No 5: Sherelle

A trip through the DJ revolutionary's mind that's as high velocity as her sets.

We had to have Sherelle Thomas for this thing. She was top of the want-list from the minute we came up with the idea for expanding Bass, Mids, Tops. Indeed, had Bass, Mids, Tops itself been finished a year or even six months after it was, we would have moved the Earth to get her as the final chapter, because as we were wrapping up the book in 2019, she was almost single-handedly enabling a new shift in UK rave music: one which embodied our motto, “BASS CULTURE IS FOLK CULTURE”.

Her DJ sets took very old British jungle and hardcore rave, very fresh new Chicagoan footworking, and turned it all into a coherent vibe thanks to encyclopaedic knowledge and precision mixing. At the same time she she was rewiring the “culture” part of DJ culture itself, rising fast through the international ranks as an out and proud Black, queer, masculine-presenting, young woman – not so much demanding equal opportunities, as kicking down doors and making them herself, and bringing her friends with her. That in turn has turned to a determined activism, showcasing and providing opportunities for new talent in ways that never let worthiness eclipse the musical, cultural and fun aspects of what she’s doing and enabling. The Hooversound label she runs with fellow DJ Naina is pure funtimes high-velocity music, and her ongoing BEAUTIFUL project designed to provide opportunities to LGBTQ+ and Black musical creators - with a community studio and workshops underwritten by headphone manufacturer AIAIAI - created a wildly varied compilation in 2021 which remains one of the best electronic albums of this decade so far. It’s worth noting that she is extremely evangelical about straight, white, male musicians too - just see her enthusiasm for Machinedrum, Lone and Luke Vibert here, and look at the Hooversound catalogue - but when it comes to building structures, she goes the extra mile for those traditionally denied opportunity.

I’d interviewed her quite a few times before, but this – conducted outside a café in Dalston, with Brian coming and going having just photographed Sherelle, and also taking pics of another upcoming subject for this publication – was the first time in the flesh. And without wanting to gush too much, she was staggeringly charismatic. Where she’d previously tended to the bright colours of old rave wear, here she was in super sharp black and white, her beret, bomber jacket and chain looking back not just to the jungle years of the early 90s but the late 80s hip hop style which allowed the likes of Neneh Cherry and Salt N Pepa to forge new gender norms.

Sherelle talks of having considered professional football, and studying photography and acting - and she's one of those people you can imagine being as successful in whatever she turned her hand at as she is now. Indeed as she makes constant eye contact, strikes thoughtful poses, defuses any threat of earnestness with moments of whimsy or enthusiasm, you could very easily imagine her as CEO or political leader. She can switch from old-school rhetorician to enthusiastic schoolkid and back in a paragraph. Like many DJs her hands are constantly in motion, but it’s very consciously controlled - she uses specific gestures like a born performer, and when she’s trying to remember a particular tune from the past (which is often) she’ll close her eyes and they’ll tap and swipe on the table as if accessing some inner spreadsheet. And as you’ll see from Brian’s wealth of pics, she really knows how to strike a pose, too. Spending time with her is a blast, and we hope you enjoy this one as much as we did.

Sherelle, thinking at 160BPM+

So we had to have you in this, because you embody what we’re about in terms of looking at how subculture replicates and transmits down the years. You’ve taken generations worth of bass culture and folded them all into what you do. In 2023, how do you define your style and that kind of historical telescoping together of sounds. Or do you?

I don’t think I can. I think that what you said about intergenerational… well, the word intergenerational I think works perfectly for me. There’s a lot of different things that I embody and champion – since, I guess, my rise and when it started in 2019. Though what I played then is weirdly very different to now. I still embody jungle but I’ve found myself actually constantly questioning a lot of the things that I do, and questioning a lot of, you know: I play all of this stuff, maybe I should think about this. I find myself constantly questioning and thinking, am I representing all that I can represent,everything possibly known to man and everything that I’m influenced by. So yeah, can I define what I do at the moment? Probably not. But if you like rave…. ing then you will enjoy coming to see me play. With regards to the BPMs, that still hasn’t changed and won’t any time soon, still representing the amazing sounds of 160 and above. That’s basically the main skeleton or heartbeat of everything that I do. It is actually the 160 and above element. It’s been quite nice to take that around the world. A lot has changed and that’s what I’m taking in at the moment, being actually quite happy about it. I don’t feel so alone in my mindset or at least what I play. And a lot of the people I have been playing for years, prior to blowing up in the way that I did now, actually are out there playing alongside me. So that feels really lovely.

That’s amazing and we will get into that in more depth. But in concrete practical terms what does your work consist of week to week? Obviously you’re gigging like crazy on weekends.

OK, from week to week I’m not going to lie to you Joe, I’m absolutely chaotic. It’s all based around the music side of things, around what I’m inspired by that week. Downloading music, listening to music, thinking what I’ve been inspired by, what I could also implement in either sets or radio shows, wondering why I haven’t heard certain sounds. I might be listening to Tim Reaper¹’s show and I’m like: fuck, didn’t download that, haven’t come across that, why haven’t I come across that? I might go on a big download spree or research spree, I’m quite obsessive with what I do. It does really revolve around music. If I’m not listening to 6 I’m probably putting something together on Rekordbox. At the moment, in this current stage, I’m working on an album.

A solo album of you?

A solo album of me. It’s been quite nice because I’ve been able to retrace my steps almost of why I got into music in the first place. Because I’m by default a house head, a Chicago house head at that, it’s been nice revisiting a lot of tunes and people that I like, and almost building back the links that I remember so fondly as I started – but as you go through gigging it’s all about new music, new music, new music, I found myself forgetting about the old stuff that I know and loved. Bridging those two back again has been really nice.

I’ve just had a day or two of that solid listening to tunes and the way they connect because of DJ Deeon’s death². And seeing people talk about individual little things like the 808 cowbells that run through his work and seeing where they come in everything from electrohouse to Night Slugs and seeing how those lines and legacies all go back.

I hope, it’s kind of apt that we would be talking at this time when obviously he’s just passed. Because he’s someone that got… well, everyone who knows, knows he’s a legend, I only wished that he was known more by people. In a similar way to, say, Rashad³ where their deaths are sad because of how innovative they have been and how much they changed the face of music. Especially for me. I found myself, over festival period actually, playing loads of DJ Deeon stuff. More so than I’ve maybe ever in my career. I’ve got my favourite one of his which is “Freak U Rite” – I first heard that song in, I believe, Machinedrum⁴’s mix for Mixmag… Yeah it is, it is. I remember hearing that the first time, and that blew my mind. This is the archetypal staple of how all my mixes should be. Those two I feel for me as a Black artist, I want to be like them in a sense of carrying a proper legacy and doing shit that’s super cool and changing the scene in that way. The way that they have. If I could have an ounce of that I would be really happy.

