American-Armenian Art-Rap Duo Samuum on Coffee Cup Reading and Asking Questions Through Music

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American-Armenian art-rap duo Samuum was founded by filmmaker and musician Ando Berberian and vocalist Lusine Kocharian, but the project really began with an accident.

During a rehearsal, a heavily delayed vocal effect transformed Kocharian's voice into what she describes as "a witch screaming somewhere in the middle of a desert." In that unexpected moment, the pair realised they had stumbled across the sound they'd been searching for after years of playing in other bands together.

Blending rap, punk, rave and Middle Eastern musical traditions, Samuum write songs shaped by the realities of life across the region, where conflict, displacement and uncertainty exist alongside everyday rituals that endure.

Their latest single, Coffee Cup Reading (Yaman, Pt.2), takes inspiration from the tradition of reading fortunes from coffee grounds, exploring how ordinary customs can become a source of comfort when little else feels certain.

For readers discovering Samuum for the first time, how would you describe the band, and what inspired you to create this project together?

You know, first of all, Samuum is the band we always dreamed of having when we were teenagers.

When I was young, I always imagined a band that felt incredibly powerful—something with the raw energy of System of a Down at its core—but at the same time something sophisticated and spiritual, almost like Krishna Das.

Before Samuum, Ando and I had played in quite a few bands together. They were good bands, but none of them ever felt complete.
Everything changed when we started working on what would eventually become Samuum. We didn't even have the name yet back then. I still remember the day we wrote our very first song, Asel. It happened completely by accident.

During one rehearsal, we accidentally put these long, distorted vocal delays on my voice while I was singing in Armenian. Suddenly I sounded like a witch screaming somewhere in the middle of a desert—and definitely not like the proper jazz singer I'd always been.
It may sound naïve, but that was the moment we realised we'd found something very special—almost like the universal language we'd been looking for to communicate with people.

Your new single Coffee Cup Reading (Yaman, Pt.2) explores anxiety through the tradition of reading coffee grounds. What's the story behind the song, and why did this feel like the right way to tell it?  

You know, we're from the Middle East, and here almost nothing lasts forever.
Governments change, wars begin, borders move—it's simply part of the daily routine here. Everything around you can disappear overnight.

The only things that seem immortal are the everyday traditions: making coffee, smoking a cigarette together on the balcony, reading coffee grounds with your grandmother, eating khash (a traditional Armenian pork soup) with apricot vodka during family gatherings.
Also weddings! And taking out bank loans to make them huge! All these things may seem insignificant at first glance, but in reality they're the only things that truly last. They're the pillars that hold everything together when everything bigger falls apart.  

Coffee Cup Reading is completely about that insight.
Musically, we also wanted the song to reflect what life here actually feels like. It begins almost playfully, almost peacefully... and then suddenly explodes in the chorus.

You've spoken about coffee cup reading as a ritual that brings comfort during uncertain times. Are there other traditions or everyday rituals that help keep you grounded?

Lusine: Definitely ayahuasca. (laughs) I do it often enough to consider it a ritual.
I've had some incredibly powerful experiences with it. It felt like meeting my ancestors, confronting parts of myself I'd never understood before, and opening a completely new chapter in my life.

Ando: I'm much less mystical. I just do 40–50 push-ups a day. I also do them in the middle of any boring process—while a track is rendering, while a video is rendering, or even in the middle of a dumb date.
Looks like I've found the ultimate cure for boredom.

Your music brings together Middle Eastern influences with rap, punk, rave and electronic music. How did you find a sound that reflects both your heritage and your own artistic identity?

We grew up listening to bands like Blink-182, Nine Inch Nails, The Cure and Radiohead. Later we discovered more experimental artists like Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Lou Reed and The Mars Volta…

The interesting thing is that most of the music we loved had one thing in common: it wasn't giving answers—it was asking questions. We think that's the best approach when it comes to complicated topics in art, like heritage, traditions or identity.

We were constantly trying to understand ourselves and everything we saw around us in our society and in the Middle East in general. So we wanted to find a musical language that could fully reflect that constant state of questioning. That's how we ended up packaging Samuum's vision of life into punk, noise and rave.

We were also sonically shaped by a couple of random but incredibly powerful events. The first was a Young Fathers concert in Kyiv back in 2015. It was probably one of the most intense concerts we've ever experienced. Everyone was sweating, everything felt tribal and incredibly human.

The second was Yasmin Hamdan's album Ya Nass. Those two experiences made us jealous—in the best possible way. We thought, "We want to sound like this. We want to jump on stage like this."

You've spoken about giving a voice to emotions that often go unspoken, particularly for women in Armenian culture. Why is creating space for those conversations so important to you?

Because I think artists have something many people don't—the chance to be heard. And that's both a privilege and a responsibility. The people we write about often don't have the opportunity to express everything they're carrying inside.
So I feel responsible for translating those emotions. I've always seen myself as some kind of transmitter.

I grew up in Armenia during the difficult years of the 1990s. There was war. No electricity. No gas. No water. Cold. Darkness. And I grew up surrounded by incredibly strong women carrying enormous responsibility while many men were away at war. I saw women who lacked opportunities, security and emotional support. I've carried those experiences with me ever since.

So in many ways I feel like those women are still speaking through me. I'm simply trying to give shape to emotions that were always there.

Many artists worry about being "too political" or "too personal". Have you ever felt pressure to tone down your message, and how do you stay true to your voice?

We've definitely been criticized. But honestly, we've received much more love than hate.

I think that's because we don't present difficult topics aggressively. Mostly through irony. And, you know, it's much harder to argue against something said through irony than against something said through aggression.

Networking can feel intimidating, especially for emerging artists. What's the best networking advice you've ever received?

One of the best conversations we ever had was with Tony Duckworth. He was one of the heads of PIAS, and unfortunately he passed away shortly after Covid.

We met him at a music conference in Kyiv. At that point, getting signed to a label felt like the ultimate goal. We kept, probably quite annoyingly, insisting that industry professionals listen to our music.

Tony listened to our music carefully, said a couple of warm words about our songwriting, and then added:

"Guys, don't chase a label. Chase joy. Play more shows, make more videos, and we'll find you much faster than you think." 

We didn't leave with a record deal that day.
But we left with something far more valuable: a huge boost of confidence and much stronger self-esteem.

Thank you, Tony.

What's one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you first started making music?

Now that I'm getting closer to my mid-thirties, I realise I've probably lost quite a lot of time. Nobody ever told me how deeply success is connected to faith.
I grew up hearing things like: "Try it first. See if it works. But even if it works, keep a backup plan. Better yet, get yourself a good 9-to-5."

Today I think completely differently. If you genuinely feel that music is your calling—if every part of your soul resonates with it—don't wait until you're thirty to commit. Commit while you're still seventeen.

Don't split your energy between five different careers out of fear.Go all in.
I really wish someone had told me that with enough confidence back then.

Maybe that's one of the reasons why I regret never reading the Bible properly.
Because that advice has been there for two thousand years already. It says:

"According to your faith, it shall be done unto you."

Isis Salvaterra on Building a Sustainable Career in Electronic Music

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For more than two decades, Isis Salvaterra has built a career that spans artist management, events, coaching and consultancy, establishing herself as a familiar figure within London's underground electronic music community and beyond.

As the founder of Toi Toi Musik, she oversees a platform encompassing artist management, events and a record label, while through ISCoaching she works with artists, creatives and professionals from around the world, combining cognitive behavioural coaching with years of experience working across the music industry.

Alongside her work with Toi Toi, Salvaterra has contributed to projects including Club Guesthouse in Bucharest, Trommel and fabric's international touring programme, while also leading charitable initiatives that have brought the electronic music community together to support humanitarian causes.

Underpinning much of her work is an academic background in Psychology, Sociology, Politics and Ethnomusicology, disciplines that continue to inform her approach to coaching, artist development and community building.

You originally studied Psychology, Sociology, Politics, and later Ethnomusicology before fully moving into music. What first drew you into electronic music culture and the industry itself?

Dancing. I grew up in Brazil, surrounded by an incredibly rich musical culture, and I’ve been dancing since I was five years old. Samba, Lambada, Salsa, Forró, Merengue—you name it. The only dance I never pursued was Tango. It requires an extraordinary level of discipline, much like ballet. As a child, my sister was placed in ballet classes while I was sent to jazz dance. Looking back, that made perfect sense. I was always a little looser, freer, and less suited to highly structured environments.

Alongside dancing, I always loved bringing people together. I rarely went to a party without a large group of friends, and I was constantly organising school events and social gatherings. In many ways, community-building and celebration were already part of my life long before I entered the music industry. Electronic music simply became the place where all of those passions naturally converged.

You’ve worked across artist management, touring, events, coaching, charity initiatives, PR, and consultancy. How did you build such a multi-layered career across different areas of the music industry?

The truth is, it was never intentional. I’m an extremely curious person, and I’m also a doer. Those two traits alone probably explain most of my career. I’ve always been the person asking “why?”, and dance music is a remarkably multidisciplinary ecosystem. Every aspect of it is interconnected; artists, audiences, promoters, venues, media, technology, culture—they all depend on one another. I find that fascinating.

Having an academic background also gave me a broad set of skills and ways of thinking that translated across different roles, regardless of the subject I happened to be studying at the time. The deeper I became involved in dance music, the more opportunities emerged to contribute in different ways. One thing naturally led to another.

Most importantly, none of these roles were part of a master plan. By the time I officially took on a title, I had usually been doing the work unofficially for years already. In the end, they are just job titles, and I’ve never been particularly attached to them.

You’ve been deeply connected to London’s underground electronic music scene and spaces like fabric for over two decades. How have you seen underground culture evolve during that time?

Yes and no.

In some ways, the fundamentals have remained remarkably consistent. People are still searching for connection, discovery, belonging, and transcendence through music. Those motivations haven't changed.

What has changed is the environment around the culture. Technology, social media, the attention economy, and shifts in nightlife infrastructure have all transformed how scenes are built and experienced.

We are living through a particularly unusual period right now—one that I hope is transitional. There is a growing tension between community and consumption, between culture and content. It will be interesting to see where the balance settles in the coming years.

Through Toi Toi, Club Guesthouse, fabric tours, and Trommel, you’ve helped shape communities around music. What do you think makes a music community genuinely sustainable and long-lasting?

The simple answer is that it remains a community rather than becoming purely transactional.

People stay because they feel a sense of belonging, not because they are being sold something. Sustainable communities are built on shared values, trust, contribution, and meaningful relationships. The moment everything becomes a transaction, the social fabric starts to disappear. Music may bring people together initially, but it is the human connections that keep communities alive over time.

Networking is such a major part of the music industry. What practical advice would you give to emerging artists, managers, or promoters trying to build authentic relationships and connections?

Networking is often misunderstood because people treat it as a task rather than a natural extension of participation.

I often give my mentees this example: you can wake up on a Monday morning and spend hours doing Discogs research, which can feel like another item on your to-do list. Or you can find yourself at an afterparty, jumping into a spontaneous b2b2b2b session with several artists, sharing music, stories, and ideas. By the end of the night, your knowledge has expanded far beyond what you might have discovered alone, and you've built genuine human connections in the process.

The point is not that one approach is better than the other, but that relationships are often where the richest learning happens. The music industry is ultimately a people industry. Curiosity, participation, generosity, and genuine engagement will take you much further than approaching networking as a purely strategic exercise.

Many people struggle to balance creativity, career pressure, and mental health in the music industry. What inspired you to launch ISCoaching, and what are some of the biggest challenges you see creatives facing today?

ISCoaching was launched during the pandemic at Electronic Beats - see video here. At the time, I was living between London and Bucharest, I was working at Club Guesthouse. When you spend time in a cultural environment shaped by the legacy of an oppressive system such as communism, you begin to understand many of the psychosocial behaviours that emerge from collective and intergenerational trauma.

For artists to truly express themselves, they first need the freedom to do so. Part of our work, therefore, is helping people identify and remove the barriers created by past experiences, conditioning, and trauma, allowing their creativity and authentic selves to emerge more freely.

Today, I work with clients all over the world, both within and outside the creative industries. One of the most common challenges I encounter is the fear of disapproval. We live in a highly visual and hyper-documented world where so much attention is directed towards the self. This constant exposure often leads people to become overly subjective and self-critical.

For creatives in particular, learning to view their work more objectively is essential. It allows them to separate their identity from their output, develop healthier self-assessment, build confidence, and avoid becoming trapped in cycles of overthinking. In many cases, the greatest obstacle to creativity is not a lack of talent, but the inability to trust oneself.

For artists or creatives trying to approach brands, festivals, or platforms for opportunities, what makes someone stand out professionally today?

If we're talking specifically about festivals, agency representation remains one of the primary routes to securing bookings. Agencies have the networks, relationships, and infrastructure to ensure an artist's work reaches the right promoters, programmers, and decision-makers.

That said, when it comes to building a lasting career and becoming part of a community, I still believe the most effective approach is the most human one. Being present, participating in the culture, sharing music, exchanging ideas, and genuinely engaging with people remains invaluable. The strongest opportunities often emerge organically through relationships built over time rather than through cold outreach alone.

In electronic music especially, credibility is still rooted in participation. People can tell when someone truly loves the culture and contributes to it, versus when they are simply trying to extract opportunities from it. Human interaction, musical exchange, and a genuine passion for the scene continue to be some of the most powerful differentiators a creative can have.

Finally, after more than 20 years in music and culture, what advice would you give to younger creatives trying to build a meaningful and sustainable career in the industry?

First, understand that DJing is a craft. It requires skill, knowledge, experience, sensitivity, and patience. It is a far more complex art form than simply beatmatching records or selecting "bombs" for the dancefloor.

One thing I would like to see more often in younger artists is the confidence to step back when necessary rather than constantly pushing forward. There is value in observing, learning, listening, and allowing things to develop organically. Not every opportunity needs to be chased, and not every door needs to be forced open.

There are also two principles that I have always considered essential. First: never self-praise. Let your work speak for itself. Second: never ask for gigs. Instead, focus on showing your work in a way that naturally demonstrates your value and contribution. How you do that is part of the journey each artist must discover for themselves.

Ultimately, a sustainable career is built on substance rather than visibility. Focus on developing your taste, your knowledge, your relationships, and your understanding of the culture. Recognition may come and go, but those foundations will stay with you throughout your entire career.

Isis Salvaterra on Instagram | ISCoaching

Palestinian Cultural Practitioner Christina Hazboun on Documenting the World Through Sound

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Christina Hazboun by Samar Hazboun in the olive groves

Christina Hazboun is a Palestinian writer, researcher, curator and cultural practitioner whose work explores the relationship between music, sound, memory and place. Working across journalism, radio, research and cultural production, she has become one of the leading voices documenting musical cultures from Palestine and the wider SWANA (South West Asia and North Africa) region, while championing artists and stories that have long existed beyond mainstream music narratives.

As the founder of The Sonic Agent, Hazboun has developed an interdisciplinary platform that brings together writing, broadcasting, curation and artist development to examine sound not simply as culture, but as a form of documentation, resistance and collective memory. Her work asks what music, field recordings and everyday listening can reveal about a place that words or images alone often cannot, preserving sonic histories that risk being forgotten or erased. Alongside her independent practice, she serves as UK Project Manager for Keychange at PRS Foundation, where she works to advance greater equity and intersectionality across the international music industry.

Hazboun's writing has appeared in publications including The Guardian, The Quietus, Bandcamp Daily, The New Arab and Middle East Eye, while her audio work has been broadcast by platforms such as Stegi Radio and Radio AlHara. Whether documenting contemporary Palestinian music, producing soundwalks through Bethlehem and Jerusalem, or supporting artists from across the SWANA region, her work consistently returns to a central question: who gets to tell cultural histories, and how might listening offer another way of understanding them?

You've worked across writing, research, radio, curation and cultural production. What first drew you to working with music and sound as a way of telling stories?

The “first” is an interesting starting point, but life is a series of sparks that make one big fire, so pinpointing that one spark isn’t easy. I was lucky to grow up in Bethlehem, in a household surrounded by music, radio, books and research. I remember that one of the most intriguing books I picked up as a 10 year old was a book on Sumerian legends that had references to a story similar to Noah’s arch, but was much older. The Sumerians developed one of the world’s oldest writing systems and when you grow up in a city like Bethlehem, Palestine and you have to go to church every morning at school, and sing songs based on Biblical stories, you start to question the preservation of history and the importance of writing and song in carrying those moments forth. 

