point not only for Slums Attack but for the Polish rap scene as a whole. No support acts have been announced for any of the eleven dates.