It makes me so happy that the world is coming round to house in a very serious cultural sense. Through the 90s and on, serious commentators would talk about Afrofuturism but would always lean on the stuff that told you it was futurist: Detroit, Metalheadz, all the stuff with robot faces, shiny metallic production. But I always felt house was building the future just as much. And now, through people who are like yourself historians musically or someone like Theo Parrish who likes to trace lines, that’s undeniable. And then, through house, going into places like South Africa and changing the way music is there. You realize yeah, house was building the future.

Absolutely, yeah. In 2023, it’s a bit strange for me because again, I feel as if people do understand lineages, and they do get certain stuff. Whether they go really really far back is a question that I’m always asking myself. Even with me, with my own thing of DJing and doing production bits. Am I always asking the questions of “in the beginning” [laughs as she realises she’s just referenced a classic house lyric], all that kind of stuff, am I asking that question enough? This year I’ve found myself going back to house roots and really retracing steps to see if I’ve missed anything. Because of all the people that I’ve played with all the time, I’ve got the ability to contextualize stuff a lot further than when I first started in the scene in 2014. That’s like nine years ago. So when I was 20. So it’s a case of, even further back to what I was looking at then. With Deeon, his death has made me very sad, but I’m very happy to be playing in the same lifetime as a musician and artist as him. Because I wasn’t necessarily doing that with DJ Rashad. When I actually started out properly, the Reprezent⁵ show came about in 2015/16 so it had been like a year or two after he’d passed – it was painful because he would have obviously been one of the first people to come in. I tried to get DJ Deeon onto a show actually, but I wasn’t able to do it logistically. It was sad but I’ve been able to watch him play and it’s made me super happy. I’ve got a picture of him somewhere, with Jaguar of Radio 1. Happy to be in the same lifetime where he was gigging, I was gigging, seeing him live was amazing.

Let’s go back to how you started charting all this stuff and joining the dots. A more traditional chronology. You grew up in Essex?

Grew up in Walthamstow, went to school in Essex.

What were you hearing around you at home or at school?

I used to live in the tower blocks for a short period of my life. Loads of dancehall, loads of R&B, dancehall from my mum, R&B from my sister, and the neighbours would join in in force and listen to maybe like dance hits. “Pump Up The Jam,” all that. We moved from one part of Walthamstow to another, in a council house, and from there, I remember that more vividly in the sense that they would just leave MTV or VH1 on when they weren’t watching ITV or Channel 4. I Would be watching loads of music videos. Main music videos I can think of are “Firestarter” which scared the shit out of me but I thought, OK this song is fucking sick… What else? Jamiroquai

Tyler, the Creator’s favourite band!

That’s fucking sick. Which makes sense actually because I fucking love Tyler, the Creator, he’s got a lot of moments in Scum Fuck Flower Boy that actually does sound quite Jamiroqui-y.

All the stuff Syd⁶ brought to that collective is so jazz funk, too.

Yeah! And I love that bitch as well. I look up to her a lot as she’s one of the first queer Black women you’d see out where she’s performing as herself. I feel seen [thumps chest], you know what I mean? Jamiroquai. Loads of Chemical Brothers, lots of Daft Punk. Before I realized it was a film I remember watching Interstella 5555⁷: “Voyager,” “Digital Love,” “One More Time,” ...oh and what’s the other one? “High Life” – I did see the music video for that on VH1 I think. It was just a plethora of a lot of mainstream dance music that shouldn’t have been mainstream because it was just weird. I remember seeing Aphex Twin’s “Windowlicker” and being creeped out by that. It veered around what was around in the 90s at the time. These electronic bands, duos, they influence me today.

And that was my early music taste. Being built at the same time around the legacy of Aaliyah, Tupac, Biggie and stuff. Meanwhile my mum is obsessed with Beenie Man and Patra⁸. There’s a varied music taste but it feels very much like it’s in threes: Mum, myself, Charmaine – which is my sister. I carried that very much with me until the time that I was able to be on our [very formal voice] family computer. My sister worked very hard, she’s a bank manager, we didn’t have a computer in the house and she was like we’re going to purchase one. So she did. And I was on it, first time I’m on the internet. Everyone else around me was on the internet all the time and I wasn’t on it all. I was watching music videos and playing Playstation.

Even Playstation is intrinsic to my music taste because it was all drum and bass and jungle. Grand Theft Auto: Liberty City had MSX 98’s radio station, the Moving Shadow⁹ one, that I did not realize until maybe two years ago that was an actual compilation that they had released. Had no idea, had no clue. I just clocked it and was like, you meant to tell me I could listen to the full, full version rather than the Grand Theft Auto version. This is where my favourite song of all time comes in – because I had no clue what it was called, it was “Renegade Snares”, the Foul Play VIP Mix¹⁰, but playing GTA I heard it for the first time ever since I last heard it when I was really, really young – like a toddler. Just stopping the game and going, what the actual fuck, this is the tune, this is the fucking tune! And the next one that comes on afterwards, it’s [Foul Play’s] “Finest Illusion” and I was like, what the fuck is this song?

So not having the internet for a bit was good because I was focusing and honing in on the sounds of GTA or FIFA Street, any FIFA game had really good taste. Because Kosheen “Hide U”¹¹ was always in there, that was Fifa 2003 or 4? One of the two. I think it’s 3, I’ll say 3. I might be completely wrong. Then eventually got the internet and I found something out via my uncle called LimeWire. OK? What’s this? You can download music on LimeWire? Broke the computer several times, they had to keep rebooting it and stuff, but I would jsut build up a collection of music on my iPods. I had a 2GB iPod and went to my family because I’ve run out of space, for Christmas or my birthday, can I have a 4GB one? Ran out of space again. Ooh, I’ve ran out of space again, I want to build up a music collection. I would coerce my sister to listen to my iPod, it would be all of her taste, my songs, Mum’s songs all on there. And she was like, “Well maybe we should get you one because this is a great collection of music!” Eventually I got the big big one, the 128GB one. I lost one of the iPods in between. I put all the music in that I absolutely loved. I was really into indie at the time, it was the time with electro like Erol Alkan. I'm a massive massive massive maaahsive fan of Ed Banger, loved everything they did. Was super sad when I found out about DJ Mehdi dying,I loved anything Busy P was doing, Uffie obviously, I was really into Justice... I was really into the visuals of So Me. Obsessed. Still am. Did I miss anyone from that crew? SebastiAn... Breakbot… All of them.

Did you go outwards into the other electrohouse type stuff at the time? Boys Noize?

Oh. My. God, Boys Noize I went right into, and was really into… singing the song in my head.. “televisiontelevisiontelevsion”, I think it’s called “On and Off”? Or “On and On”?¹² I was really into Boys Noize and the UK orientated stuff: I referred to myself as a “scene kid” because I was into Hadouken!, Does It Offend You Yeah?¹³, I was into...