Then there was the whole reality that we were immersed in: the constant listening to radio before the advent of digital media and mobile phones for news updates to understand if there are incursions, curfews or other events unfolding, in addition to the omnipresence of music in our house and my immediate surrounding: my mother would play the piano and teach us to play; one of my extended uncles had a band and we would gather around to listen to their music. There were also weddings and engagements, in addition to social occasions and celebrations which were THE moment to dance and celebrate life in moments of calm. Palestinian society in the end is a mediterranean society that loves life, music and joy, it’s just that we’ve been unfortunate to be colonized for so long, that grief plays a big part in our lives. 

preparing for soundwalking in Bethlehem photo by Nadir Mauj

I remember being 4 or 5 and seeing a keyboardist at an engagement party whose synth riffs were just ecstatic. As I was dancing and watching him play, one of my aunts told me that he was blind, which made me think about how he perceives the world around him. 

So my practice became an accumulation of all those sensory experiences that I was surrounded by, but most of them were “produced” by male bodied people. I wanted to see women write and tell our histories and stories too and I thought that instead of convincing someone else to do it, I can give it a go. 

Many precious souls encouraged me to expand my knowledge and practice along the way. Two important people in terms of writing were Professor of Cultural and Political Theory at the University of East London  Jeremy Jilbert and Scottish Pakistani journalist  and senior producer Zab Mustefa. In terms of radio and audio, it was Caspar Melville, may he rest in power, who deepened my knowledge of audio work, in addition to professor emeritus Angela Impey who drew my attention to deeper layers of listening. 

The Sonic Agent has become a platform for amplifying voices and sonic histories that are often overlooked or erased. What inspired you to create it?

I had been working in the music industry for a while and I was noticing who would be given visibility and who wouldn’t. I saw how women bodied people were more humble and shy about their rights (payments, line-up order, etc.) in comparison to male-bodied counterparts and how patriarchal the industry was, with elements of patronizing and domination which I wasn’t comfortable with. I decided to move from the seat of the spectator to the person who does something about it. One of my early steps came when I was studying at SOAS where I took a course on Broadcasting and discovered that SOAS Radio had no programmes dedicated to music from South West Asia and North Africa. So I decided to start a radio show which I called DanDana podcast and invite a couple of friends to join me. I had been inspired by the work done on the Palestine Broadcast Service, which was founded in Palestine in 1936 by the British “Mandate” and was acutely aware that we need to have our own platforms through which we tell the stories of our music and the radio became one of those mediums.

When I started writing my thesis on the Palestinian contemporary music scene I was reading Fanon and Brandon LaBelle and the concepts of “agency” kept popping up, and I pondered how voice and sound are important in making spaces for our demands. I made a conscious decision to listen to more women throughout my research, because of the challenges they were facing. This was all happening before 2020, and then in 2021 the May Uprising erupted, when many Palestinians went into the streets of Sheikh Jarrah to protect the home of Mohammed and Muna El-Kurd and 27 Palestinian families from being displaced. At the time people on the streets were using their voices, chants, singing, clapping and noise to counter the military industrial violence and I was documenting those sonic acts through my diaries and recordings. This all culminated in my piece Sonic Strategies in the Palestinian Struggle – A Soundtrack of the May 2021 Uprising in Palestine. 

Christina Hazboun and Etaf at Worldwide FM studio - Phot by Pedro Montenegro

In parallel I started working with Palestinian singer Terez Sliman and we were planning tours and performances across Europe and I also worked with Rasha Nahas and Bashar Murad and I saw the practical implementation of voice, gender and music through pushing back at the music industry via different means whether that is at soundchecks where as a woman bodied person I am often treated as though I have no idea about technology, or with techriders and hospitality riders where certain equipment, products, foods and beverages assume a deeper meaning than their use in the performance. Take for example a hospitality rider and the constant assumption that everyone drinks alcohol, or the provision of “hummus” without thinking who has made it. Little details can make a difference. 

When I noticed that most pieces written about music from our part of the world were written “about” us and often through a lens that doesn’t accurately reflect reality, I decided to start writing on music as well. Bandcamp have been very supportive and have often provided a great space for me to write through my eclectic taste. 

And then there were the more practical elements of working with touring artists where you need to demand that your boundaries are respected within festivals and venues whether we’re talking about booking travel at reasonable hours to be mindful towards the artist and their crew, or thinking of the safety of artists who are performing from multiple perspectives that are outside of the Anglo-European-music industry norms, especially when it comes to Palestinian artists. 

The last few years since 2023 were especially difficult, in terms of festivals and spaces for music trying to impose restrictions and censoring Palestinian voices. And those forms of censorship can be very mellow and mild, from asking you kindly to “say things differently” (i.e. asking me not to be clearly outspoken) or having to “check if it’s safe” for festivals and events for me or the artists I worked with to speak out about what was being done to our people. But I’m glad that many people have been brave enough and have been speaking out against injustice, because as Audre Lorde says “Your silence will not protect you”. 

Much of your work explores Palestine through music, sound and listening. What can sound reveal about a place or a community that words alone sometimes can't?

Not only words, but also images can’t reveal certain elements that sound and music can. I think that there is something more honest and raw about sound than images and words, and this is why I like to collect field-recordings. Music, sound and listening activate inner senses that make space for internal reflections and freedom of imagination, while also revealing smaller nuances about the person or the place “speaking”. Take for example my soundwalk essays Echoes of Space and listen to the soundwalk of Jerusalem.

You will hear the sounds of Old Jerusalem’s streets bustling and busy with people, you will “overhear” the stories of passers-by and flaneurs who will enter your listening sphere so naturally without posing, because those moments were not staged nor orchestrated. They reflect the “crude” reality without much beautification and they reflect moments and sounds that are now gone and the reality is completely different. A hundred years from now, what would the city sound like? Not many people are keeping an “ear” on those changes of space and place. Since 2021 more people have become aware of the importance of sound and have been focusing on it, but there is still a lot to say about listening and the changing of sounds, spaces and souls all around. 

Christina Hazboun at Stegi Radio

If anyone is interested in listening to soundwalks, then I’d invite “listeners” to lend their ears to THIS soundwalk cum live broadcast that I did with fellow Bethlehemite artist Nadir Mauj as we walked from Checkpoint 300, through the Islamic cemetery and into the Aida Refugee camp. We move through our ancestral geographies shaped by division and displacement, where multiple layers of cyclical time collide. It was important for me to document our walking through sound as a form of connection and embodied archive. 

In a more recent experimental writing project titled “Sonic Evocations of the Visual” which appears in the publication Trigger #6 Assemblies I have worked with five Palestinian photographers to “listen through images” following Tina Campt’s theories. By exploring the layers of the imaginatively heard, audibly forecast and silenced, I dug into deeper histories and times of the five spaces: Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Gaza, Tul Karem and Nur Shams refugee camp to explore the stories that those images tell us. So for example the photo from Gaza is of fishermen who have been banned from entering the sea to practice tjhe centuries old craft of fishing. This was often accompanied by signing up until the late 1960s, then two things happened: motorboats arrived and the rise of the Islamist tide which both changed the nature and volume of singing. The recent genocide has obviously silenced the fishermen, and the naturally silent fish as well! 

Music on the other hand makes stories easier to tell and digest. Take for example the work and lyrics of Kuwaiti artist Etaf with whom I have also worked. On “Don’t Call Me Baby”  Etaf uses cultural references from both the Arabic-speaking world and Britain to portray the spirit of love and relationships, as well as the playful, vibrant world they seek to blend through the inter-cultural and interdisciplinary practice in a pretty unique musical expression bringing in gulf rhythms with pop aesthetics with a London sound. Music can add playfulness and light-heartedness to the heavier and more serious matters that we face in this world and that we sometimes can't express as bluntly as we would like to. 

No matter what, words are important in preserving and passing on practices, experiences and memories, especially when it comes to music. Dear friend and festival director of Beirut and Beyond International Music Festival Amani Semaan has also been aware of this in addition to the scarcity of writers on music and sound in the Arabic speaking world, so she and her colleague Yara Mrad invited me and French scholar Pierre France to develop a bespoke writing workshop that we called The Craft of Writing About Music & Sound for the community in Beirut. Our work documented live events and musics which were part of the festival’s programming and the outcome was a beautiful series of written pieces by Lebanese writers documenting their own scene. So much more work is needed in that regard.

As UK Project Manager for Keychange, you've helped shape conversations around equity and representation across the music industry. What changes have you been most encouraged by, and where do you think there's still the most work to do?

Keychange have been one of the pioneering gender equity initiatives in music since their inception in 2017. From inviting festivals to achieve a 50/50 gender balance to actively encouraging conferences to programme more gender-diverse acts, Keychange have made a mark on the landscape of the music industries through the collaborative work of several unique individuals from across Europe. I took over the project in the UK from Francine Gorman in 2023 and have tried in cooperation with my colleagues to make many changes in terms of how we operate the Pledge.

One of the first things I set off doing based on the Action Plan was to raise more awareness of intersectional dimensions. The ecosystems within the music industries differs widely between different geographies in Europe and Canada and the way we have been engaged with festivals through programming our acts and planning our presence has given us space to encourage critical thinking and widening of perspectives in an ever evolving and shifting climate.

The Pledge workshops sessions at different festivals are there to invite more music industry bodies to self-monitor their gender and intersectional “music operations” no matter what they are; whether that means programming at festivals or radio stations, or designing their websites and newsletters. Language also plays a huge part in how we remain inclusive and accessible. The current Keychange Leaders project aims to equip women and gender diverse people in leadership positions to take the lead within their fields to create a more equitable future.

That said, there are many brilliant initiatives that have been around since then like shesaid.so and We Make Noise in addition to the many who have emerged since We Are The Unheard, Amplify Her Voice, Arte Sonica Amplificada (Brazil), Ruidosa (Chile/Global LatAm) or The Leading Vibe Initiative (Nigeria). In the Arabic speaking world there was Jidariyya and there are more recent and mainstream initiatives, but the grassroots ecosystem of music and gender-equity seems to be often driven by artists and their supporting networks as opposed to more formal initiatives, which actually highlights the importance of collaborative and cooperative work across the violence of borders, hegemony and patriarchy, especially in these times. 

For someone interested in working across research, curation and cultural programming, where would you recommend they begin?

Networking can feel intimidating, especially when you're entering the industry without existing connections. What's the best networking advice you've ever received, or the tip that's helped you most throughout your career?

Networking can have many aims and connotations, but personally I feel like there is nothing better than a genuine connection with the person who is standing in front of you. We all have stories and experiences to share, and it is fascinating to listen to people’s experiences if they are willing to share. I would say, first and foremost “show up”. Someone once said “80% of success is showing up”. It took me a while to understand what it means, but it is actually the act of being present that takes the most effort, and then what follows next is in the hands of the universe. 

Bodies of Sound (Becoming a Feminist Ear) book launch at Cafe Oto

I would say always remain genuine and curious and don’t be afraid to ask and introduce yourself. Most people are nice and happy to talk about their work and what they’re doing and you can find common interests or questions that ignite your interest.

I have come across some people (especially men) who would initially brush me aside as “less senior” or “foreign” (whether it’s my accent or the way I look, some people can make funny comments like “So, what “extraction” are you?” in an attempt to understand where I come from) but that is all about their own perceptions and insecurities or preferences and that doesn’t affect who I am (or who you, as a person trying to make it in the music industry are).

So I would say just remain nice and curious and if a situation is uncomfortable you can walk away. 

The most valuable advice I received though was from Martin Goldschmitt, founder of Cooking Vinyl and co-founder of Palestine Music Expo who told me once when I was thinking about starting The Sonic Agent that I should just do what I want to do and keep doing it. He said that everything will follow after. It’s also in line with one of my favourite quotes by Rumi which says “What you seek is seeking you”. 

What's one piece of advice you wish someone had given you when you were starting out?

I have recently delivered a mentoring session to a beautiful group of womxn from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbeijan who are taking part in the Empowering Women in The Music Industries initiative Music Export Georgia co-founded by Keychange alumni Mariam Karalashvili-Laan and Salome Vardanashvil and your question resonates with questions I received from women who took part in the session. There is a lot of advice to share though, as the music industries are a wild space and not always “safe”.

We still need to talk about the multi-layered inequalities that prevail due to dominance, but the most important advice is to trust your “gut” instinct and always follow your heart. Check in with yourself and see if the person you’re dealing with is genuine, caring and aligns with your values.

I often see women making compromises in order to make it in the industry, while men are more ready to challenge the status quo (especially when it comes to payments).  And to be honest, it is important that we try to stay true to our values and aspirations, despite all the challenges and always ask for what we need. If someone can’t provide that, then check in with yourself and see how that aligns with where you’re heading. 

Listening Session at Linecheck 2024 with Claudio Biazzetti.

What are you listening to at the moment?

I’m listening to a wildly eclectic selection of musics. I often try to keep my “ear to the ground” and so have been listening to Palestinian artist Ahmed Eid’s latest album “min ghazzeh la baghdad min haifa la beirut من غزة لبغداد من حيفا لبيروت. I really like the track ilhilm y’oud الحلم يعود (The dream returns). Ahmed has been doing amazing work with The Palestine Music Space in Ramallah working with emerging artists and sharing his experience with people on the ground. 

I have also had the opportunity to have a sneak-listen to Belgian-Tunisian artist, DJ, composer Sara Dziri’s upcoming EP “Sacred Disorientations” which is coming out on her newly launched record label SILT on the 4th of September. She has so far released one track titled “Aziyar” and the whole EP has a very spiritual feel that transitions from spiritual beliefs to moving bodies on the dancefloor. 

Given my latest work within Keychange and PRS Foundation on the Music Export Georgia project I have also had the opportunity to “listen in” to a wide range of musics from Georgia, Armenia and Azerbeijan. I have been finding the work and compositions of Lusine MLKE-Galstyan with her band Tiezerk really compelling and soothing. I especially found “Zartir” from their 2024 album “To Me or To You” moving. 

Christina Hazboun on Instagram | LinkedIn | The Sonic Agent

Via Perkins on Brand Marketing, Artist Support and Building Better Music Businesses

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Via Perkins is a music marketing leader, independent artist and community advocate whose career spans brand services, startups and music-tech. Currently serving as Marketing Lead at Fave and SVP of Content & Community Marketing at Feeture, she previously helped lead international content marketing at CD Baby, one of the most influential names in independent music distribution.

Alongside her work in marketing, Via releases music as vialiveshere and is a frequent speaker, moderator and mentor, having contributed to organisations and events including Women In Music, The Digilogue, jump.global and Music Biz. Known for her perspective on the distinction between artist and brand marketing, she is also a vocal advocate for greater investment in women- and minority-led music businesses. In this interview, Via shares insights on music marketing, networking, creativity, artist support and building a more sustainable future for the music industry.

You’ve worked across legacy music companies, startups, artist marketing, and brand strategy while also being an independent artist yourself. How did your journey into music marketing first begin?

I entered music brand marketing by way of writing. I’ve been journaling since I could hold a pencil, and started writing songs in middle school. It felt like a natural skill to build a career on once I graduated college, and I thought I would “make it” when I landed a full-time role as a writer, but once I got there, I realized there was plenty more I wanted to explore. That’s what led me to apply to the Senior Communications & Content Marketing role at CD Baby. As a CD Baby artist myself for over a decade, it was the perfect fit in terms of alignment and mission.

Photo credit: Stephanie Heath

You often speak about the difference between artist marketing and brand marketing — two areas that are frequently treated as the same thing. What are the biggest misunderstandings you see in the industry around this?

Whenever I meet someone new in the industry, I always clarify that I’m a brand marketer rather than an artist marketer, because people always assume it’s the latter. It’s understandable, because artist marketing is considered one of the “sexier” paths in music, and many folks looking to get into music want to work with their favorite musicians.