Klaxons?

Oh babes, obviously. When I found the “ahhhh ahhhh ahhhh”¹⁴ on the keyboard at school it was like oh my God. People would play it in music classes, it was an accident and we got it and we kept doing it.

So you liked the nu rave styling and everything that went with it?

Everything.

Did you have a sense that down the road there were these Shoreditch hipsters, Super Super magazine and grown adults in three hats¹⁵ and whatnot?

No but I did have – I’ve got still, in fact – a huge collection of NMEs, they’re my mum’s house, hopefully if she hasn’t thrown them away. From a very specific period, I just bought every single NME and would save my money or I would coerce my sister. For £1.30, we would get that. We would get that when we’d go Sainsburys. And if I wasn’t able to go Sainsburys because I had football practice or whatever I’d be all “Pleasepleaseplease, come back with the NME.” Sometimes it would sell out and they wouldn’t get it, or they’d forget and pretend it was sold out. But yeah I was so engrossed in all this music and these sounds I was hearing, Santigold, obviously later on into Azelia Banks. That’s how I actually found what I’d home in on… Azealia Banks made me find Machinedrum. Lone¹⁶ I think I had known about already. So Lone into Azealia Banks, Azealia Banks into Machinedrum, and the electronic music in the sense of what I play now is through those three. They’re very integral to my whole musical history, it’s strange to think about how much music I was taking in at the time.

It was an overload – It was an overload for everyone. Early 2000s was when I started writing professionally. Across more hip magazines and mainstream press it was this idea, the end of history and everything available at once and it was going to splurge together and everything would become meaningless. There would be no underground or mainstream...

It was the maddest thing. Obviously it was the blogging era, so there were blogs and stuff that I downloaded free music from, I would be on Record Label downloading bare shit. My first footwork tune came from there. DJ Nate. What’s it called? I do this all the time. [tap tap on the table as if accessing that database] “Run Them Up”? “Run It Up”? It’s off the EP Hatas Our Motivation.¹⁷ That was my first footwork tune and I had no fucking clue what footwork was. I knew that Machinedrum mix, I could hear all of those sounds, but I’ve got no words for what this is. If I’ve still got that iPod I will maybe find a way of letting you look at it. It’s just insane what I was listening to in such a short space of time. The folders I would have. Empire of the Sun, all of their shit, then finding out that one of the guys from there had their own band outside of it. I was constantly trying to connect things…

Well, it was only one step from there to total psychedelia too, start with MGMT, Animal Collective and go from there...

Fucking love Animal Collective too. “Brotherhood,” I think it’s called “Brotherhood,” – when I heard it for the first time I was like, this is amazing. Toro Y Moi, I was obsessed.

Chillwave! Which was kind of another way of saying psychedelic indie really…

All those things you don’t realize you’re listening to, and now in a way with streaming platforms you can do that ten-fold. You’re able to see with the younger generation – which is strange for me because I’m still very young – I can see that they’re an accelerated version of what I was like on an iPod Classic with 180GB. If you were to check out what they’re listening to on Spotify it’s probably triple that at any given moment. They still clearly listen to albums but the album isn’t necessarily as important. You can do longer form EPs. It’s because of how much they can listen to at any given time.

My son’s 13 so I’m seeing it up close and personal. It’s not just that they can access it all, they can access all the technical information and straight away he leapfrogged into making it, because of those rhythm games like Friday Night Funkin’, this whole community of 11 and 12 year old gamers are accessing music technology. They know how beats are constructed. They have the whole history of dubstep and drum’n’bass at their fingertips...

For me, the annoying thing about when I was growing up I couldn’t go to the clubs and watch it. I was too young to be in the clubs for dubstep or electro bits, and yeah, any period where it was like High Contrast¹⁸, all this kind of stuff, Chase & Status, I’d seen them at festivals and it was building up this natural energy of when I get out and go 18 I’m going to go in. Then when I came out it was music that was very chill, it was future garage¹⁹. It was still gun finger heavy, and that’s where the Hessle Audio lot are, but I only found out about Hessle Audio until a lot later in my music career. I didn’t realise I’d been listening to a lot of all their stuff – all James Blake’s bits, under Hemlock, some bits under Hessle – in clubs all along, not realising that they were a name, a label, whatever. But music wise it’s always been very intense. Always wanting more. I don’t think I’m ever going to feed the natural hunger.

You can’t! I’ve had a lifetime of following all these threads. You think you’re voracious and you’ve covered all these areas but there’s always a huge blind spot. You discover one Cuban rumba record or one gabber record, and you’re away down another rabbit hole...

That’s where I’m at now in 2023. Before – 2019 – It was footwork, jungle, anything above 160, but very much within the 160 realm… Now I find myself playing [she taps out a rhythm on the table as she reels off the genres] footwork, jungle, hardcore, gabber, dembow²⁰, 4/4 jungle tekno bits but also 4/4 techno bits that have jungle swings to them or hardcore swings to them. I also find myself playing tunes which still don’t really have a genre – that might be Dutch influenced, English influenced, Latin influenced. When you come and see me now in 2023, I’m offering a plethora of different sounds that I’m not even too sure what they are. Haven’t even mentioned the juke²¹, haven’t even mentioned ghettotech or ghetto house, haven’t even mentioned more indescribable experimental bits like a Minor Science or, I don’t know, a Naco.

Even like the sections within the music, there’s that many genres you go through in one set that’s like one hour, two hours, three. There’s a section – and they should get props for this – that’s the likes of Fracture, Doc Scott, Alix Perez, Fixate, Itoa, Sam Binga²². All of those lot – and Samurai Breaks should be in there but he’s a lot newer in comparison to them – they make a very turbo led music. Call it turbo for now because it has no name. It’s got bassline elements, garage elements, grime elements, you know... All of these sounds have come from that time when I was given the ability to take time after school and download whatever I could download and I wasn’t forced to listen to certain things. People weren’t like “Turn it off!”, my sister would come up and be like “What is this?”, and it’s like “This is an artist called Sampha,” or “This an artist called Janelle Monae.” Our song is dancing to Joe Goddard’s “Gabriel.” We would put that song on every morning, while she’s getting ready for work and I’m getting ready for school we would have a boogie and go our separate ways

What did scenes as such mean to you at school? You said you were a Scene Kid but what was that in practical terms?

In Essex – I went to school in Woodford which is Essex / London – groups there were very separated. I was fortunate enough that I was in a group that was very diverse. Racially it was quite diverse and also who was in it gender-wise too. My school wasn’t always like that case. Black kids just hanging out with each other, white kids just hanging out with each other, it was a very weird, tense area. A lot of people had issues, very prejudiced and very racist. For us, our scene – as it were – meant many different things. We had an indie element, which was probably the root of why we were friends. I used to wear every colour under the sun, heart bracelets from Clare’s Accessories up to here, literal bands, Kanye West glasses and stuff. Proper colour. Whatever I saw in NME I would try and replicate that and work out where they got it. I would dress in certain colour palettes, my friends did the same who listened to the same music but we were all quite diverse.