Lots of people aren’t even aware that the brand marketing path in music exists — and how cool it is. What I love most is the scalability aspect. Instead of working on individual artist campaigns, if you get to work with a company that has a great product and values, ideally the result is a better industry for many artists and music workers.

3 tips for emerging professionals who want to work in music marketing but don’t know where to start.

Tip #1: Learn as much as you can about the different types of music companies, nonprofits, and startups that exist. The more you understand about how the industry works at large, the more equipped you’ll be to discover what interests you and what area you might like to work in.

Tip #2: Once you’ve narrowed that down, check out virtual or in-person events that are held by those organizations  (if they exist) to take a deeper dive, and potentially meet members of the team — just remember to be respectful of them and their time if you get the chance to chat one-on-one.

Tip #3: Once you’re ready to apply for roles, make sure that your LinkedIn profile and portfolio showcases why you’re the right choice to elevate a music brand, whether that’s through spec work, freelance work, or personal projects.

Networking can feel overwhelming. What advice would you give to people trying to build meaningful professional relationships?

First, remember it’s totally normal to feel overwhelmed within a group of people, especially ones you don’t know. Everybody in the room, regardless of how long they’ve been in the industry, is more than likely feeling some nervousness or self-consciousness.

One thing that can help you ease into networking is to first seek out a group of people who have similar work or lived experiences to you. For instance, join a Women In Music event and speak to other women about what it’s like to navigate music.

Or, if you have a tech background, join a music tech event to meet other folks that are building in that space. It makes it a bit easier to break the ice when you’re first starting out.

You’ve spoken openly about the funding gap facing women and minority-led music businesses. What structural changes do you think the industry still urgently needs to make?

My answer to this is twofold: First, creating networks of marginalized professionals in music that enable us to support each other in every way — from hiring and financially investing in each other, to making meaningful intros across different parts of the industry, and more — will shore us up when difficulties like economic downturns and layoffs inevitably arise. Second, we need more allies to hold folks in our industry accountable to bridge that gap.

If you’re not a marginalized person, consider what you can do personally to support a minority-owned music company or colleague, and follow through. This could be anything from connecting marginalized business owners to potential sources of funding, to ensuring a music industry panel you’re putting together is diverse, to just sending a word of praise or encouragement to someone of a different identity than you who is killing it in the business.

As someone balancing leadership roles, public speaking, community work, and your own music project, how do you protect your creativity and avoid burnout?

It’s challenging for sure, and I don’t have it all figured out. Lately, I’ve been wanting to prioritize my creative work more, because I can’t get the visions and sounds of what I want to release and how I want to release it out of my head.

One thing I’ve learned this year is that my physical surroundings matter when it comes to making music; for instance, it’s hard for me to focus in a space that’s small or cluttered. Sometimes I go out to a cafe to switch things up, stretch my legs, and refocus on what’s important that day, whether that’s music or something else.

You’ve worked both inside established companies like CD Baby and within newer startup environments. What are the biggest differences between those worlds, especially when it comes to innovation and artist support?

There are usually big differences, both in the responsibilities you take on as a marketer, and in the ways you think about and drive success for the business. First, music companies have diverse target audiences — some may be selling to artists, some to other music companies, some to companies or creators outside the music space.

That means providing artist support may be key for one company, but not for another. And, if you’re working for a startup, you’re more than likely creating or scaling something that hasn’t been built yet. An environment like that typically requires more innovation than an established brand, and there are both challenges and exciting aspects that come with a business at that stage.

Your top independent artists and emerging music professionals trying to build sustainable careers.

There are so many, and I’m constantly inspired by them. I seek them out and amplify them where I can, often on LinkedIn and Instagram. Cathy Cao comes to mind as an emerging music professional on the artist marketing side, and she’s grown exponentially in the past two years since I first met her at an M for Montreal event in New York.

I’m always cheering her on from the sidelines as I see her drive results at major music companies and speak on industry panels. On the artist side, gentle mothh is making amazing music along with living out and sharing her values across creative disciplines, from streaming ethics to workers’ rights.

Via Perkins on LinkedIn & Instagram

SOLAH on Forever: 'I Wanted to Define the Artist I Want to Be'

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SOLAH is a Brighton-based singer, songwriter and vocalist whose soulful sound has made her a familiar name in the drum & bass scene.

Following her debut album King, she returns with Forever; a record that broadens her sound while staying true to the melodic, soul-infused style that has become her signature.

Forever brings together collaborators from across the UK, Europe, Japan and Brazil, reflecting the global community behind drum & bass.

Across 14 tracks, the album moves between uplifting moments of love, joy and connection before exploring darker, more reflective themes, embracing the emotional contrasts that run throughout the record.

Your new album Forever moves between uplifting, soulful moments and darker, more introspective tracks. What was the story behind it?  

My second album was much more about defining the artist I want to be through the D&B styles I connect with the most and stepping into a chapter where I can celebrate the music that got me to where I am and the people who play it and support it.

How do you balance being a private person while still sharing such personal music?

I am an open book really. The only thing that stops me sharing everything is the time I can dedicate to socials, the skill and ease of doing so and the knowledge that I can be my own worst critic. Catch me in a bar and I will tell you everything about myself, all my deepest and darkest fears and we’ll probably do a shot or two. ;)

What’s your favourite thing about making music? And what’s your least favourite part of the process?

My favourite thing is writing new tunes. There’s nothing better than receiving a piece of music you can’t wait to get your teeth stuck into, then spending a few hours with the vibes and ideas just flowing and dancing around the studio like you’ve just heard it for the first time. My least favourite thing is when the ideas do not flow, but you love the track so bad.

What’s your best networking tip for connecting with the right people in the music industry? 

Reach out to everyone and fan girl your *** off :)

What’s one thing people often misunderstand about drum & bass artists or vocalists?

Hmm, for VOCALISTS, that we don’t absolutely love the music. I understand that singers usually have their feet dipped in many genres, but I have had my feet in the D&B foot bath for a very long time for a reason, I LOVE IT!!

What are you listening to the most at the moment?

Hmmm, due to quite a bad memory, (thank you clubbing), I struggle to remember all the music I favourite and star, so I just end up listening to a handful of things over and over. These include Ezra Collective, Cleo Sol, a Zero T or a Break Mix!

How to Build a Career in Music Curation: Advice from Sonos' Radio Jen Guyre

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Jen Guyre is Head of Music Curation & Industry Relations at Sonos, where she leads music curation strategy for Sonos Radio and works closely with artists, labels and partners across the industry.

Growing up in New Jersey's DIY punk scene, Guyre was booking local shows while still at high school, an experience that led to work with concert promoters and eventually music journalism, writing features, reviews and interviews for The Aquarian. She later balanced college with concert work, college radio and an internship at MTV.com, laying the foundations for a career that has spanned music journalism, streaming, artist relations and curation.

Before joining Sonos, she held senior curation and editorial roles at Amazon Music, Google Play Music, Rhapsody and MTV, contributing to everything from playlist programming and editorial strategy to artist content and global music launches. At Google, she was part of the team that helped build Google Play Music from the ground up before overseeing curation across the Americas, while at Amazon Music she led multi-genre programming and launched playlists spotlighting emerging scenes, including the shoegaze revival and hardcore resurgence.

You started out booking DIY hall shows in New Jersey as a teenager before eventually leading music curation and industry relations at Sonos. How did those early DIY experiences shape the way you approach music and curation today?

More than I think I realized until I stopped to consider it! I learned so many principles from that pre-college experience, but I think the biggest ones are: first, that music is a social currency, and nothing is more powerful than word of mouth. So don’t gatekeep! When you’re a curator, that’s the trust you’re holding. You want to both lead people somewhere they’re looking for, and somewhere they didn’t even know they wanted to go.

When my friends and I were doing hall shows, we didn’t have a lot of online tools at that time, and we definitely didn’t have a marketing budget, but we had our scene and community and that trust. The second point - and one I know for sure that I’ve taken throughout my career is: Always be out there experiencing it and seeing it in context – that’s how to truly know how to translate it back. Curation isn’t always about taste, but it’s almost always about context. 

Jen Guyre/Rob Zombie Interview, 2013

You’ve worked across almost every major era of digital music — from MTV and Rhapsody to Google Play, Amazon Music, and now Sonos. What have been the biggest shifts you’ve witnessed in how audiences discover music?

I think the biggest shifts have been that audiences are not one-genre listeners and mood is important to them, that “discovery” means something new to them and not just new music from up-and-coming artists, and that at the end of the day, they do want guidance when they have all the world’s recorded music at their fingertips!

Resonator Awards 2026

A lot of people dream of working in music curation or streaming platforms. What practical advice would you give to someone trying to break into that side of the industry today?

Go back! (Just kidding, I’m quoting Say Anything). My advice is to start small and stay consistent about curating. It’s not just about “I like music and making playlists,” it’s also about being able to stick the landing among an audience: They’re the other side of the coin. There’s you and your taste, but the job is also about how you can resonate with them and theirs.

It’s a difficult space to break into because the biggest misnomer is that it’s not a skillset, it is, and just like anything, you have to hone that. Maybe you start hosting an hour at your college radio station, start a substack, make public playlists, utilize platforms like TikTok or YouTube, or just simply make playlists for friends and family and their parties and gatherings.

In all of the above, see if you can exercise a POV but still curate for them (or the occasion) not for you, and get some feedback. Then see if you can intern at a company that does curation where you can learn more. My own skills were honed making playlists as a hobby since I was a kid, but then I helped curate a music fest in NJ as a teenager, co-hosted a college radio show with friends, DJ’ed between bands at shows, and wrote for a music weekly called The Aquarian. I landed an internship in music journalism and that lead to a job in digital, and the rest is history. But I wasn’t doing all that legwork because I wanted the job, I was doing it because I loved it, and it just kind of came together.

You’ve consistently championed emerging scenes and subcultures, from punk and hardcore to shoegaze revivals. Why do you think it’s important for streaming platforms to support underground or developing scenes rather than only focusing on mainstream trends?

For many reasons! But mainly because the big picture of music is so important: what’s above boards and below boards is all part of music culture as a whole. Audiences are everywhere and music is a lifestyle for a lot of them; sometimes you don’t see them if you’re not serving them. Especially in our data-driven worlds. Plus that’s the world that gave me my start, so there’s for sure an element of paying it forward. 

What advice would you give to younger music professionals trying to build genuine industry connections?

Be authentic, be patient, and be humble. And remember that the industry itself is a community too! You will meet a lot of people and find the folks who share commonalities or are interested in the same or similar corners of the biz you’re interested in, and that will eventually start to open doors naturally. But you can’t force it, and it might not happen quickly, but if you’re looking for genuine connections, you have to be genuine too. 

What are you listening to at the moment?

Oh man, I go down a lot of random rabbit holes, and sometimes get stuck on songs I just want to play on repeat. In my personal listening, I think I operate a little in the shadows since so much of my professional life requires being more out in the open. So with that disclaimer!

Lately I’ve been obsessing over some heavy synth in all directions. Like, the album tracks - not the singles - on Bjork’s album Debut, and the big, emotional feel of “Learning to Fly” by Pink Floyd and “You Take My Breath Away” by The Knife.

I’ll listen to The Chameleons or Kitty Craft in my Sunday morning playlist, but today I was feeling more Arima Ederra and ultimately love that space where alt/ indie R&B crosses into jazz. For newer music, I listen to everything R. Missing puts out, love Violet Grohl’s new album, am excited for new Steve Lacy, new Kelela, and here for all the buzz/ momentum Die Spitz have going on right now.

How do you unwind or reset after a challenging day?

I like to do something active to decompress, even if it’s just going for a walk and getting some air, and on extra challenging days, I like making dinner at home and honestly, even if it’s a little grandma-y, having a cup of tea before bed! Your time isn’t yours during the work day anyway, but when it’s tougher than usual, it helps to sort of take that back and do something nice and calming for yourself. 

3 things you can’t live without in your bag 

Ear Plugs, Gum, Lip Gloss – and I’m laughing because that has never changed!

Lucie Antunes on New Album Silence, Collaboration and Immersive Performance

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Lucie Antunes © Marco Dos Santos

Lucie Antunes is a French composer, percussionist and producer originally trained in classical and contemporary music. Her work spans concerts, performances, club contexts and interdisciplinary projects, sitting at the intersection of experimental, pop and contemporary music, and shaped by close collaborations with musicians, choreographers and visual artists. Following her acclaimed albums Sergeï (2019) and Carnaval (2023), Antunes returns with Silence, a new LP that strips away excess in search of something more instinctive and essential.

Created in collaboration with choreographer Mathilde Monnier, Silence exists as both an album and a large-scale choreographed performance. Bringing together musicians, dancers and voices, the project explores altered states of consciousness through rhythm, repetition and movement, dissolving the boundaries between audience and performers.

Silence feels less like a conventional album and more like an environment or state of mind. At what point did you realise this project needed to exist simultaneously as music, choreography and spatial experience?

When Mathilde reached out to me, I was at a professional turning point, marking both the end of one cycle and the beginning of another. There are encounters that profoundly transform you; this one felt almost salvific. It was not only the encounter itself, but also the moment at which it arrived. I deeply believe that there are no saviors, only specific moments when we find greater courage—precise points along our life path when different elements align and create an impact, whatever form that impact may take.

This particularly dizzying moment in my life, combined with the appearance of Mathilde—someone with an immensely generous soul, a reassuring force—sparked in me a desire, even an urgency, to create a cathartic work. Mathilde had already envisioned the entire project and wanted me to be on stage. I turned it into an album, while she transformed it into a choreographed concert, brought to life by human beings of a kind one rarely encounters: people with remarkable mystical strength and very little ego.

As for me, in building this album, I invited artists—some of them close friends, others people whose artistic worlds I deeply admire—and it became a highly inspiring collective creation. The spatial dimension you mention is extremely important, as the album is a vast journey that highlights our condition as transient human beings seeking to communicate with the invisible world. This is expressed through spatialized sound and the real-time vocal processing that Canblaster executed with great mastery, as though he were the pilot navigating between here and elsewhere.

Every work I create is a path of transformation. Silence took me far—toward freedom, joy, creative strength, and above all, a deeper trust in my instincts, leading me toward a more experimental body of work.

Capture d’écran

The project began from a drone recorded in the stables at CENTQUATRE in Paris. What was it about that sound that sparked the direction of the entire album?

Yes, in a way, I lost control of the console, of the machine itself, and I simply let it happen. I listened to what resonated within that extraordinary space—the stables of Le Centquatre, formerly a vast funeral center. I sat down at the piano and was carried by this D drone as I wrote the first track, Silence.

For the first time, a rather dark theme emerged for me. These are some of the most beautiful moments of my life. It has happened to me for as long as I can remember, often when sitting at a piano. It's as though the music comes to me, and it feels completely self-evident. From there, I enter a kind of vortex—quite cerebral at first—then I drift into explorations of rhythmic equivalences.

At that moment, I visualized the dancers for whom I was composing this album, and a rhythm in 5 naturally imposed itself as the skeleton of the piece.

For the rest of the album, the collaborations played a major role in shaping the music. With Halo Maud and Louisahhh, for example, I really wanted to build a shared vision while ensuring that each of our artistic identities remained clearly recognizable. It also allows me to venture beyond my comfort zone and travel toward new creative territories.

There’s a strong sense of tension between organic textures and modular electronics throughout the album. Was preserving the physicality of sound important to you during the recording process?

Real-time sound processing was at the very heart of the writing process, at the heart of this entire story. In many ways, this album was truly a four-handed creation with Canblaster, because I brought him the organic raw materials and shared my desires extensively. He knew how to listen deeply, and I think that, for everyone involved in this project, it was also an immense pleasure because there was both great freedom and a sense of urgency that often made the very first take the right one.

We ran everything through his modular systems, like a machine capable of carrying you through time. Halo Maud began singing with her extraordinary voice, and he transformed it into something like a saxophone driven by an arpeggiator. Suddenly, tears were streaming down our faces. We knew instantly—it was the take.

We processed Louisahhh’s breaths in a single take, and it pierced straight through us. The moment we heard it, we said, “We’re keeping that.” And that’s how texture became an obsession.

I had the feeling that we could expand sonic spaces and alter our sometimes linear perception of what an album can be.

How did your collaboration with Mathilde Monnier shape the project?

Here too, we wanted to break away from convention. I no longer really believe in the traditional frontal performance, where people sit down, enjoy themselves, and then leave. Perhaps it’s just a phase, and it will pass. But right now, I’m drawn to artists who are trying to invent new forms. Even when they fail, I find it compelling that they are willing to try—to engage the audience differently, to involve them in ways that go beyond passive spectatorship and simply having a pleasant experience.

Mathilde and I spent a lot of time questioning the place of music within this project. In this case, the theme was altered states of consciousness—a subject that may be fashionable today, but one that Mathilde has been exploring for a long time, as have I. She wanted music to be at the very center of the experience, and I wanted there to be no boundaries whatsoever between the dance performers and the musicians. We needed to find dancers who could also embody the music itself; in fact, I met them before I had written a single note.

As with everything we captured on this album, the idea of the collective is deeply embedded in this creation. And when I speak of new forms that have the power to move us, I mean works that resonate with the world we live in. For me, there was a profound necessity to become one with others in the face of the apocalyptic challenges we will soon be confronting.

Trance is, in many ways, a pretext. I use it as a form of healing for myself—though I make no claim to heal anyone else. What I do know is the power of sound. Intuitively, each from our own perspective, Mathilde and I brought together people of extraordinary sensitivity. And when we are all together, something happens that radiates throughout the entire space we inhabit.

It is the strength of the collective: a space where ego is set aside. No soloists. Just us, here, together, now.

You’ve worked with musicians, choreographers and visual artists from very different worlds. What usually tells you someone is the right creative fit?

I don’t really ask myself that question. Let’s just say that when I meet someone, I make it clear quite quickly that I wouldn’t be able to create something I’m not in complete agreement with. As a result, things tend to sort themselves out naturally.

More often than not, I’m a fan of the people I work with, and every collaboration becomes an intense adventure. But on this album, that feeling was stronger than ever before. And I’m not only talking about the people who contributed musically.

There was also Paulin, the graphic designer who conceived the artwork and had to immerse himself in this journey. Or Giorgio, who directed the videos and approached the project with the same intensity and passion that drove me. And Sibegg, the mixing engineer, whose involvement went far beyond simply mixing the record. We exchanged ideas constantly in order to arrive at this final result.

What I love about collaboration is when people bring something deeply personal to the process. Otherwise, I might as well work with robots.

After an intense project or performance cycle, what helps you switch off and reconnect with everyday life outside music?

My family life with my wife and our four-year-old son. My friends, my neighbors, the life of the neighborhood where I live. I really try to stay connected to the present moment, to the place I inhabit, to reality itself. Otherwise, I can go through long periods of loneliness, with the feeling that I’m always somehow on the sidelines—as if I’m never quite where I’m supposed to be.

The only place where I truly feel I am exactly where I belong is when I’m creating, when I’m writing, or when I’m performing. So outside of those creative spaces, I often repeat to myself: “I am here, now, in this moment.”

What's something that’s been inspiring you lately?

Breath. Instruments such as the organ, which depend on air to function. The voice. And my Spanish roots, which call to me with great intensity.

Lucie Antunes on Instagram | Bandcamp | Stream Silence

Saffron and Real World Studios Launch Saffron Sessions, a New Live Series Reimagining One of Britain's Most Iconic Recording Spaces

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What happens when one of the UK's most celebrated recording studios opens its doors to a new generation of artists, producers and engineers?

That's the question behind Saffron Sessions, a new live performance series filmed at Real World Studios, where Bristol-based organisation Saffron brought together women, trans and non-binary artists to create without compromise. Best known as the recording home of artists including Peter Gabriel, Beyoncé, Radiohead, Björk, Massive Attack and Florence + The Machine, Real World provides the backdrop for a project that's as much about rethinking studio culture as it is about recording music.

The newly released behind-the-scenes documentary features interviews with artists—including FKA twigs—as well as producers, engineers and the creative team behind the sessions, exploring an industry where 95% of professional music producers and engineers are men, and asking what becomes possible when underrepresented creatives are given the space to shape music on their own terms.

For more than a decade, Saffron has been working to address the gender imbalance in music technology through training, mentoring and community. Saffron Sessions takes that mission into one of Britain's most iconic recording environments, demonstrating what becomes possible when the people shaping music are given the space, resources and trust to experiment on their own terms.

The series features eight artists pushing at the edges of electronic, pop and experimental music: Yushh, Grove, Holysseus Fly, Manami, Sarahsson, Babealicious, t l k and My Midnight Heart. Several performances feature unreleased material and new live arrangements created exclusively for the sessions, capturing each artist at a unique moment in their creative process.

The newly released behind-the-scenes film offers a closer look at how the project came together. Alongside the artists, Saffron partnered with dBs Institute to bring women and non-binary students into the studio as apprentice engineers, working alongside Real World's in-house team led by Grammy-winning engineer Katie May. The result is a portrait of collaboration rather than competition, where technical knowledge, creativity and confidence are shared openly.

The film also captures the spirit of experimentation that runs through the sessions. Instruments are reimagined, unconventional objects become part of the recording process, and ideas that might never have found a place in a traditional studio environment are encouraged rather than questioned.

With only a small percentage of professional music producers and engineers identifying as women, Saffron is questioning who gets to shape the future of recorded music and Saffron Sessions makes a compelling case for what the industry stands to gain when more voices are given access to its most influential spaces.

Check out Saffron Members Club, worldwide community for women, trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming people in music tech.

Member Perk: shesaid.so x AVA London 2026 Pro Pass

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AVA London is offering shesaid.so Members & ALLIES exclusive access to a Pro Pass at the Super Early Bird price of £126.

Public ticket prices are set to increase after the Super Early Bird period, but shesaid.so Members & ALLIES can continue to access this fixed £126 rate through our exclusive booking link.

Your Pro Pass includes:

  • Full access to the AVA London Conference (24–26 September 2026)

  • Entry to AVA London club showcases*

  • Exclusive access to networking events and mixers

  • Connect with delegates in advance via the AVA conference app

  • Complimentary AVA London tote bag

*Club showcase entry is first come, first served.

AVA London has unveiled the first wave of speakers for its 2026 conference, returning from 24–26 September with a lineup spanning music, technology, art and culture.

The first announcement includes Moby, Richie Hawtin, Oklou, The Avalanches, teamLab, the No Tags podcast and Vanessa Maria, alongside more than 70 speakers and 30 sessions across the three-day event. 

Alongside headline talent, this year's programme places a strong emphasis on industry exchange with the return of the AVA Forum – bringing together artists, managers, labels, festivals, venues and platforms for invite-only discussions on the future of music and creativity.

Some key highlights include:

  • Moby in conversation with EarthPercent on music and climate action

  • Richie Hawtin discussing the intersection of music, art and technology

  • Oklou joining a live Resident Advisor Exchange

  • The Avalanches in a fireside chat around their forthcoming album

  • teamLab presenting an exclusive session on immersive art and technology

  • Expanded delegate and networking opportunities through the AVA Forum and industry partner programme

    There are also dedicated networking opportunities and specialist sessions from partners including Ableton, PRS for Music, AFEM and b:electronic, with confirmed delegates from organisations such as Bandcamp, Atlantic Records UK, YMU Group and the British Council.

Dresden Leitner on Networking, Community and Building a Career in Cultural Communications

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Dresden Leitner has spent more than 15 years working at the intersection of music, fashion, brands, art, sport and contemporary culture. As co-director of Love Is The Message, a creative communications agency specialising in culture-led projects, he has helped shape campaigns and initiatives for clients including Diageo, Stone Island, AVA Festival, Broadwick Live, Drumsheds, KOKO and Peroni.

Operating across communications, production and creative strategy, Dresden is known for championing communities, subcultures and authentic storytelling, connecting brands and audiences through projects rooted in genuine cultural engagement.

Based between London and Glasgow, Dresden continues to develop work that sits at the forefront of culture, creativity and impact.

You’ve worked across music, fashion, brands, art, sport, and culture for over 15 years. How did you first get started in music and cultural communications, and what initially drew you to this world?

I always knew I was going to do something in music, I was obsessed with music and subcultures - as a teenager, I did them all. Growing up in London I was lucky, one day I could be a grime kid watching MC battles in the park, and the next day in Camden headed to some random pub for a gig of a band I’d never heard of. Music inspired me, but the movements around them did too. 

I studied Events Management at uni in Manchester, and was running club nights there. Then I met the super-talented artist GAIKA who gave me my first paid job at his label (shout out!) After that, I was offered a job working down in London part time with clients like Outlook, Dimensions, Red Bull Music - the gamechangers at the time. I worked my way up the ranks there for 4 years - which was the most pivotal of my life!

You co-direct Love Is The Message, an agency focused on culture-led projects. What does “culture-led” actually mean to you in practice?

The term culture is over-used. Sometimes I use it to give the easiest explanation to what we do - but when I talk about what we do - I prefer to say comms for impact. For me, comms for impact - means working with people, movements, campaigns, brands who are treading their own path, innovators, visionaries, a bit fearless sometimes, maybe risky, those passionate heads! 

If you look at some of our most interesting campaigns - LOS PIKES for Stone Island (biker crews in Medellin, Colombia) Jail Time Records, AVA Festival (electronic music scene in Northern Ireland) and recently Glasgow Plays Ball (alternative football scenes in Scotland) - it’s always been about bringing through real scenes, stories, real people.

For me, creating impact in culture is bringing together the right collaborators and understanding a culture from the inside out - rather than trying to buy a piece of it.

It also means following our gut to an extent. Some of the extremely cool projects we work on make 0 money, but I know it will make a difference in how we are perceived and maybe it’s really fun! I love a passion project. I’m also very creative, so I love coming up with concepts - So sometimes we do those projects that are culturally extremely cool, but financially make no sense.

You’ve worked with clients and projects including Johnnie Walker, Stone Island, AVA Festival, Drumsheds, KOKO, and Peroni. What have you learned about building long-term relationships within the cultural industries?

Being a bit of an OG, I’m now lucky to consider a lot of my clients' and collaborators as friends - with long working relationships. I think as a small and independent agency / working directly with people - you have to be honest - and so trust is developed. There is no filter of 50 levels of agency heads to hide behind. People appreciate being able to have a direct line and real answers. 

Another important one - I always try to book and research new talent, upcoming friends of friends, as they grow they always remember who gave them their first jobs, advice, helped bring them through. So that’s why we have such an amazing network, because these people are now flying and a part of it. We have been there through people’s careers. I love that.

JW X NTS

Networking can feel intimidating, especially for people trying to break into music and culture spaces. What are your biggest networking tips for emerging creatives and industry professionals?

Hang out with people! Go to their events, gigs, a pint - whatever it is! Make an effort. Don’t be afraid to ask - but do it in the right way. I get people to reach out all the time, and I try to give them some sound advice, even if it’s a few words of email. 

Also - Stop thinking of networking as going to networking events - networking can be going to a gig, festival, product launch, going to the pub after work, going to a client event, joining an online workshop - it’s all networking. A lot of opportunities come from right place right time. 

For people who want to work in cultural communications, brand partnerships, or creative production, what skills do you think are most important today?

Be flexible - and open to learning and changing. Things change constantly in the creative industries. Learn from young people / next generation - be open minded. 

Add strings to your bow. For me and my team - most of us have worked behind the scenes in festivals, large scale events, fashion shoots etc, on a production or organisational front too, and that helps - being pragmatic and able to understand BTS from a production sense, that has been a key element to how we do things differently. And being able to communicate with different people within their roles.

What advice would you give to artists, DJs, creatives, or collectives trying to approach brands without compromising their identity or community values?

Make sure you’ve done your research. Sometimes when someone approaches me- I feel they’ve done no research into what my client is about, and that is an immediate red flag. Research previous projects, reference. 

What advice would you give to someone who feels like they don’t have access to the “right” networks or industry circles?

Look for an organization who can help you do that. For young people, there are some amazing organizations who help bring people together - Roundhouse, Urban Development, Brighter Sound, people like these all over the UK - who all run courses / provide opportunities for young creatives. If you’re not so young, look for like-minded people online and reaching out to these groups. 

How do you unwind or reset after a difficult or stressful day?

Boxing - keeps me level headed and concentrated. And going to the pub.

Outside of work, what inspires you creatively at the moment?

I take inspiration from everywhere, my surroundings and people - I’m spoilt for choice. At the moment I’m inspired by the city I’m living in - Glasgow - so that led me to work on GLASGOW PLAYS BALL - a new project tied into the World Cup celebrating Modern Scottish identity. This was one of the passion projects I spoke about - but coming up with an idea then recruiting a team of people to bring it to life is SO satisfying.

What are you listening to at the moment?

Probably George Michael. Or reggaeton.

Dresden Leitner on Instagram | Love is The Message

Brazilian Artist Kaique on A Corte, Transfuturism and Creative Independence

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Kaique is a Brazilian singer, songwriter, actor and model pushing the boundaries of Brazil's contemporary R&B, trap and Nova MPB scenes. Working under the artistic identity A Corte (The Court), he has built a distinctive creative universe rooted in what he describes as "Tropical Noir" and "Trash-Luxury" aesthetics, where raw urban realities meet cinematic elegance.

As a transmasculine artist, Kaique brings a bold and uncompromising perspective to Brazilian music, blending transfuturist ideas, visual storytelling, fashion and sound into a multidisciplinary practice that challenges conventions while imagining new possibilities. Following the release of his conceptual debut album Me Chame Pelo Meu Nome, he continues to expand the world of A Corte through new music, including recent single Marola, while developing his forthcoming project TRANS/A.

Your work blends music, visuals and fashion into a very distinct world. How would you describe the universe of A Corte in your own words?

I often say I’m just another person trying to build a universe where existence is actually possible. I lean heavily into **transfuturism** as a foundational lens to reimagine and reinvent the future through music and visuals. This extends behind the scenes too, at least 80% of my team is queer, which brings essential layers, references, and lived experience to the work.

Everything communicates, even silence. ACORT3 is a vessel for those screams to echo, but also for silence to remain when needed. It’s the signature of an artist who is tired, yet anxious to truly live in a better world.

Visual storytelling feels like a huge part of your work, from VHS textures to grunge-inspired aesthetics. What inspires your visual direction?

I’m a 90s kid, so I drink deeply from the MTV era and that specific, gritty atmosphere it had. I’m drawn to saturated colors, VHS textures, and grunge aesthetics because they feel honest. For me, visual storytelling isn't about polish; it's about capturing a raw, nostalgic distortion that mirrors the transfuturist themes in my music. It’s a way to visually translate the tension between the past we inherited and the future we’re trying to write.

Since it’s Pride Month, what does Pride mean to you right now as both an artist and a trans person creating in Brazil?

Right now, as a trans artist creating in Brazil, Pride means **resilience in its rawest form**. We are facing unprecedented censorship online, and offline the reality is just as stark.

I’ll be performing at the São Paulo Pride Parade this year, which ironically received almost zero public funding despite being one of the largest in the world. We are truly living in a guerrilla era here lol creating, occupying, and resisting with whatever we have.

Have there been moments where you felt you had to create your own space rather than wait for the industry to make room for you?

So yes, I stopped waiting for the industry or institutions to make room a long time ago. Building a team that is 80% queer wasn't just a hiring choice; it was a survival strategy.

We built our own ecosystem because the existing structures weren't designed for us, and in this guerrilla context, community isn’t just about belonging—it’s about mutual protection and keeping the culture alive against the odds.

You were selected for the Ballantine’s True Music Fund powered by shesaid.so in 2025. What attracted you to the programme, and what has the experience been?

Honestly, this fund was the key that unlocked a dream I’d been guarding for years. My debut album had been sitting in the drawer… not because of a lack of vision, but because of a lack of possibility. The True Music Fund didn’t just offer support; it offered **viability**.

What attracted me was that they saw the value in an artist whose work exists at the intersection of music, trans identity, and visual world-building, without asking me to dilute any of it. The experience has been transformative: it turned a 'someday' project into a tangible reality, allowing me to finally release my first album with the integrity and production quality it always deserved.

What are you focused on creatively at the moment? What can you tell us about this current phase of your work?