It was a form of tribalism, repping certain stuff, but it wasn’t like “I’m not talking to you because you’re not a scene kid.” I was a scene kid in amongst an indie kid, in amongst a girl who was really into gospel and R&B and a friend who liked pop music, top 40 pop, and we’re all still friends. I know I was afforded that because of people prior to us. Back in the day, as it was, you weren’t necessarily able to rep, if you were an indie kid that was it. We were the beginning generation of not having to conform to being one set entity. There were people around me still trying to be that but in hindsight that just stems from they were not that interested in music or being creative. They were there to get a house, have a baby, get married, be with their family, eventually die, and that’s it. Where if you’re in a creative industry or stuff that’s a little bit more… just more, you’re not necessarily confined to “You will go to school, you will work in an office.” You come at things a bit differently. Which a lot of my friends have done, mind – they are married and want kids – but also they’re having a great time and see things differently, and their friends are slightly different because of it.

Were you politicised as a teen? Did you have a sense that this diversity meant something in a broader context?

Nah. Which is unfortunate because if I had the wording and the right kind of ethos I would have been able to have that. I did media in school and a lot of people look down on the subject, they don’t really get it – why would you learn about films or what people read in newspapers and talk about demographics? But it's because of going through that and learning about representation I had the beginnings of being able to politicise against myself. I didn’t really have the wording for it in school. My media teachers, they would point it out to me, they were saying look, the media is deeply unfair to anyone that is of colour. You will see this in everyday life, that’s just how people are, and people read what they read and believe it. These are the demographics and how they look, the ABCDE chart of what news readers are like. That’s where my disdain for The Sun comes from. Realizing how warped people’s mindsets can be because of one old rich man’s view.

So I didn't have the language for it at the time but when I got to uni I did, I did this amazing course with this lecturer called Sara Ahmed²³. She did politics, race, empire and nation and the shit I saw in that. I was like, “OK, noted.” And did my own research. My thing that I majored in was photography. I did it through the eyes of certain photographers. If I could do my work again now I’d re-do it in an older mature way, rather than being “this is that and this is that”. But she gave me all the words I needed. She’s fucking sick. I majored in photography, did a massive critique on… or maybe gave my views on Carrie Anne Weems and Jean Paul Goude when he did work with Grace Jones and stuff, really just kind of the visual nature of how black women can be viewed. It’s informed and helped me a lot with regards to my own stuff, I’m very careful with how and what I say and do with stuff. I want to make sure that if someone is naturally influenced by what I do, I want them to have the best possible view or the best possible representation I can possibly give of myself. Which is basically the bare minimum of being chilled, genuine, and being honest. Sometimes the curated side of things, you lose an element of vulnerability and I think I’ve just noted that in order to do that, to be the best representation you can be, it’s to be honest.

Well you certainly have poise! I’m assuming that comes partly from a knowledge of the photographer’s eye?

Yeah! I think it’s a case of, when I was learning photography at Goldsmiths, the guy - Damian - he loved photos which were quite chaotic. There's a lot of beauty in a chaotic photo, I can’t remember who his favourite photographer was but his favorite photo was a red room with a light and it’s not in focus. “I love this photo because it’s not in focus, why do all photos have to be in focus?” It was an imperfection. You can find poise in that. You can find chaos and poise in a building, running around New York, taking pictures that are not the best in terms of ethics but still coming out with good pictures. I do see things in that sense, you can’t hide when you’re talking to someone or having an interview, you can’t hide yourself. If I move my arms and maybe I look mad, I’d always prefer to be as-is in front of people rather than be curated.

There’s a half formed thought in my head that in raving, there’s a similar breakdown of the opposition between chaos and control. You can be chaotic and poised somehow... and you would come to that understanding that in the weirdest rave situations.

Of course, the rave scene has quite a strong lineage to drugs. I don’t actually do drugs but I find it fascinating when I’m drinking – because I definitely drink – and I’m watching people do their things and you can tell the difference between someone who is drinking and who is on drugs. And weirdly the people who are on drugs are more controlled than those who have drank X amount of beer, because there’s a nice mental state element that they can find themselves in. With a scene that is quite recreational usage based, very hedonistic, very having fun, relieving something, getting away from something, united, we’re one, all this kind of stuff. And the thing that’s controlling everyone is the music. And they are trying to run away from this other form of control which I guess is everyday life and having to work X amount of jobs of working in a job you don’t like. It depends on what people are going through. Chaos and control, very much within the rave scene. The main factor and basis, in that without it, we wouldn't have the music that we have today. A lot of amazing stuff has been made on the basis of accidental mistakes. Playing around with stuff and losing stuff and having to create it. Being controlled enough that you stop at the right time. And you’ve got this classic banger

And things moving so fast and changing so fast, people have to go tune-tune-tune, no time to plot a course. Look at the output of Reinforced²⁴, in the early 90s…

But it was actual insanity in terms of what they were producing and what they were making. I don’t think they get enough love, I know people do love them, but in a similar way to people who also don't get more love, Underground Resistance, those two entities are like literally the reason or have influenced so many people and are still cool. I still haven’t found one of the Reinforced tunes I need....

And they’re still vital, too.

Genuinely, they got their big moment with 4Hero going off into the mainstream, “Les Fleurs”, and that tune can be dropped in any major movie – but they deserve more credit and I will do everything in my power to always have them in a show or talk about them because they have genuinely changed dance music scene for the better: drum’n’bass, jungle, breakbeat, hardcore, broken beat. Literally. I often find that with amazing black creators they are loved and respected but do they get enough respect as your Aphex Twins? Or even within the same circles as Squarepusher? I just think that’s what makes me sad. Everyone deserves their credit for pushing and doing amazing music, it’s just who gets signed and how far do they get pushed. If you want my honest opinion. Maybe they’re not touring because they don’t want to, but if they did want to we should be seeing them on lineups left right and centre. My point is, amazing black creators like that deserve all of the props. There would be no Goldie without Reinforced. I think he said that himself, the Metalheadz logo stemming from the Reinforced one. Lineage is very important.

Getting back to our chronology, where does DJing come in?

DJing came because I couldn’t play football anymore. I was like, “Well OK, I’ve got to work in music.” I was playing football until I was 15 for a Sunday league club and I really wanted to play, I was adamant I would get a trial and I never got a trial. It occurred to me that fuck, I was 15, and I was basing it on the boy’s football. My cousin used to be in the academy for Arsenal when he was 16 and he was released. And it was find another team or stop playing football. I was like I’m 15 playing for a Sunday League team and I’ve not had trials for a major football squad. I was like I don’t know if that’s a feasible thing. It didn’t occur to me to email people. I was moving as if it was the 90s but it was very much the early 2000s and I could have emailed people. So it occurred to me that I don’t want to play football or try and pursue it. What do I want to do now? I can do acting. Don’t want to do acting, it looks fun but I don’t think I’d find it fun. OK, I want to do music instead.