I’m currently producing my next album, trans/a, which features tracks in English, Spanish, and Portuguese. This trilingual approach is a deliberate expansion toward the international market, with a specific focus on Latin America.

Creatively, this phase is about dissolving linguistic borders while deepening the transfuturist narrative. I’m exploring how different languages carry distinct emotional textures and cultural codes, allowing the universe of ACORT3 to resonate across territories without losing its core identity.

It’s not just translation; it’s about building a sonic ecosystem where the message adapts but the essence remains intact.

Networking can feel intimidating for many emerging artists. What’s one thing that has genuinely helped you build connections and community?

Radical authenticity over strategic networking. I stopped trying to ‘network’ in the corporate sense and started building kinship. When you’re unapologetically yourself and transparent about your vision, you attract collaborators who resonate with the frequency, not just the opportunity.

My core team grew organically because we share the same urgencies. Genuine community in this space comes from mutual protection and shared references, not business cards.

What are you listening to the most right now — any artists, albums or sounds constantly on repeat?

Hell yea: Villano Antillano, Kali Uchis, Liniker, Julia Costa, Kaytranada, Sade, some jazz music and some punk folks screaming at my head sometimes. 

Outside of music, what’s currently inspiring you creatively — films, fashion, books, internet culture, everyday life?

I’m deeply inspired by curiosity itself. Lately, I’ve been getting lost in classic literature like Baudelaire, and I’m passionate about philosophy, especially when it intersects with our current political reality.

Fashion is another huge pillar for me, particularly sustainable fashion and that unbeatable mix of tailoring with streetwear: layers upon layers of fabric, structured silhouettes meeting raw, urban textures.

These elements aren’t separate from my music; they’re part of the same transfuturist language. The way Baudelaire wrote about modernity and decay, the way philosophy dissects power, the way layered fabrics protect and reveal, it all feeds the universe of ACORT3.

Creativity, for me, doesn’t live in one medium; it’s a continuous dialogue between text, cloth, politics, and sound.

Kaique on Instagram | Website

Linnea Sundberg on Artist Ownership, AI Tools and Building Sustainable Artist Careers

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Linnea Sundberg did not come into music through the most obvious door. With a background in finance and a lifelong passion for music, she was drawn to the industry by a problem she kept seeing up close: incredibly talented artists struggling to build sustainable careers from their work.

Over the last 15 years, Sundberg has worked across nearly every part of the modern music ecosystem — creation, streaming, artist tools, distribution, promotion, monetization, rights, data, fan engagement and music-tech investment. Across roles at Spotify, Splice and UnitedMasters, her work has focused on how technology can become a practical equalizer for artists, helping creators access the tools, infrastructure and opportunities they need without giving up ownership or creative control.

At Spotify, Sundberg helped develop artist-facing products and commercial strategies during a transformative period for streaming, including go-to-market plans for Spotify for Artists. At Splice, she worked closer to the creative process itself through Corporate Development. Today, as Head of Label Services at UnitedMasters, she works with independent artists navigating a fast-changing landscape shaped by distribution, data, AI-powered tools, brand partnerships, direct-to-fan relationships and new models for monetization.

What makes Sundberg’s perspective especially valuable is that she does not see music through one narrow industry lane. She understands the creative process, the business mechanics, the technology layer and the emotional relationship between artists and fans. For her, the future of music is not just about more tools or more platforms. It is about building systems that remove friction, protect artists’ rights, deepen fan connection and help creators build careers that can last.

How did you first get your start in music, and what pulled you toward the intersection of music and technology?

Even though my background is actually in finance, I’ve always been deeply passionate about music. Early on, I realized there was a huge disconnect: incredibly talented artists were struggling just to make ends meet. I gravitated toward technology because I saw it as the ultimate equalizer—a way to build practical, scalable tools that put power and money back into creators' hands so they can actually make a living doing what they love.

Having spent the last 15 years across companies like Spotify and now UnitedMasters, what are the most significant shifts you’ve seen in how artists build careers today?

It’s been amazing to watch the power dynamic completely flip. When I was at Spotify, we were focused on changing how the world accessed music through streaming. But today, especially at places like UnitedMasters, the most exciting shift is absolute independence. Artists no longer have to wait to be "picked" by a major label. They can build a global community, own their art, and run their entire business right from their phones. It’s incredibly empowering.

At UnitedMasters, you’re working closely with independent artists. What does “label services” actually mean in 2026, and how is that model evolving?

Honestly, "label services" used to mean giving up a massive chunk of your rights just to get your foot in the door. In 2026, it means something entirely different—it’s about being a true partner to the artist. It’s giving them the exact same high-end tools the majors have—like AI-powered mastering, data insights, and brand partnerships—but letting them keep 100% of their royalties and creative control. We’re here to be their infrastructure, not their boss.

There’s a lot of conversation around ownership, rights and long-term value. What should artists understand about IP and copyright that they often overlook early on?

I totally get why artists sign early deals—when you're grinding, an upfront check or a promise of exposure feels like a lifeline. But the most important thing I try to share is that your music is your long-term wealth.

Giving away your masters or publishing too early is like selling the house you just built. Retaining your rights means you get to benefit from every sync placement, every viral moment, and every stream for the rest of your life.

You’ve worked across product, strategy and corporate development. How important is it today for music professionals to understand the tech side of the industry, not just the creative?

It’s super important, but it doesn't mean you need to be a coder! The reality is that music and tech are completely intertwined now. Understanding the tech side—whether it’s how algorithms find listeners or how new production tools can save you money—just means you understand the board you're playing on. When music professionals bridge that gap between creative magic and smart technology, they can advocate so much better for the artists they represent.

The creator economy is often framed as empowering, but also increasingly complex. Where do you see the biggest opportunities for artists right now and where should they be more cautious?

The best opportunity right now is the ability to build a direct, meaningful relationship with your core fans—they are the ones who will sustain your career over the long haul. There are also amazing new AI tools that make professional-level production much more accessible. But my biggest caution is to protect your mental energy. It’s so easy to get caught up in the "noise," chasing every fleeting viral trend. Focus on what actually serves your art and your true community.

From your perspective, what separates artists who build sustainable, long-term careers from those who struggle to maintain momentum?

The artists who really go the distance are the ones who find a balance between their creative soul and a grounded, business-savvy mindset. It’s heartbreaking to see artists burn out because they're solely chasing a viral streaming moment.

The ones who build lasting careers focus on the marathon: they pay attention to their audience, protect their rights, surround themselves with a great team, and consistently put out high-quality work.

You’ve led go-to-market strategies for artist tools. What makes a platform or product genuinely valuable for artists rather than just adding more noise?

Artists are already doing a million things at once, so a tool is only valuable if it genuinely removes a headache for them. If it requires a massive learning curve, it’s just adding to their plate.

When we build products—like integrating AI mastering into the UnitedMasters app—the goal is always to ask, "How can we make this process invisible, easy, and instantly rewarding for the creator?" It has to serve the artist, not the other way around.

When it comes to streaming, distribution and audience growth, what are the most common strategic mistakes you see artists making today?

A really common pitfall is treating release day as the finish line, rather than the starting line. Once the song is out, that's when the real work begins! I often see artists miss out because they aren't using the data right at their fingertips to find where their fans are, or they forget to pitch for sync and brand deals. Also, never underestimate the power of great sound quality—there are so many easy tools out there now to make sure your tracks sound sonically competitive before you hit publish.

For anyone looking to build a career in music-tech, what skills, mindsets or experiences are becoming essential?

The absolute number one requirement is deep, genuine empathy for artists and the creative process. Without that, you're just building empty tech. Beyond that, it’s about being a translator—someone who can take a real-world problem an artist is facing and use business strategy and product design to fix it. My finance background taught me how to look at the numbers, but it’s the passion for music that drives why we build these tools. Stay curious, stay adaptable, and always keep the artist at the center of your work.

Linnea Sundberg on LinkedIn | Website

Refugee Week 2026: Four Artists on Music, Heritage and This Year's Theme, Courage

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For Refugee Week 2026, we spoke to four artists whose work is informed by heritage, migration, community and belonging. Basma, Habibtati, Bushbby and Jodie Yates draw on personal experiences, family histories and the communities around them to shape their creative practice.

Their stories span Sudan, Jamaica, Colombia, Armenia, Iraq and Iran, as well as the diasporic communities that continue to influence cultural life in Britain and beyond. While their perspectives differ, each reflects on the role music plays in carrying memory, preserving culture and creating a sense of home.

This year's Refugee Week theme is Courage. Across these conversations, courage takes many forms: protecting cultural heritage, creating space for others, building community and continuing to make work in uncertain times.

This year also marks the launch of Clubs & DJs for Refugee Week, a new grassroots initiative inviting clubs, DJs, promoters, sound systems and collectives to take part in Refugee Week through events, takeovers, fundraisers and community gatherings. Rooted in the belief that dancefloors can be spaces of connection, belonging and solidarity, the initiative encourages people across the music community to get involved, whether by supporting an existing event or creating one of their own. You can find events taking place near you, or learn more about how to participate in future editions, via Refugee Week.

Basma

Basma

Basma is the co-host of radio show and record label Hear, Sense and Feel, and the host of Khartoum Arrivals on NTS Radio. Born in the UK to Sudanese immigrants, she shares songs and stories of passings through her motherland - playing music inspired by the long road, and drawing from the wedding anthems and eclectic folk of Sudan, the Sahel, the Horn and beyond.

How do you define yourself as an artist?

Looking for connections. Finding them, usually on a speedy sweaty bus (autotunes!) Sharing through sounds and stories.

How has your cultural heritage influenced your artistic practice?

I think they are the same to me, my heritage and practice. I think all I'm ever really doing is processing and playing with my heritage, and inviting others to tune in for the ride.

How does your artistic practice connect to place or placemaking?

Sudan is the place. I sense it everywhere (maybe I'm placemaking believe a bit too). Still I'm always searching for Sudan, so what I hope to do is come together with listeners for a search party of sorts!

This year’s Refugee Week theme is “Courage” — what does this mean to you?

As I'm writing this on June 3, seven years on from the Khartoum Massacre, courage means the Sudanese Revolution, the People's Choice. To reject all warlords and warmongering, to remember all martyrs and their call for freedom, peace and justice.

Habibtati

Habibtati is a London-based DJ and producer whose sound sits at the intersection of SWANA club culture, diaspora storytelling and underground nightlife. Drawing from their Western Armenian/ Iraqi,  and Iranian Armenian heritage, they blend percussive electronic music, garage, experimental club sounds and emotionally charged samples to create sets rooted in both resistance and release, Habibtati approaches music as a form of cultural preservation, collective memory and community-building.

A regular within London’s grassroots nightlife scene, Habibtati has appeared at venues including Corsica Studios, Fold, Colour Factory and many more. Their practice is deeply rooted in DIY and community-led spaces, centring sounds and stories from their region and wider London community through dancefloors built on connection, inclusivity and political consciousness.
Alongside DJing, Habibtati is currently working on their debut EP — an intimate project exploring memory through field recordings, textured production and storytelling

How do you define yourself as an artist?

I’m a DIY producer and DJ rooted in grassroots nightlife, community and collective experience. Whilst I’ve been DJing for most of my career, I’ve always experimented with samples, field recordings and production as a way to tell stories beyond the dancefloor. I’m currently working on my first EP, which draws from my culture, personal memories and the people and places around me. Sonically, I’m inspired by artists who use sound as a form of resistance, preservation and storytelling. I’m interested in the tension between club music and emotion, and in creating work that feels both political and deeply personal.

How has your cultural heritage influenced your artistic practice? 

Growing up between cultures has completely shaped the way I experience music, community and storytelling. A lot of my inspiration comes from diaspora spaces, protest movements, family gatherings and the emotional weight carried through sound and memory. I’m really interested in how music can preserve feelings of longing, grief, displacement and joy all at once.

I take a lot of influence from revolutionary sound systems and artists from the SWANA region and the Caucasus who use electronic music to challenge borders, archive lived experiences and create spaces for collective release. Even when I’m playing club music, there’s always an emotional and political thread running through it. My heritage has taught me the importance of resourcefulness, resistance and creating spaces where people feel held, visible and connected.

How does your artistic practice connect to place or placemaking?

For me, music has always been about creating spaces where people can gather and feel free, safe and fully present. Whether through DJing, producing or community-led events, I care deeply about building environments that feel intentional and rooted in connection. A lot of the spaces that shaped me were DIY, grassroots, and born out of necessity.

The spaces created by communities, refugees + queer communities and people carving out somewhere to exist on their own terms. That energy really informs my practice. I think placemaking is as much about memory, resistance and collective feeling as it is about physical space. Through sound, I’m interested in creating temporary worlds where people can feel release, recognition and belonging. I also like to note that, as much as art can be a way of healing for many of us, it is the direct action and sacrifice of resistance and the resistance that has channelled us. I am for indigenous rights and preserving culture and land.

This year’s Refugee Week theme is “Courage” — what does this mean to you?

To me, courage is continuing to create, connect and take up space despite displacement, fear or instability. Coming from diasporic and displaced communities, I’ve seen how courage often exists in quiet and everyday ways, preserving language and culture, rebuilding community, sharing stories, surviving migration, or simply allowing yourself to be visible.

I think a lot about the role sound has always played in resistance movements: protest chants, revolutionary music, pirate radio, sound systems, underground nightlife. Music can hold memory and act as a form of survival. Courage, to me, is vulnerability as much as strength — refusing erasure, honouring where you come from and continuing to imagine joy and freedom even in difficult circumstances.

Habibtati on Instagram

**Habibtati was nominated for this feature by NAFS (@nafs.space), a Queer SWANA cultural platform creating space through exhibitions, workshops, film screenings, music and community programming, while supporting and amplifying underrepresented artists, creatives and cultural practitioners across the UK and beyond.

Bushbby Photo by Melissaa

Bushbby

Bushbby is a UK-Colombian DJ, born with a deep connection to both Latin America and the UK club scene.Primarily based in London, her sets deliver an explosion of Reggaeton, Dancehall and Dembow, expertly woven amongst the timeless Latin rhythms of Cumbia, Champeta and Salsa.

Community is at the heart of Bushbby’s contribution to music, intensifying the unique UK-Latinx presence across the map whilst enabling the reconnecting of diasporas in a celebration of roots and rave culture.

How do you define yourself as an artist? 

I’m a London born Colombian DJ, event promoter and curator, with a deep connection to both Latin America and the UK club scene.

I was shaped by the sounds I grew up around in both the UK and Colombia; raves and house parties in Leeds, ‘La Factoria’ CDs playing in my mum's kitchen, my grandads Salsa records, and the sound systems of Notting Hill carnival and Barranquilla. 

These influences come together in my sets in a celebration of roots and culture. DJing has become a tool for me to connect with the diaspora and showcase the rich and vibrant rhythms of Latin America at home and internationally.

Since becoming a DJ in 2019, I quickly noticed a need for greater Latinx and femme representation within the UK scene. This has become one of the core reasons why I do what I do. Through my club nights and radio residencies, I aim to amplify Latin American artists from marginalized communities across the world, making connections across the diaspora and creating spaces where our stories, sounds, and identities can be heard and felt.

How has your cultural heritage influenced your artistic practice? 

It’s in everything I do because it’s such a big part of who I am. The voices and stories carried in the music, rhythms and sounds that I play are a way for me to stay connected to a cultural heritage rooted in a land so far away. The lineage of a lot of this music is black and indigenous, they tell stories of struggle, resistance, pain and joy and I feel immense privilege and pride at keeping it alive through my job.

In an industry that seeks to label and commodify everything, remembering the revolutionary role music and art has played in my culture, helps recentre myself and motivates me to keep learning how to honor this in my practice as best I can.

How does your artistic practice connect to place or placemaking?

Like many other people of dual or multiple nationalities, we are constantly navigating the wonders and complexities of existing in various worlds. The main reason why I started DJing was to find a sense of belonging, within myself and as part of a community. I feel that through my sets, multiplicity can exist and makes total sense, it allows for the colliding of worlds which I feel words fail to describe.