So I decided to go down that route. Well, that was still adjacent with the acting. I actually applied for university for acting. Then when I got into auditions they were asking me to do certain things, I felt it was not my bag. It was a level of vulnerability that I didn’t have. So then, OK, we’re definitely doing music. I’ve gone down that route and I was like 16 whilst I’m first DJing. I would have DJed at my first house party with my friend Florence who threw a warehouse rave underneath a train warehouse in Walthamstow. Florence was that kind of girl. There was a point where she was like Effy from Skins, she was obsessed with her, because she was like I am Effy from Skins²⁵, she decided that her 16th birthday shouldn’t be in a hall, it should be in a squat. Her parents allowed her. And that’s why you’re not Effy, she didn’t have support. She lied to them about the venue, mind, saying it was legit but it wasn’t. The people in the squat set up a soundsystem so she’s got banging music for her birthday. I’ve actually gone there with Virtual DJ, I just had my laptop, and I’ve got all the shortcuts so I can press the button and it will fade the tune up and down. I was already in the technicalities of it. I had a cracked version of Virtual DJ where I would set it up on my laptop, one key fade down, one key fade up, and another would do that for the other fader.

Without an external sound card you can’t use headphones so you would have to do it by sight

Yeah yeah, I was training my ear at the same time without realizing. I’d go bang and put it up. I was just doing this on the laptop and playing music. It was really jokes, and everyone loved it, I was like, right, I want to do this again. I had my first groupie, it was amazing. I didn’t really DJ after that for a long, long time though. Me and my friend both had blogs. My friend Elizabeth had a blog called Swallow Our Words. She did music, she did art, she did everything. She got interviews with really famous people, like Lady Leshurr, Jammer and all these other creative people. It was the blog era but she was covering grime and UK rap. And I was inspired. I was like I want to have my own blog. I’m like “Do you mind if I have my own blog?”

And I did, mine was called Influx. Following her same model, I reached out to people and there was a video of me interviewing Andy C, I interviewed Roska and asked “Who do you prefer: Mosca or Roska?” and that question went down like a sack of shit²⁶ but it was jokes for me, I had a great time. I went to watch TEED, that was fun, I was in the front bit and taking pictures. I was doing these various bits and trying to secure an interview with Chase & Status. We actually had a lot of people come to the site, we did news stories with people, and I interviewed Yung Lean. Annoyingly I don’t have the site anymore because you have to pay the hosting, I interviewed Yung Lean, Delilah, bare people basically. I was like, oh my god festivals, I want to go, I want to do this – how do you do this? How do you become a DJ and play? It stayed with me for ages.

Didn’t do the blog anymore, but then Reprezent Radio came in, heard it on the radio in my sister’s car on the way to Stratford Westfield. Free lessons about radio? I’d love to learn about radio! Went down and got on with the producer really well, called Pete Sale, did all the training courses and got my silver award. And I went in to cover shows people couldn’t make it in for, morning shows, and eventually there was a mass exodus. This is during university. There was a massive exodus at Reprezent where a new radio station happened [significant look]²⁷ – yeah, this new station called Radar basically happened and everyone went to Radar. It meant that my radio station manager was like, “I’ve put a lot of effort into these presenters and they’ve fucked off. Clearly there’s a new gen that needs to happen.”

He offered me an experimental show. For a year I was playing all types of music, Jacques Green, Julio Bashmore, all very future garage, the stuff that was around then, then then it just occurred to me that I didn’t like what I was playing. I liked the music well enough but I felt like I could give absolutely fuck all to what I was doing. There were people around me playing this music. I wasn’t offering anything different. I need to change that show, I need to give it up. I’m probably going to get kicked off soon. And I basically at University did an internship at Shazam. Sitting on the computer bored off my tits, so I’m just like “Let’s stick a Boiler Room on.” Because I’d watched Boiler Room from the beginning, when it was the website, just a webcam, I remember, Bambounou’s tune “Night”²⁸ dropping and that was a Boiler Room moment basically. So I put on my favorite Boiler Room, which was EZ – obviously...

I was there!²⁹

It was so sick, it was actually so sick, “DJ EZ” [she sings his melodic audio tag] came in and like “nah nah nah nah nah nah nah” [sings the sampled guitar notes from EZ’s set intro]. Then, OK, three hours later, it’s finished, I had a great time, and I just left it rolling. By the strangest chance the next Boiler Room was Rashad³⁰, and I heard it come in and I heard the vinyl bit go “chuka chuka chuka chuka wam” and I was like what the fuck is this. This sounds great. DJ Rashad, oh, I recognise this name. DJ Rashad… DJ Rashad… hmmm… and then it occurred to me that my friend who had been working at Hyperdub, Shannen SP³¹, we went to uni together, she was also at Goldsmiths and she’d told me about when he passed. It was so sad, I’m like, I hope everyone’s OK, I hope Steve [Kode 9] is OK, everyone was so sad and just gutted. And I was like, right, OK, that’s the same person that Shannen was on about. I was meant to be concentrating, but then the “Brighter Days” tune comes on. Going back to what I Was saying, house is the beginning for me, very specifically Chicago House. “Brighter Days” is my favourite tune, especially the… is itUnderground Mix version? Underground Goodies mix³², that’s it. That’s like my fucking jam. I would play that all the time out. So when I heard DJ Rashad’s version of that. I have never had such an epiphany. There will never be a feeling like that – maybe my own Boiler Room is the closest feeling, strangely: dropping “Rip Groove” and not realising that was going to be a moment³³ but it being an exhilaration that I can’t describe. On par with this moment. Going what the fuck am I doing, musically? So yeah, straight after that, downloaded all the footwork tunes I can find. I had an epiphany and it was like, I’m changing my music style.

The algorithm took you there.

Yes but the algorithm shouldn’t have taken me there because I hadn’t listened to anything like it

I guess it must be other people’s tastes, people who had watched EZ watched that?

OK yeah. I had been listening to some Machinedrum there too. Anyway. I had an epiphany and just lost it. I’m playing this now. The remit of Reprezent at the time was like you can only play UK music. So I’m like, I’m still fucking playing it and so I’m going to find the UK people making footwork. And I did. I found loads of people. That’s how I found Itoa, that’s how I found Breaka, Fixate, Sam Binga... I was just banging it out. I pleaded with my radio station manager Adrian. I’m like look, I’m not being funny but I need to play this music. It’s amazing. I can’t believe I haven't heard this before.