A lot of people who come to my sets feel seen in that way and are able to find a sense of collective nostalgia and (non)belonging that we can express through being physically present together in sound and movement. For me placemaking is the creative process as a whole. It’s the digging for music, the research and learning, the conversations with your community, the organising and mobilising, the coming together to occupy space, the dance - it’s the ritual. 

This year’s Refugee Week theme is “Courage” — what does this mean to you?

Courage to me is living with integrity. It exists in the way you act towards yourself and others day to day. Social media can be a tool for collective action but I feel it has promoted an unhealthy individualism that distorts reality and doesn’t truly hold us accountable for how we act in real life, live our politics and engage in community offline. It’s in the acts of love and resistance, big and small, that break the choke hold capitalism has on us that I feel makes us act against our nature which is against each other.

Bushbby on Instagram

Jodie Yates

Jodie Yates is a filmmaker, researcher and DJ (moonlighting musically as the latter under the name Mama Jo). Joining the dots between afro-diasporic experiences, her practice explores memory vs. imagined futures, community building and joyful resistance. 

As a DJ, Mama Jo is a master quester whose sets encourage curiosity, self-expression and community closeness. R&B or polyrhythmic, Mariah Carey or coupé décalé, bringing light to the dark dancefloor is her M.O. 

How do you define yourself as an artist? 

I’m an explorer and connector first and foremost, using different art forms as vehicles for discovery, community-building and joy. As a DJ, filmmaker and researcher, my practice stretches over moving image and sound primarily, looking at the new worlds created where different ones meet.

How has your cultural heritage influenced your artistic practice? 

Joy, innovation and resilience are things I see as intrinsic to Jamaican culture, and qualities I keep at the centre of my practice. Jamaica and music are, of course, inextricably linked, and this heritage has thus had a huge impact on my musical practice in particular. Musically, dub/bass music permeates the sounds I listen to, even if the styles come from further afield.  

Soundsystem culture and its DIY nature - creating from limited resources or just the materials that are available to you in order to make new technologies to bring together communities and strengthen resistance - is a model that I always reference and look to transpose in different contexts. Music was one of the greatest things to help me connect to my culture and, generally, I believe music is one of the most accessible ways to understand the worlds around us.

How does your artistic practice connect to place or placemaking?

My practice is about understanding, interpreting and sharing different worlds. Be it storytelling through musical genre when I DJ, or using historical context to frame a narrative, I am consistently asking ‘How does an understanding of a physical or conceptual place build an identity?’.

Place is omnipresent in my practice, but I am particularly interested in the new place(s) built at the cross-section of these identities. My understanding of place as a British-born 2nd gen Jamaican is different to that of my mother having been raised there. Outside of the physical place, what is the new place built where our two experiences meet?

This year’s Refugee Week theme is “Courage” — what does this mean to you?

Courage to me means taking the necessary risks to experience and live freedom.

Jodie Yates on Instagram

Clubs & DJs for Refugee Week: An Open Invitation to the Dancefloor

May 12 @ 8:00 am - July 20 @ 5:00 pm

For the first time this year Refugee Week has launched a Clubs and DJs for Refugee Week initiative with a series of grassroots events unfolding on dancefloors across the world. From protest to celebration, nightlife has always been a space of courage - where communities gather, identities are expressed, and new futures are imagined together. Find out how you can join an event near you or take part.

More Info HERE

About Refugee Week

Refugee Week 2026 takes place from 15–21 June 2026. It is the world’s largest arts and culture festival celebrating the contributions, creativity and courage of refugees and people seeking sanctuary. It brings people together through thousands of events and activities, from performances and talks to exhibitions, community gatherings and creative projects.

A community-powered festival, it is shaped by individuals, artists, schools, libraries, venues, local authorities, cultural institutions and grassroots organisations. Founded in the UK in 1998, it takes place every June alongside World Refugee Day (20 June) and has since grown into a global movement with over 2 million participants, across over 20 countries. Refugee Week UK is a partnership project coordinated by Counterpoints Arts, working with a wide network of national partners and organisations.


refugeeweek.org.uk | Instagram | Facebook 

Refugee week UK is coordinated by Counterpoints Arts

11 Million Streams and Counting: VANÈS on "STARFUCK" and Why Artists Shouldn't Overthink It

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With more than 11 million streams, a rapidly growing online following and a string of viral moments behind her, VANÈS is emerging as one of the most compelling new voices in queer alt-pop. Blending dark-pop, R&B and electronic influences, the singer-songwriter has built a devoted audience through candid storytelling, flirtatious lyricism and an unapologetically queer perspective that speaks directly to a generation navigating identity, desire and self-discovery.

Her latest single, "STARFUCK", arrives at a pivotal moment. Written during a period of personal upheaval while her breakout track "Kiss Me Slow" was gaining momentum online, the song explores attraction, power dynamics and emotional boundaries through a lens that is both vulnerable and self-assured. Pairing soft, intimate vocals with shadowy trap-pop production, VANÈS transforms personal reflection into a bold statement of intent, setting the tone for a new chapter in her artistic journey.

We caught up with VANÈS to talk about the lessons behind "STARFUCK", finding authenticity online, building community as an independent artist, and why sometimes the best creative decisions come from following instinct rather than overthinking.

“STARFUCK” plays with power dynamics; what did writing it teach you about your own boundaries?

Writing “STARFUCK” taught me a lot about accepting nuances in dating. There are a lot of opinions and advice from people in real life, the internet or self help books but in the end you have to ask yourself what the situation looks like to YOURSELF and allow your heart to feel the repercussions of it.

There is nothing wrong with deciding something that felt right at that time and then rolling back when you feel like it doesn’t align with your boundaries anymore. 

What’s your favourite and least favourite part of making music right now?

My favorite part of making music is when I get what I call my “slay tear” - it doesn’t happen every single time but all the songs that I put out are the ones where I get it. It usually happens in the first couple hours of making a new song when I get really excited about a sound, a lyric line or a melody where I literally get one single tear in one of my eyes and it just rolls down out of nowhere. It’s always been like that and it’s my criteria of considering a song to be public at some point and I absolutely love it when it happens.

My least favorite part about making music is when I simply don’t feel the song that I’m making and I try to force myself to keep digging for cool lyrics and melodies but nothing feels right. For me, a lot of things come and go in waves and making music is one of them - it chances its excitement triggers and I have to listen more to what I naturally want: if it’s working with other people in the studio then it may work for that moment. But next week I may just want to produce music by myself and that’s okay. I’m still learning to get rid of my expectations and pressure so I can allow myself to get more in a flowstate.

Best networking tip for artists who don’t want to feel fake or transactional?

Independently organised writing camps are a great way to meet new people and create new music. Also, there are also a lot of showcases where you can show up, listen to the artists’ music and talk to them afterwards - even if you don’t want to talk to them in person, you can also just DM them the day after and let them know that you liked their set. Commenting on artists posts that you like can also go a long way - it’s all about being genuine and giving them your support when it feels authentic and honest to you - then you will also attract the right people into your life.

You’ve built a strong online presence—what’s one thing you did early on that actually worked?

One post a day keeps the overthinker away. If you have an idea then act on it and post it asap. Later on you can analyse why something worked and why some things didn’t but if you don’t try you’ll never know. My most viral videos (like the one where I’m behind Billie Eilish without knowing or my first gay panic video to my song “Kiss Me Slow”) have been uploaded withing 24 hours after it actually happening in real life and I didn’t overthink it too much. Later on you can decide for yourself if you can re-do it in different ways that serves your artistry but it’s all about trying and finding your audience.

Visually, I reconnected with things I’ve always loved as a child and I still love to this day: Red, pink, glitter but also dark colors like grey and black. I think my visual world is a clear “aesthetic” to the outside world because it’s simply me doing and wearing things I genuinely like - and that’s why is looks so cohesive and people seem to associate me with certain colors and that’s honestly so wholesome <3

Your best tip to artists trying to find both their sound and their audience?

Ask yourself what you enjoy listening to the most, what you envision yourself singing on a stage and what your audience would look like.

Get specific, make moodboards, do your research and get as deep as possible to narrow down your ideal world. For me, it was clear that I want girls and gays in my audience, that I want them to dance, scream and feel confident.

I love Chase Atlantic, Addison Rae, Adéla, Amelia Moore,..... I know their songs, I’d be in their audience as well and I know what my favorite songs are of them - and I want to make songs that hit me same way as if they were written by them.

Once you have this base figured our and you truly align with it, everything else will fall into place and the audience will find YOU eventually.

What’s your toxic trait in the studio?

I always go “That line needs to be crazier" and I won’t stop until I’m happy. I’ll repeat this sentence a couuuuple times until we squeezed out the most of the 6 words in this one line.

In the past I hid behind metaphors, I still love them here and there but there’s something so powerful about writing hyper realistic sentences that you could speak out loud that would make you go like “What did she say?” or “Did she actually just say that?”. It’s my favorite thing in the world right now, it’s so fun!

What’s a song you wish you had written?

“Wake Up” by EDEN. I can’t listen to this song without crying. I believe it came out 2015 and I always come back to this song cause it never fails to describe how I’m feeling.

If “STARFUCK” belongs on a playlist, what else is on it—give us 3 tracks for the full mood.

“Swim” - Chase Atlantic

“Kiss Me Slow” - VANÈS 

“One Of Your Girls” - The Weeknd, Lily-Rose Depp, JENNIE

VANÈS on Spotify | YouTube | Instagram

Selah Sue on Working with the Gallands on the Album Movin’ and Taking the Record on Tour

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Belgian soul-pop artist Selah Sue returns with Movin’, a collaborative album created alongside drummer Stéphane Galland and producer/keyboardist Elvin Galland. Released via Because Music, the project marks a shift from solo authorship to a more instinctive, collective process — one rooted in improvisation, trust, and musical dialogue.

What began as an invitation to perform at Jazz Middelheim quickly evolved into something more expansive. Within months, the trio moved from an initial idea to a full-length record, shaped by Stéphane Galland’s polyrhythmic drumming, Elvin’s textured production, and Selah Sue’s spontaneous vocal approach. The result is a body of work that moves fluidly between free jazz and more structured songwriting, balancing looseness with precision.

At its core, Movin’ reflects a personal and creative turning point. Written across a period of emotional transition, the album traces a journey from introspection to release, grounded in the idea of movement — not as escape, but as a way of working through discomfort and change.

How did this collaboration with Stefan come about?

I got a text message from Stéphane Galland (drums, The Gallands) about a year ago, asking if we could get together and listen to some music. He and his son had been working on some songs and wanted to perform a gig at Jazz Middelheim, an annual summer jazz festival in Antwerp, Belgium.

They asked me to feature on a few tracks, and I was blown away by the musicality and the overall sound. I had never been so inspired by a drum beat. The way Stéphane plays is deeply polyrhythmic, and it really sparked something in me. Elvin produced the tracks and chords in a very tasteful way. It all happened very quickly — no overthinking, everything felt natural, just freedom.

Stéphane recorded the instrumentals first — drums and keys — and then I put on headphones and recorded whatever came spontaneously, instantly, without thinking. Sometimes it was just sounds or words that came out unconsciously.

We started with four songs, then decided to turn it into an album, and now, a year later, we’re on tour.

On stage, there’s room for improvisation, but there are also fixed sections where you can improvise for a few bars. It sits somewhere between free jazz and something more structured — closer to the discipline of pop music.

How was it working together as a group?

The music itself came together very easily — there was hardly any discussion. Everyone respected each other’s identity and space.

The mix was the most challenging part, especially since we worked with Russell Elevado, one of the best mixers in the world. That process involved a lot more back and forth, but it always led to the best possible result. It could be difficult at times, but in the end, it was always worth it.

Being part of a band makes things much lighter. You can share the pressure — it’s not all on your shoulders. It feels really good, especially when you have a strong emotional and musical connection.

What does a typical day on tour look for you?

We usually wake up and get off the tour bus — if we’re using one — and grab a coffee. I like to go for a jog or do some exercise, and sometimes we do that together.

Then it’s about looking forward to the day — lunch, dinner, and spending time together. We’ll play games like badminton or frisbee.

I also tend to create quite a lot on the road — I’ll take my computer and work on ideas, building things in my own space.

Touring can be demanding. How do you take care of your energy and mental space?

It’s important to get a good night’s sleep. I don’t drink or do drugs — I’ve been sober for the last three years. I also try to have meaningful conversations with my band members.

We’re a really close band. I always choose to work with people I genuinely like, so we can spend time together and connect — that’s really important.

If I had one tip for artists on tour, it’s this: it doesn’t have to be ‘sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll’. It’s still a job, so it’s important to stay healthy and keep your energy up. Otherwise, it becomes difficult to sustain this kind of work long term.

What’s the best piece of advice for musicians starting out?

Stay true to what you feel is right. Try to enjoy the process because that’s always the best part. The outcome is extra — that’s more about ego. If you enjoy the making of it, the art itself, then you’ve already succeeded.

Selah Sue and The Gallands - Listen HERE

Selah Sue on Instagram

The Gallands on Instagram

EUROPEAN TOUR 2026
*Support by K.ZIA (selected dates)

May
09.05.26 – Jazz à Liège, Liège, BE
14.05.26 – Bitefartecafé, Belgrade, RS
15.05.26 – Sofia Live Club, Sofia, BG
25.05.26 – Progresja, Warsaw, PL
26.05.26 – Quantic, Bucharest, RO

June
24.06.26 – Niort Jazz Festival, Niort, FR
25.06.26 – TBA
28.06.26 – Tournai Jazz Festival, Tournai, BE

July
03.07.26 – TBA
04.07.26 – Musique Sous Les Étoiles, Bouc-Bel-Air, FR
11.07.26 – North Sea Jazz Festival, Rotterdam, NL
13.07.26 – TBA
17.07.26 – Jazz à Sète, Sète, FR
21.07.26 – TBA
22.07.26 – Les Escales du Cargo, Arles, FR
25.07.26 – TBA

August
06.08.26 – TBA

September
04.09.26 – Jazz à La Villette, Paris, FR

PB&JAM: The Bucharest Live Music Project Bringing Musicians Together

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Moving to a new country and trying to break into the live music industry can feel overwhelming, especially when opportunities don’t come easily. For PB&JAM founder Uliana Τsukanova , that challenge became the starting point for building something entirely new.

After relocating to Romania following her Master’s degree in Music Business at Berklee College of Music, she began working with independent artists across promotion, marketing campaigns, and social media while searching for her place within the local music ecosystem.

Rather than waiting for opportunities to appear, Uliana created one from scratch. What started as a simple idea — building a space where musicians could perform collaboratively without the stiffness of a traditional cover-band setup — has since evolved into one of Bucharest’s most exciting community-led live music concepts. Sitting somewhere between a live concert and an open jam session, PB&JAM has quickly built a reputation for its spontaneous energy, genre-crossing performances, and emphasis on human connection through music.

Supported through the shesaid.so x Ballantine’s True Music Fund, the project has also become a reflection of Uliana’s wider journey: learning to trust her instincts, lead with confidence, and carve out space in an industry that often asks emerging founders — particularly women — to constantly prove themselves.

PB&JAM sits between a live show and a jam session. What inspired you to create the event?

It is indeed a unique format. The idea was born from asking myself, as an amateur singer, a simple question: “Where can I sing my favorite songs live without making musicians feel like part of a cover band?” There weren’t many options in Bucharest, so I decided to start my own project.

I analyzed what each format lacks and what it offers. Freestyle jamming is peak musicianship and offers a lot of creative freedom, but it can feel slightly unwelcoming and limits the number of songs you can come up with on the spot. A program made entirely only of pre-requested songs gives a sense of security and expands the repertoire, though it takes away the fun of spontaneity.

We took the best parts of both and created a great mix where musicians have both direction and room for improvisation. You perform your favorite tune while spicing it up with solos and riffs, treating the song more as “content.” And the jamming breaks we include are for true fans of classic jams, which are equally exciting every single time.

We keep hearing “This is the exact format the city needed,” and we are glad to have filled that niche.

You were part of the 2025 shesaid.so x Ballantine’s True Music Fund. What has that support enabled that you couldn’t have done otherwise?

I am very grateful for this support, and PB&JAM wouldn’t have started so soon. The financial help was exactly what we needed to cover the first season, bringing the best musicians into the house band and fairly paying our designer, engineer, and technician.

Apart from the financial aspect, I was guided by my mentor, Andreea, along the way, and the insights she shared definitely improved the quality of our events, especially from a marketing standpoint. She also gave advice on how to sustain the project, pitch it to future sponsors, and establish timelines.

Finally, being selected for the fund was a great boost that validated the idea and helped us execute it in the best possible way.

You describe the event as “planned but not rehearsed”. Can you explain more about what this means?

Of course! We have a PB&JAM chat where musicians share song suggestions, and other instrumentalists decide to join on the day of the event. However, there are no rehearsals, so the magic happens on the spot.

As a result, we compile a list of songs, and people get on stage – often without having ever played together before. Throughout the performance, we hear instrumental solos, vocal runs, and sometimes musicians even switch while playing.

You’re bringing together musicians from very different backgrounds; what tends to happen when those worlds meet on stage?

Our events have just proved once again: music is a universal language. Two people can have completely different levels of music theory knowledge, come from different cultures, or even have slight misunderstandings in their second language (mostly English), but the moment one sits behind the drum set and another puts a bass over their shoulder, they are on the same page. All that’s needed is eye contact and an occasional nod – it is a truly beautiful thing.

At the same time, different backgrounds bring new rhythms and a unique spark. We’ve had Chilean musicians bringing Latin grooves to the stage, Romanian musicians playing traditional instruments, and a whole Moldovan band trading back-to-back solos with our house guitar player. Music unites people, and no matter how much the world tries to drive us apart nowadays, we need this human connection.

What have you learned from building PB&JAM so far, both creatively and in how people engage with it?

PB&JAM has so far been the most validating, important experience for me as an industry professional. I had to do things I never thought I would. For example, creating a visual identity with our designer to convey this robust, fun energy we’d like people associate PB&JAM with. I dealt with community management and learnt how to establish rules and instructions in a precise yet friendly way. I even learned how to host events without having done it before – there is still room for growth here :) Also, promoting events to the audience proved that there is no such thing as overadvertizing – people will forget about your project if you don’t remind them. Finally, most importantly, building PB&JAM helped with my confidence in my skill set and showed that I should trust myself more.

Top tip to someone looking to build their own community-led music project.

To that someone and self: stop overplanning and start doing. You can think, analyze, research, and brainstorm for years and yet things will still go wrong somewhere along the way.

No one is immune to that. “I just need to study it a bit more” is the excuse all overthinkers justify their inaction with, including myself, but you have to consciously jump out of this trap asap. The music industry, and especially events, are hands-on focused, so starting now and improving later is the mentality that will save you many many regrets.

And a more precise advice for community-led music projects: don’t give up your boundaries. People will try to tell you what to do, especially if you are a woman. It is very important to trust your own vision and not lose the authority in your own project. It takes one disrespectful comment being ignored to create a climate of total permissiveness.

Leading something comes with responsibility, and you have to proudly carry it. Everybody makes mistakes but at least it will be YOUR mistake. And if you hear healthy criticism, be open and adapt for the better future of your project – just don’t confuse it with bending under pressure due to lack of confidence or experience. Believe in your own power more – your audience needs you to. 

PB&JAM on Instagram

** PB&JAM has just kicked off its second season: the 2nd event took place on May 25th. Currently, the team is looking for a new sponsor to continue nurturing the Romanian live music scene while keeping the event accessible.

AZZECCA on Building COSIMEA, Playing Coachella and Finding Her Own Lane in House Music

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Few DJs have managed to bridge the lineage of Chicago house with the scale of today’s global electronic circuit quite like AZZECCA. Emerging from one of dance music’s most influential cities, the producer and DJ has built a reputation for sets and productions that sit somewhere between hypnotic intensity and emotional release, pairing rolling basslines with psychedelic textures and a darker, more mischievous edge. Since her 2022 debut, AZZECCA’s ascent has felt both rapid and carefully defined, earning releases on labels including Higher Ground, REALM Records, and Factory 93, while gaining recognition from BBC Radio 1 Dance and Beatport’s 2025 Next Class.

Fresh from her recent appearance at Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival’s Yuma stage — following standout performances at Do LaB and Quasar in previous years — AZZECCA continues to step into a new chapter of her career. Her sets, whether at festivals like Lollapalooza and Movement or inside sweat-soaked club rooms from Space to Brooklyn Storehouse, are united by a refusal to settle into formula, constantly shifting between moods and genres while remaining unmistakably hers.

Alongside her artist project, AZZECCA has also been expanding COSIMEA, her party series and label dedicated to more immersive, left-of-centre club sounds. Conceived as a platform for experimentation and discovery, it reflects a wider philosophy that runs through both her music and approach to the scene: a belief that dance music should continue evolving rather than simply chasing trends.

You played Coachella again this year, how did it feel this time around? What’s it like moving between a stage like Yuma and more intimate club settings? 

Coachella this year felt wildly different to years past. Getting the Yuma booking really felt like a massive milestone and a bit of assurance that all of the hard work I’ve been putting in over the past few years is paying off.

I wanted to showcase as much of my sonic range as I could in 1hr in the Yuma, so, unlike most of my DJ sets where I emphasize sharing music from smaller artists I love, I put together an almost entirely self produced set. 

What pushed you to build COSIMEA — your party series and label — alongside your artist project? 

I created Cosimea as an outlet  to make and play music that doesn’t necessarily fit into the current commercial music landscape. I want to push boundaries in my productions and dj sets - but sometimes it feels like being different in this industry really hinders growth.

Cosimea is a space where I can create and play the sounds that you won’t hear on the top beatport charts or on every festival main stage. Cosimea is for the open minded dance enjoyers who want to discover new things.

How do you approach building up the energy in your sets, without locking yourself into a formula?

I definitely let the room guide my sets as much as possible. I approach every gig with a bit of an outline of how I hope the night will progress, with some tracks I know I really want to play, but keeping room for improvisation is really important. It’s all about finding the balance between giving crowds what they want and showing them what they didn’t know they needed.

What do you love most/struggle with most across both making music and DJing?

I think the biggest struggle for me is getting out of my own head and staying confident in my path and what I believe I should be doing. It’s really easy to compare yourself to others and to feel pressure to take the mainstream path to success once you see a bit of it. 

Touring can be intense, what do you do to reset or switch off when you're on the road?

I read a lot. My kindle is everything to me. I also like to go on long walks as often as I can when I’m touring. I find it extremely grounding to walk aimlessly around cities without headphones or anything - just taking in the sights, sounds and smells of wherever I am. 

What’s the most valuable networking advice you’ve learned from being in the scene?

I don’t know if anyone has ever given me networking advice that made me think “wow this is going to make a difference.” I find the networking aspect of this industry to be quite difficult to navigate because I struggle with disingenuous or forced interactions. My nervous system really freaks out when I have to “try” to make people like me.

I’ve learned that just being myself and setting my ego aside and really honestly telling people that I recognize and appreciate them and what they bring to the scene has helped me more than going out with the intention of networking.

I’ve made some really special friends in this industry and I think that’s because I don’t approach anything from a transactional mindset. I want to make genuine connections with people who I share passions with and I think that’s the best way for me to go about the whole ‘networking’ thing! 

For producers coming up right now; what should they really focus on early on, and what tends to be a distraction?

I feel for anyone trying to kickstart a career in dance music right now. It’s all a bit overwhelming! My biggest advice has always been to really figure out what sets you apart from and stick to that.

It might seem like there’s a pretty obvious formula to success right now, but trends end as quickly as they start and the artists who are really passionate about bringing something new and fresh to the scene are the ones who last the longest.

Slow and steady really does win the race. Having a big moment on social media doesn’t necessarily translate to ticket sales nor does it set you up for longevity when you’re constantly chasing that next big moment. You should understand and respect the history and culture of dance music and figure out what you can do to help push it forward in a positive way. 

What’s currently feeding your creativity?

I’ve been spending a lot of time gardening while listening to a wide range of music lately and it has really replenished my creative juices. Something about getting my hands dirty and creating something with nature while cycling though niche dance genres, nu wave rock and pop on my speakers at home has ignited a real excitement to make music and get back into the clubs. 

How Boxout.fm Built One of India’s Most Distinct Independent Music Communities

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Founded in New Delhi in 2016, Boxout.fm has grown from an independent online radio station into one of India’s most respected community-driven music platforms. At a time when music discovery increasingly shifted towards algorithms and passive consumption, Boxout.fm carved out a different path — one rooted in human curation, local scenes and cultural exchange.

Through 24/7 programming led by DJs, selectors and radio hosts, the platform became a home for India’s non-mainstream music communities while documenting the country’s evolving underground music landscape in real time. Beyond radio, Boxout.fm expanded into physical spaces through projects like Boxout Wednesdays — now India’s longest-running midweek club night — alongside festivals including Jazz Weekender and Boxout Weekender, helping foster new communities around independent music and alternative culture.

Over the years, the platform has also developed international collaborations with organisations and platforms including Boiler Room, Worldwide FM, British Council and Goethe-Institut, connecting local artists and scenes in India with wider global audiences.

In 2025, Boxout.fm was selected as one of the recipients of the Ballantine’s True Music Fund powered by shesaid.so — an initiative supporting music communities, collectives and independent cultural projects through funding and mentorship. The support has contributed to the revival of Boxout.fm’s physical radio space, the development of new digital programming formats and the expansion of its long-term vision for community-driven storytelling and independent music culture in India.

In this conversation, Boxout.fm reflects on community-building, international collaboration, the evolving role of independent radio, and how platforms can continue creating meaningful cultural spaces in an increasingly fragmented digital landscape.

From Boxout Wednesdays to larger-scale projects like Jazz Weekender and Boxout Weekender, how have your events contributed to building a sustainable music community in India?

Mohammed Abood (Founder, Boxout.fm): Everything we've built at Boxout.fm has followed the same logic: the radio creates the community, the events give it a physical home.

Boxout Wednesdays became the cauldron through which a new and active music and art community was born. It was never conceived as a club night in the traditional sense — it was a weekly commitment, a proof of concept that there was an audience in India hungry for something more intentional than what commercial venues were offering. It became the longest-running midweek nightclub residency in the country. That kind of consistency over years is what builds real community — not one big moment, but hundreds of smaller ones stacked on top of each other.

Jazz Weekender grew out of the same instinct, but with a different ambition. The inaugural edition in 2022 was organised to celebrate International Jazz Day, showcasing some of the genre's most exciting Indian and international artists. What we wanted to prove with Jazz Weekender was that India had an audience not just for electronic music, but for the full spectrum of improvised, genre-crossing music — jazz, neo-soul, R&B, funk, fusion, Latin. The festival firmly established itself as a cornerstone of New Delhi's cultural calendar, attracting over 4,000 attendees across its editions. By its fourth edition in 2025, we had international headliners from across Europe, Latin America, and the Middle East sharing the stage under that banyan tree at 1AQ with some of India's most compelling live acts.

What makes these events meaningful beyond the numbers is the model. Boxout Weekender, unusually for a festival in India, always had an all-local lineup comprising a selection of our show hosts. That was a deliberate choice. We weren't just programming a festival — we were giving our community a stage and saying: you are the main act. The people who built their craft through Boxout.fm's radio are the same people who headline our events. That's what a sustainable ecosystem looks like. It's circular, not extractive.

The community doesn't just attend these events — it builds them, performs at them, and grows through them. That's the difference between a platform and a scene.

Boxout.fm has developed strong international partnerships over the years. How have these collaborations influenced your programming and expanded your reach beyond India?

MA: From the beginning, we were clear that being India-based didn't mean being India-only. The question we kept asking ourselves was: how do we make sure the music being made in this country reaches the rest of the world — and how do we bring the world back here in a way that enriches the community rather than just importing a brand?

As a forerunner in the space of collaboration, Boxout.fm expanded its reach across geographies with partnerships with longstanding institutions such as Institut Français' Fête de la Musique, Goethe Institut and the German Embassy, The British Council, Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council, as well as younger cultural juggernauts like Boiler Room, Rinse France and Worldwide FM. Each of those partnerships had a distinct character. Working with Boiler Room in 2017 meant that the Indian underground was being seen by a global electronic music audience on the world's biggest broadcast platform for the culture. Working with the British Council meant we could fund genuine artistic exchange — not just a stream, but artists physically travelling, performing, recording and learning from each other.

The Delhi to Derry project was probably the clearest expression of what international collaboration means to us at its best. Six Indian artists from the Boxout.fm community were able to perform live sets to a new audience in the UK — some for the first time. The live-streamed showcase featured 18 live and DJ performances from New Delhi and just as many from Derry. That's reciprocity. It's not India being spotlighted as exotic — it's two electronic music communities recognising each other as peers and creating something together.

The Boxout In Transit series extended that logic geographically across Asia, taking the radio format to cities like Colombo, Karachi, Amman, Hanoi, Dubai, Kathmandu, Bangkok, and eventually Berlin — marking the first time the series ventured into Europe, in collaboration with Club Gretchen. Every stop was a chance to introduce a new city to what Indian independent music sounds like in 2024, and to bring that city's energy back into our programming.

The influence flows both ways. Artists from the Boxout.fm community have gone on to enjoy careers across Europe and Asia — Suchi, for example, gaining acclaim from Boiler Room and BBC Radio 1 Dance for her percussive grooves and dreamy breaks. That's what good international partnership produces: not just a one-off exchange, but actual career trajectories that wouldn't have been possible without the platform.

In 2026, as we rebuild and refocus, these global relationships remain our most valuable equity. They signal that Boxout.fm isn't simply an Indian story — it's a model for how a community radio built with integrity can carry the culture of its home city to the world.

You were selected for the True Music Fund in 2025. What were your expectations going into the programme, and how did the experience compare in reality?

Ayesha Dikshit (Associate Director, Boxout.fm):

Going into the programme, we initially saw the True Music Fund as a means to support a specific idea we had been developing around reactivating the Boxout.fm radio space. We expected it to help us execute that vision, both financially and in terms of visibility, and to provide a platform to bring the radio back into focus.

In reality, the experience expanded beyond that initial scope. While the financial support was important, the process gave us the room to adapt the idea as it unfolded, rather than feeling locked into a fixed outcome.

What stood out most was how the programme enabled a shift in perspective. Instead of thinking in terms of rebuilding something as it once existed, it encouraged us to move forward with a format that feels more responsive and open-ended. It also reinforced the value of creating work that can exist across multiple touch-points, rather than being tied to a single space or structure.

In that sense, the experience was not just about delivering a defined end result, and more about setting a direction for how Boxout.fm can continue to grow, now and into the future.

How did the True Music Fund support your development—whether financially, strategically, or through network access—and what impact has that had on your work since?

AD: The True Music Fund played a really important role in helping us bring Boxout.fm back in a way that actually makes sense for how people engage with music today. We didn’t end up building a permanent physical radio space, but we were able to bring back the spirit of radio through digital formats unfolding in unconventional spaces.

We hosted a series of radio pop-ups, including a collaboration at Method Delhi (A contemporary art gallery in New Delhi) as part of our Nine Lives exhibition. We hosted over 15 artists across a wide spectrum of sounds and practices, reflecting the diversity and inclusivity that sits at the core of Boxout.fm. And started putting out content on YouTube, using video as the main format to reimagine what radio can look like today which enabled us to transform the project in a way that feels aligned with how music is now consumed across various digital platforms. 

Beyond the immediate programming, the fund has helped us lay the groundwork for the next phase of Boxout.fm. We’re now working towards bringing the radio player back onto our website, which will further strengthen the connection between our broadcast roots and our evolving digital format.

This process has allowed us to explore radio in a more fluid way, not tied to a single format or space, but something that can evolve across platforms while still staying rooted in independent music.

Isis O’Regan on Music PR, Cultural Strategy and Building The Sugar Factory

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Isis O’Regan is the founder of The Sugar Factory, a creative communications and strategy agency working across music, art, film and technology. Since its inception five years ago, the agency has worked with clients including Tate Modern, Somerset House Studios, Warp Records, Erased Tapes, One Little Independent, AD 93, ICA London, London Short Film Festival and Scottish Queer Film Festival.