That’s super interesting because one of the problems people have in the 21st century is lack of restrictions, people no longer being forced to find their groove or creative process via limitations: where in the old days they might be limited to one drum machine and one synth, or one record shop and what comes through there, now people had to deal with the flood of too many things, too many options. But here, you put a restriction on yourself, you were forced to go, OK we’ve got a sound and it’s got to be British…

Oh yeah! So then, what happened was, the station manager listened back to the shows, it was four shows, after I’d gone from playing all music that I loved but wasn’t offering anything to, to just all of this footwork and jungle. Well, more footwork at that point. And he was literally like, “Mm. This is quite interesting, maybe you should just keep doing it.” And a year later the station had the takeover with The xx, which was called Night and Day. That was with Young³⁴. He then was like the proudest father of a presenter who did a footwork show, and would say, “We’ve got a show that is footwork and I didn’t know about this genre before and apparently it’s from America but Sherelle mixes her UK energy into it and it’s really interesting.” Everyone was like “Ooh yes.” I was able to get Jessy Lanza because she gets it and she worked with Rashad. My first big interview at the station was with Jessy Lanza and that was orchestrated by my radio station manager who didn’t tell me he was talking to her. He presented it to me and I lost my shit. That show is actually still up on Soundcloud. My voice is a lot higher which is quite concerning, as it’s already quite high as it is already. Then... after that is the Boiler Room. And that’s a jump between me doing maybe four gigs in a year to doing all the gigs potentially in the world, taking the music around the world. And that was one of the strangest things to ever do.

We’ve talked before about how you managed that particular rollercoaster³⁵, which it obviously was. But in terms of mapping out your tastes, in that first year after Boiler Room where you thinking with a head on of joining dots between things, or was it very much “I’m going to play my sound, let’s go!”?

It was “I’m going to play my sound,” but then I was annoyingly adding other elements that I didn’t need to. I was over compensating. “Maybe I should make it sound a bit more mainstream?” I started weirdly going off into mainstream territory which was not like me at all, I’ve always been anti that, and then I retracted from it again, finding my way. Bangface was my last set before this really annoying thing called Covid. And I had a massive break and I was able to reflect and stop that shit I was trying to do.

When you say mainstream…

Adding songs that didn’t work, I’m going to play some Fixate, play some Fracture, play some Perez – but then maybe add a D’n’B artist that people know. I’ll play some Rashad, some Deeon, some DJ Phil, but I’m also going to find this jukeedit that everyone can sing to and it’s 4/4. I’d always go to that. I’d find this really kind of drum and bass, jungle edits by artists which are mainly bassline artists who were making some jungle bits but not enough to make a whole set out. I started playing popular festivals, like Annie Mac’s Lost and Found, Glastonbury, I did quite a few popular really different ones. It didn’t occur to me for a while that people liked me because they saw something different, not that they wanted more of the same. Coming to that conclusion was good and when I came out of Covid, I was like, if I’m playing again I’m doing it really authentically and if people don't like it then I don’t care actually. I Want to rep my scene as if I’m my 16 year old self and doing Reprezent Radio. And even adding other genres of dembow, 4/4, jungle tekno bits, stuff like that and whatever. I’m not deviating. I’m trying to prove to people how diverse and rich the scene can be. People would like to put it in a box but I refuse to get it in the box basically.

When you come at new sounds with a DJ’s ears, you actually end up making interesting connections that you might not have created anyway, and then learn from that too. When I heard bubbling³⁶, that was such an eye opener and it taught me so much about the history of the Netherlands and Spain and the Caribbean.

Yes!! My girlfriend’s from the Netherlands, she told me about it, I was dumbfounded. I was already on my ass. There’s already all this dembow that’s 160 and I’ve not played it. Trying to catch up with that, and she was like “Have you heard of bubbling?” I was like, “Not again, not a-fucking again.” She’s got a great taste and being from the Netherlands she’s taught me a lot more about hardcore and that side of things. I love playing the Netherlands because they’re insane and they’re on some bullshit that I can’t understand, and I love playing bubbling. It’s fucking sick. Trust me, you best believe, I’ve got folders and we’re ready to play tunes. There’s so many lineages to be had, to be made, and to keep exciting and current, that’s how you do it. You do it by just kind of making or doing things that are going to shock and surprise people. And would want to get to the age of sixty, and when I’m 60 being like I’ve no idea what Sherelle will play but I’m going because I’ll enjoy it and I know she’s going to play some fast shit. There will be footwork, there will be jungle, the core of what I’m about, but the other shit I want to take people constantly on a journey.

Well obviously a whole lot of people from the disco, acid house and rave days are 60 and up now, and still approaching sets in that way of having a core vibe but being voracious and interested in discovery...

You'd be surprised how many people are like “Oh fast music will not last longer than a year.” Yet here we are! And it’s nearly five years since Boiler Room and how it’s changed, we’ve got jungle in the mainstream with the likes of Nia³⁷, who is obviously really sick and amazing, and is allowed, and is taking this jungle sphere to a really really young audience.

We’re right back to “intergenerational” - because she’s reaching the elders too! DJ Die is I think 50, she’s 23, yet she was able to connect with him and Randall on a completely natural level.

Right, Watch The Ride!

…and there’s no sense it’s forced. She’s got her Yorkshire accent which is brilliant. She’s toasting. It is Caribbean and it is Yorkshire and she’s connecting with Bristol and London guys and this is going across at least two generations.

That’s what I mean, these things are super important. Faster music as a whole is not going anywhere. It’s not. It’s actually been more normalised, by us girlies and everyone else.

Just a couple of things I want to touch on. The first thing is, as you started being known for playing new, new versions of, but also older jungle and hardcore whatever. Did you have a sense that you’re filtering the good and bad from previous scenes. These are things that came from quite chaotic, often druggy, often riddled with violence scenes. And also quite, you know... not female friendly scenes.

I just try and find the fun bits. To overcurate something might be doing it disservice. I’ve been recently playing a Kylie Minogue donk edit, some people may frown upon that but I’ve been having a great time, watching people’s reactions, where they have to make a choice: “Am I going to have some fun or am I embarrassed?” These are the questions I want people to ask themselves when they’re having a dance. I just want… the main crux of it is fun. I play sets where all the songs I’m playing I like them, I love DJ Vibes, I love DJ Seduction³⁸, I have a great time playing their tunes on the basis of how they just invoke an amazing reaction from people and I’ve been very fortunate to have the likes of Coco Bryce who makes lots of hardcore. And he’s from obviously the Netherlands and I can hear that in his sound, I like that, I need more of that. I don’t overthink it. To overthink something that doesn’t need to be thought about. I’ve got two USBs, you know? If I was spinning or doing vinyl you have to be very careful what you’re playing and taking, because of that sense it represents a really carefully curated collection, but because I’ve got a USB I can kind of do anything I want. Anything goes. I try not think about that kind of stuff from the past because I know that stuff has moved on. Those sets of people anyway. Say with the Dutch hardcore. Unless the bad elements in that have been reformed and like black people now, I just won’t really see them. They’re not coming to see me! It is interesting to me. The UK had the same thing with football hooligans who didn’t like people of colour but they all went to raves and suddenly they all got on, or seemingly anyway. These things don’t play on my mind quite the same. Life is hard enough as it is, and if I was like, “By the way guys, I just want to let you know…” about anything problematic, where’s the fun? People should take what they want to take from sets. If I’m part of someone’s experience or part of someone’s birthday, or bad day that they’ve had and they’re trying to get rid of those negative thoughts and feelings. We’re partying together and having fun together but essentially I am giving them a form of education through a set. Some people are going to be more open to that than others. But I’m not going to push it on them.

The way you talk about playing a Kylie edit reminds me of the way serious noise people talk about noise itself sometimes, something where you have to commit. Extreme music works that way, once you’re in it it’s like you’re all in it together.

If there’s anything anyone’s learnt from Covid it’s that we’re listening to music to have fun. I say 160 and above now, rather than 160 which I did for a good while, because I don’t think you should be forced into BPMs. The BPM is merely just a starting point for you to find your way. And I think it is a lot of pleasure listening to a Kylie Minogue donk edit and I think anyone who thinks differently is a bit strange and needs to think about why they listen to music. Is it to have fun or just to stop thoughts? You don’t have to be that serious. Is life that serious?

It seems like there’s a ton of discourse about “Are you allowed to be silly?” at the moment…

There always is!

But specifically, I’m trying to remember what it was but there’s been one video doing the rounds on social media this last week.

I know the one you mean. I don’t know who… but that was at Hideout festival and I think he did an edit of something really strange.

It was, and so many people saying you can’t do that, it detracts from the seriousness of our art and our thing.

People said the same thing about me when I dropped Fixate’s tune. And look where we are now. It’s very strange. Because I apparently didn’t actually DJ on the video, the video was not worthy to be posted. I responded on Instagram to this, like: I’m playing music? Am I not supposed to play the music, are people not supposed to have fun?

Larry Levan played Rick Astley…

And he’s regarded as one of the best DJs, what does that say?

Exactly. Maybe it went down well, maybe it didn’t, it doesn’t matter, he was still Lary Levan! The other thing I wanted to touch on was the kind of, the way you’ve mixed activist stuff with the music. Beautiful Music, the studio that’s opened up, was that there from the start?

It just happened because of Covid. I was cussing people on Twitter about Kraftwerk and the symbiotic relationship between Kraftwerk and Black people. It was to do with how Kraftwerk are viewed in electronic music, and I say this in a way which is like, I think that they are pioneers of electronic music. But when it comes to creating actual dance music to dance to. I think that Black people, in Detroit and elsewhere, have allowed for their music to be contextualized in a way which allows for it to be dance music. When they were making stuff they were ahead of their time, amazing machinery, all that, when I’ve watched videos of them playing people are sitting down. But when you’ve got a core group of black people and queer people just going yeah! Actually banging, sick!

But they wanted it to be dance music, they wanted to be James Brown!

Sure, and people were arguing - they created it, their influences were X Y and Z. All of them left out that important factor of the James Brown element. You can’t detract from both sets of people being very important but we can differentiate between who and where they all fit within the scene. Are they important to dance music? Of course, obviously. Are they forefathers of electronic music? Of course, electronic music as a whole, how that got built, you can add Wendy Carlos into the same folder with her work. But in terms of who created it? The actual form of dance music that we dance to at festivals? It obviously belongs to Black and queer people. But then I thought, I actually don’t want to cuss people on twitter as this is not a university class, I was nearly on lecture mode where I was going to pick out names, it was 2020 with George Floyd and so on. When you see repetitive images of people like yourself dying on Twitter, and other cases are brought up that felt really upsetting, it was really gloomy. I took myself off Twitter, and said let’s try and do something with all of this anger and put it to some use. I came up with Beautiful, and wanted a nice name, and don't necessarily have anything to do with “be Black, du du” or “this is Black, du du,” or it would randomly be called Onyx or something like that, I came up with it for I would like some space.

I would like some space in the future for Black creators and queer creators. I would like to give resources and education to people so they're equipped at any afters to talk about music as a whole and how different things work out. It came about just because I was really upset of cussing people on Twitter and thought I would have something that is of good, and I’llconstantly be thinking about legacy anyway, well that’s a form of legacy I want to keep. Beautiful is this entity that people can use and enrich their life from it. And it’s a positive thing. Rather than going into a negative realm. The studio is there to be used for free by Black and queer creators. Eventually it would be nice to own a club space – which would be weird to navigate on a property basis, the whole ownership thing is werid – but I want that eventually because it would be lovely to run Black and queer nights. It’s for everyone to enjoy, but predominantly I want a space where I know that is going to be happening and going, and it is not like a rule that only Black and queer people can be there because that’s stupid. But I want a place that celebrates these cultures of music that’s very much tailored to that. If you don't like it you don't like it, it is what it is. I feel really impassioned to keep that going and have that be a thing. Because of that, that’s what I would like. When people talk about that, I talk about the fact that I really am interested in getting people to know their history. Like small bits of this or that… why is it called Hooversound? It’s not Henry the Hoover. We put Henry the Hoover on the back of a t-shirt because we thought it would be funny. But the name, I done it for a reason, these little clues and links.

It’s about the hoover sound from hardcore, right?

Yeah, I was doing some research for Mixmag to make a video about it, a more informative video, talking about the hoover sound. It was really interesting. I did well with the Amen break one which went viral, I missed a few details annoyingly but I can’t take it back, but it got millions of views and set them up to do more. I just want people to learn shit, I think it’s useful, and we all lose our roots and lineage if we don’t start thinking about it.

Right! There's no doubt in my mind, like you said before, that 4Hero deserve every single accolated they could get, they’re on a par with Aphex Twin on every single metric: creativity, influence, prolificness, the effect they had, the amount of people they reached at the time in their early work. But you don’t fix that problem by going “grr, fucking Aphex Twin.” You shout about 4Hero, or you create a space where shouting about 4Hero is encouraged!

Yeah, you don’t clock these things, I’m slightly worried when people don’t look deep. For a project I’m working on now actually, we were talking about Aphex Twin, and I thought: well, everyont talks about Aphex Twin, and then eventuallymaybe Squarepusher. But where’s everyone’s love for Luke Vibert³⁹? Lord Luke, who’s always in old videos with Aphex. I actually clipped one of those videos out for the Amen video. A part of DJing should be about the journey, but I think also if someone saw ny tracklist, I’d want them to copy that tracklist and start finding their own shit.

Like you did with Machinedrum!

Oh yeaaah. I couldn’t find that track listing for years, Every so often I would look for it, it would haunt me. Doves’ “Black and White Town” haunted me for years too, I remember hearing it on FIFA, before FIFA put the information up. Haunted me. Years. Five years ago I waited for it, found it in an advert, typed it into Google. And the video.

Those happenstance connections...

Yep. Those happenstance connections, a Rashad video coming up at that time after the EZ video has changed the trajectory of my career. So big up the people that listened to both and made that algorithm do that!

Wicked, well thanks – and as a bonus you’ve made me realise we need to get Vibert for this series.

Yeahhhhhh!

Job done!

1. A close contemporary of Sherelle’s, another young Black Londoner finding new juice in jungle and hardcore, and a producer of really extraordinary emotional potency.

2. Just the day before, I had written the obituary of the Chicago legend for Mixmag. As it explains in there, his ghetto house sound had been the immediate progenitor for the footworking that so inspired Sherelle - and not only that but he had been a friend and mentor to the younger footworking generation.

3. The founding father and de facto leader of Chicago’s Teklife crew (which has thankfully managed to continue to thrive after his death in 2014). DJ Deeon said of him: “Rashad said I was his favourite artist. I made tracks for the dance group he was in as a kid, House-O-Matics. Then he started producing, they got more intricate on the drum machine, more styles, more change-up, faster tempo.”

4. North Carolina via California producer who has been one of the key joiners-of-dots in electronic and hip hop music from the mid 00s to the present day - as you’ll see, his name looms large in Sherelle’s story. I wrote a guide to his catalogue here.

5. Community station that has been championing diverse London music since 2011.

6. Syd (née Syd Tha Kyd), leader of the band The Internet, is the soul / jazz / R&B heart of the Odd Future Wolf Gang Kill Them All collective along with Tyler, the Creator, Earl Sweatshirt, Frank Ocean and co.

7. The wordless anime film directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi, funded and produced by Daft Punk to accompany their Discovery album.

8. Jamaican reggae / dancehall vocalist whose early tracks helped break dancehall through into the US R&B, rap and club world in the early 90s.

9. One of the most important labels of the rave, jungle and drum’n’bass explosions, straight out of Hertfordshire.

10. It’s been making grown men cry since 93.

11. Huge 2000 drum’n’bass hit, which was key in setting up the possibility of the genre as chart pop thereafter. Fun fact: Kosheen singer Sian Evans lived in the same north Wales new age traveller encampment as techno producer Mark Hawkins aka Marquis Hawkes in the mid 90s.

12. It’s actually “Feel Good TV Off”, from 2007, and it’s mental.

13. Punctuation was, it seems, compulsory for the bolshy, spiky electronically enhanced indie bands that made up the nu rave scene of the mid 00s.

14. The siren like lead noise on Klaxons’ “Atlantis to Interzone”. Hilariously the band’s record label has commented on the official YouTube clip thus: “This song symbolizes many things for many different people. From a time when anything could become a hit song to annoying the hell out of music teachers with the DJ button on school keyboards. Either way, Polydor loves it has it symbolizes just straight forward good music.”

15. People at Super Super magazine genuinely did wear multiple hats. Nu rave was a hell of a drug.

16. Nottingham musician Matt Cutler, who was another joiner-of-dots, crucial in bringing old school rave euphoria and 90s electronica bliss-outs into the post-dubstep generation - he sampled on Azealia Banks’s debut EP, and Sherelle herself remixed him last year.

17. It’s “Make em Run” and it’s a beast.

18. Welsh drum’n’bass superstar who helped make shiny, anthem d’n’b the de facto soundtrack for festivals for each new generation coming through in the 21st century.

19. Also referred to as “post dubstep” or occasionally “bass music”, around the turn of the 2010s, this was experimental but slick and groovy 130bpm that bridged the gap from dubstep and grime into the house and techno world, using the common factor of love of UK garage shuffle. It wold make superstars out of the likes of SBTRKT, James Blake, Jessie Ware and more.

20. The “Dem Bow Riddim” from 1992 was a foundational backing track in modern dancehall, then became the backbone of the reggaetón style which spread out from Panama through Puerto Rico to the rest of the Latin world. “Dembow” has since become a shorthand for dancehall syncopation, notably in uptempo music, which is being made in Brazil, Colombia, and all over, really.

21. A fairly loose term, but generally refers to the zone in between Chicagoan ghetto house and footworking.

22. All of these names have to some degree been around the block in the UK drum’n’bass scene - Doc Scott in particular’s career going back 30+ years to the very beginning of the rave explosion - but all are continuing to innovate at these high tempos.

23. The British-Australian writer and “reformed academic” is a powerhouse in intersectional politics, bringing a forceful wit to publications like The Feminist Killjoy and A Complainer’s Handbook.

24. 4Hero’s legendary label, which I wrote a guide to here.

25. Archetypal sensationalist youth drama of the 00s, went hand in hand with nu rave or scene kid culture.

26. It clearly didn’t cause a rift as the UK funky legend provided a track for the BEAUTIFUL compilation.

27. Founded by Sports Direct heir Ollie Ashley, Radar Radio was the diametric opposite of Reprezent’s community-oriented approach, and was an attempt to buy a way into multicultural hip cachet. It started quite excitingly, but did not end well.

28. The French producer’s tune is archetypal future garage / post-dubstep.

29. You can just about see me skulking in the shadows during the legendary 2014 set if you squint.

30. Actually a set by several of the Teklife crew including DJ Manny, RP Boo and DJ Spine, but kicking off with Rashad.

31. An extraordinarily accomplished DJ in her own right in an ultramodernist style.

32. Arguably the high water mark of diva house.

33. It really was a moment. JUST LOOK. Boiler Room has often had a negative reputation for stuffy hipster crowds, but to see the energy from a crowd this diverse, with women up front to boot, is still spine tingling stuff. You can see the slight disbelief, but also sense of absolute triumph, written into Sherelle’s face in this clip.

34. The XL / Beggars Banquet affiliated label then known as Young Turks.

35. That early 2019 Boiler Room performance while triumphant created the kind of over-revved social media discourse that could have swamped a lesser DJ, but Sherelle powered through by 1) keeping her composure and, crucially, 2) smashing the living daylights out of every rave and radio show she played through that year. It was one of the most meteoric rises of the modern age.

36. The Dutch rave style, founded in the 90s by Caribbean-Dutch DJs speeding up dancehall instrumentals to play alongside Dutch house.

37. Nia Archives, Leeds-via-Manchester producer, DJ and singer who is currently taking old school jungle stratospheric.

38. Happy hardcore legends, tonking it out since day one.

39. Vibert grew up in Cornwall around many of Aphex Twin’s Rephlex Crew and has been impossibly prolific over the years making rave, jungle, acid, trip hop, disco and a million other variants of underground sound.