Founded with a focus on bespoke strategy and culturally engaged storytelling, The Sugar Factory operates across digital, print and broadcast PR, brand development, strategic consultancy, partnerships, crisis communications and cultural advocacy. Embedded within independent and experimental creative scenes, the agency is known for supporting artists, institutions and projects working across contemporary culture.

What is the role of the publicist? What’s a day like working at TSF?  

The role of the publicist in the creative sectors is essentially to be the guardian and amplifier of artistic expression. We are storytellers, and it’s our job to connect our clients' work and ideas with a variety of audiences and with as much exposure as possible. There isn’t really a one-size-fits-all approach as we work with record labels, cultural institutions, film festivals, brands, start-ups, and independent artists. Our idiosyncratic thread is quite simple; we support bold ideas that challenge convention. Pushing for positive change in the arts is a key pillar of The Sugar Factory’s work. Otherwise, what is the point? 

The landscape is ever-changing, so we have a Swiss army knife of skills, which mirrors the type of people we work with, too. We offer traditional media campaigns across digital, print, broadcast and social media.

As well as other essential elements to PR: identity development, crisis communications, partnerships, strategic consultancy, ambassador and influencer collaborations, plus content ideation and creation and editorial direction. We can help bring out key messaging and the visual and ideation that accompany any idea or project. I also host guest lectures and mentoring now and again, and have appeared on panel discussions for my insights.

Every day can be different depending on campaign cycles, but Lily and Jo, my fantastic colleagues, and I will always start the week by dissecting news and trends and forecasting for what we think is around the corner. A big bulk is the actual pitching to the media, and the pipeline for it to be published. It’s a very meeting-heavy and social career in general. A big perk of course is attending as much culture highlights as possible to stay in the know. It’s a dream job for some.

How did you decide when it was time to carve your own path and start The Sugar Factory?

I had been at a couple of great agencies before and carved out a particular niche representing boundary pushing artists, events and venues before I started The Sugar Factory in 2021.

I’m going to shout out Elspeth Merry, who runs The Artists’ Way Agency, for being instrumental in encouraging me to begin my own company. Having someone I looked up to giving me that nudge was needed. I wanted to keep growing in this area of multi-hyphate everything.

While I was on the phone with her, talking about dreams for my next steps, walking through London Fields, I coincidentally bumped into an instrumental player in the arts who I had worked with briefly years before. So, of course, I had to say I’m starting something exciting, and it led to them becoming one of my first clients at The Sugar Factory. It was a huge opportunity that solidified what I do and offer. Serendipity, in my opinion, can’t be ignored. 

There are clients I have been working with since my career in PR began, and they came along for the ride. They include Somerset House Studios (whom I love and are turning 10 this year!) and the iconic Warp Records.

I champion those who are steadfast in their craft and making a difference in the arts, whether in a particular genre or through new technologies. Is it trite to mention the zeitgeist? I don’t care, our clients are really shaping it. It’s special, and we take it seriously.

Our current projects include the Tate Modern’s 2026 Infinities Commission, Jenkin Van Zyl’s new exhibition Enclosure, james K on AD 93, Laura Misch on One Little Independent, a fun art discovery app called gowithYamo, plus some exciting projects to be announced soon. 

The name of the company comes from a beet factory that once stood in my hometown of Tuam, Co. Galway. I always loved the grittiness of something so industrial, making a saccharine product; I love dualities and contradictions. Apparently, when you’re standing near a sugar factory, and you stick your tongue out, you can taste the sugar on your tongue. Mysterious, omnipresent - like PR!

After an intense or difficult day, how do you properly switch off or reset?

I was actually diagnosed with an autoimmune disease recently, so downtime is a non-negotiable. I know I’m meant to say yoga, fresh air and the like, which is true! But a glass of red, a cig and chatting shite with a loved one has its own particular healing properties. Having my own artistic practice is probably the main thing that keeps me sane outside of any work stresses.

I write a bit, and I make soundscapes compositions, a mix of field recordings and synths. I am in love with a synth called the Motor Synth MKII - the inner mechanics are so noisy the wheels scream, creating these odd harmonics. It’s mental.

I’ve been hogging it at the Glasgow Library of Synthesised Sounds. I’m a proud member! I adore radio as an outlet, and have a homophonic travelling series called Éisteacht Aisteach, which means “weird listen” in Irish. Resident Advisor said it’s sometimes eerie, sometimes sensual, and that’d be spot on. It’s R&D for my own soundscapes; it might be based around a specific theme or a text.

What’s something you wish someone had told you earlier about sustaining a long-term career in music and culture?

Get a good accountant, be financially literate, set your rates and boundaries, and don’t let anyone take the piss.

What are you listening or reading (or both) to at the moment?

Reading: Cronenberg on Cronenberg by Chris Rodley. I’m a big fan. Also constantly dipping in and out of Clarise Lispector's Aqua Viva - one of the most incredible books I’ve been gifted. It’s a sliver of a book, but it’s taking me a while to get through it; it causes me to hardcore daydream. Not in a bad way, it’s just that hypnotising with all its lust and lunacy. Audio book: Revelations: a warts and all mammoth of an autobiographical account of Francis Bacon’s life. Salacious, too. 

Listening:  Streaming on repeat: Magnetism by Drew McDowell and Kali Malone, Lotto by They are Gutting a Body of Water and Neight Riegn by Arooj Aftab.

Physical: have a gorgeous compilation on Somewhere Press titled The Black Hill, The Glass Sky. I love a tape.

Isis O'Regan on Instagram | The Sugar Factory Website

Artist Manager Emily Hornbuckle on Artist Development and Long-Term Careers in Electronic Music

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For Emily Hornbuckle, artist management came after years spent working across live music, festivals and grassroots shows. Before launching Charm alongside Cali McKinney in January 2025, Emily worked as Senior Events Coordinator at Vision Nine, contributing to major UK events including Boardmasters, NASS and BBC Introducing Live, while also programming independent gig nights across London featuring artists including Olivia Dean and Goat Girl.

After moving into artist management at One House in 2022, Emily went on to co-found Charm, an artist management company rooted in electronic and underground music culture. Today, the agency works with artists including Shanti Celeste, Call Super, Surusinghe, Lulah Francs and James Rand, while also representing CCL and studio20. Alongside day-to-day management and long-term artist strategy, Charm has expanded into events through its Seave series, which launched at Next Door Records Two with Leeds band HONESTY and support from studio20.

This year also sees the launch of Charm’s new mix series, featuring artists Emily and Cali admire, including Sarkawt Hamad and T90s, alongside longer-term plans to develop the company further through future label projects and continued events programming.

How did you get your start in music?

My very first job in the music industry was working as a production & artist liaison assistant for SC Productions based out of Cardiff in 2018 between my second and third year at university. I moved there on my own, all my friends were working in hospitality back in Cornwall but I knew the world I wanted to get into I needed to get some experience before leaving uni so took the gamble and made the move to Cardiff for the summer to work on a bunch of shows.

My first show was working on a Stereophonics show at Cardiff City Stadium as a site office assistant where I literally learnt everything there was to know about building a temporary site from Heras fencing to track mats. After that I worked at Cardiff Castle (Pete Tong + the heritage orchestra, Catfish and the Bottlemen), Parc Areas with Paloma Faith. The second half of the summer working on the artist liaison team and advancing Bloodstock festival which gave me my first real insight into being across a project from a more planning & delivery perspective (as well as a free tattoo from the tattoo artist we’d booked for the artists!)

My final show with SC was working as the artist liaison office manager at Creamfields, I would greet every artist, take them to green rooms, organise transfers to and from stages. I was already interested in electronic music from living in Bristol for uni and would regularly go to Motion, The Love Inn, Crofters rights and so this show really cemented the fact I wanted to work in electronic music. A friend of mine was the logistics manager at Motion and knew I’d been working over the summer and offered me a day or 2 a week to support him advancing shows at the club every week during its in:Motion club series which I loved.

At Boardmasters + NASS (RIP) I also started as the Events Management intern and progressed over the 3 years to be working alongside the festival director to produce Boardmasters, a 60,000-cap festival as well as navigating it through covid… probably one of the hardest jobs I’ve experienced to date but the pay-off when a show like that comes to life is unreal — you see all the hours you’ve put in all year, then it’s over and you go again! This job taught resilience on another level which I took with me onwards to my next venture in management.

I made the move into artist management at One House in 2022, through which I assisted Sandy Marris his roster, and fast forward to today, we’re still working together on a couple of artist projects. At the time One House was a 360 agency with bookings, management and a record label in house, I learnt so much from my time there across all the divisions and the first few years were full of learning and absorbing what was going on around me both at the office and outside at gigs.

One House is where I also met my now business partner Cali McKinney, very quickly Cali, Suze Surusinghe (an artist we now manage full-time, but who was a manager at One House at the time) and I became close friends. My first week at One House was also Suze’s first week being managed by  One House, so I happily became part of that team from day one.

I was fortunate enough to start my career in management working with artists across different points of their careers, with Suze everything was a first together - first EP released, first press coverage, first radio plays etc which is the best feeling to see achievements roll in like this.

With more established artists like Shanti Celeste, the focus is on continuing to build and develop projects like with Club Celeste London, we are producing the 4th edition this year at The Cause and are so proud of the space we’ve created with the team. We have over 3000 people attending and over 50% of the audience is female identifying, it’s a key date in the calendar we all look forward to working on.

charm was born in January 2024 with Cali McKinney, it began because we wanted to run gigs together and then it U-turned into us starting our own company together. I had never envisioned going freelance, I’d been employed since my first job at 14 but just felt like the right time to go out there and start something of our own.

We signed some new artists to the roster and our first year was a whirlwind but so motivating and liberating, into our second year we are focussing on what we want to charm to be and begin to develop our brand through our charm curates series - watch / listen / read / visit recommendations from us and guest DJs who provide a 1 hr mix as well for us. Secondly, the focus is launching the label, autumn 2026 watch this space.

Fast forward a few months I met Sophie Bradley who was the A&R at VG at the time, she’s now one of my best friends & couldn’t be more thankful that our paths crossed during this time.

We worked together to produce the VOCAL GIRLS launch show at Moth Club in October 2021, we booked Olivia Dean who I’d been a huge fan of since finding her in late 2019 and was the first person we’d suggested to book.

She was the last gig I went to before lockdown Off the Cuff in Herne Hill for an EP release she did and now on the other side of covid we had booked her for our own show. The show sold out with double the venue capacity on the waiting list which was only a sign of what became and now she’s sold out 6  O2 Arenas in London!

After that we continued to do various gigs across the year Molly Payton at Shacklewell Arms, Pixy at Windmill Brixton, and curated a stage at The Great Escape. I loved every moment of it and the fact I was doing this outside of my current job showed me a new side to working with artists more closely. The feeling of being a tiny stepping stone in someone’s career was the best feeling and the first time I felt that I could do this as a job not as a side hustle.

You’ve worked closely with artists at very early stages. What do you look for beyond the music when deciding who to support long-term?

I feel very fortunate that the majority of my roster that I’m working with now is who I began my journey with in management (Call Super, Shanti Celeste & Surusinghe).

When we started charm I started working with James Rand & Lulah Francs too.

The majority of my roster are touring DJs & producers, and what’s exciting is that the creativity doesn't stop there; Call Super is also an artist, in 2023 alongside Call Super’s album we announced an an art exhibition called ‘Tell Me I Didn’t Choose This’ at St.Marys Church on Bourne Street, London where we held a week long exhibition with paintings it was part of a wider project with the album around self reflection and other themes of the album. 

With Surusinghe we launched ‘Drifting’ a music blog & community online as well as starting her own events. On the community side one thing we do is a monthly Zoom call we call a music ‘book’ club where we talk about an album once a month with people from the community. So far we’ve done, Nick Leon’s, Erika Decasier, YWH Nailgun and more! It’s so fun to connect with people who love music in that way. 

With Lulah Francs, what was inspiring about our early chats together was that first and foremost she’s a singer, and feels most comfortable writing lyrics and singing and has the ambition to be in a live band one day. Something we have been working together for over a year now so watch this space!

Overall, what draws me in is the wider creative world an artist wants to build, the projects beyond the music, and the ambition behind them. What's most exciting to me is where I can add value in these other projects, and creatively they're some of the most rewarding.

On a personal level there needs to be a level of compatibility between us working together, it's an equal partnership between manager and artist. You'll talk to each other most days so there's a level of personal relationship needed, and being able to align on communication style. It's not a one size fits all so being able to adapt with every artist is key. Equally, it's not an easy industry to be in, as managers we can only provide as much value to your career as the artist is willing to put in alongside us.

For artists trying to build sustainable careers right now, what’s genuinely worth focusing on and what’s just noise?

There is a lot of noise out there, especially online where people are projecting what you should and shouldn’t be doing as an artist which I can imagine it’s very overwhelming for not just emerging artists but all artists.

The scene is constantly changing, trends are shifting, and social media has a big influence on these and how quick things can move. I don’t think social media is all that bad though, it’s part of our everyday lives within this industry. The era of the influencer content seems to be fizzling out and people are craving authenticity and community online more than ever. Keeping true to what your own creative interests and passions are is what will cut through all the noise. 

Being aware of current trends is important but you don't need to change who you are as an artist to fit the moment in time. If you can find a way to utilise what's trending in your own voice as an artist then go for it, but don't force it. There's plenty of artists out there who are 'breaking through' but have been grafting, touring, producing records for years and have stuck true to what they believe in. It's easy to look at someone having a moment and assume they came out of nowhere, but there's almost always years of work behind it that just isn't visible online.

Through Charm, you’re building something that goes beyond management — events, a mix series, and potentially a label. Why was it important to create a wider ecosystem rather than just a roster?

Genuinely being able to build something outside the roster is so we can work with artists we are fans of in a different capacity to management. With the charm curated mix series for example this is purely a space to showcase artists we are fans of. Some we may know already, some will be completely new relationships, and if we are opening doors for artists to showcase their talent to more people it’s only a positive thing.

We’d love one day to be able to become a platform that has influence like so many others like Illian Tape or Dekmantel podcast and others!

For the label, similar to the mix series the aim is to be able to work with artists within a different capacity as well as across other genres. Cali & I originally wanted to run live gigs together because we both love bands as well as club music and would often go to gigs and say why don’t we do this.

That’s how ‘Seave’ began which was our first gig night where we had HONESTY headline & studio20 support, caveat to my previous point on us working with artists in a different capacity to management, Cali now manages studio20. I think it’s an amazing opportunity to work with someone because you’re a fan of them and you never know where it might lead. We hope the label can not only showcase club music we love but bands too, naturally the label will have an electronic overarching genre to it as it’s what we love and know best. We have already started plans for our first few releases, autumn 2026 watch this space!

Overall, it’s important to us not only from a passion and creativity point of view but we want charm to grow into an established company within the industry.  Would love to start bringing people into our ecosystem and collaborate together to make it grow beyond management.

What’s been inspiring you creatively lately, both inside and outside of music?

My semi new years resolution was to go see more band gigs, I can often get swept up with work shows that there’s less space for me to go to see new music / artists. I find this super inspiring, whether it’s supporting friends bands or recommendations from friends, there’s no better feeling than watching an amazing gig and walking away like you’ve witnessed something special. Also, knowing the other side of promoting shows and how much work goes into them no matter the size of the room it’s always the best feeling seeing it come to life, from 300 cap rooms at MOTH Club to 3500 people at The Cause.

I’ve always loved taking photos on film cameras / digital cameras from a young age, every year I have a new camera on go. The majority of the time they’re photos at festivals, gigs of my friends, artists just a nice way to create memories that feel more real with a film camera. I definitely prefer being behind the camera than in front of it! 

With charm we have recently started a ‘charm curates’ series where Cali & I give monthly recommendations of what we’ve read/ watched/ listened and recommend to visit. It’s fun being able to share that side of us through charm that’s not just through music but our personal tastes. 

Women doing great things in and outside of the industry I work in is inspiring whether it’s amongst my friends, family, artists etc. Sophie Bradley, who I mentioned is a close friend, is juggling a new life in motherhood as well as booking your favourite artists at Lost Village festival.

My Dad is one of my biggest inspirations in the work I do, he’s got the best work ethic of everyone I know, and he’s definitely instilled that in me. He’s travelled the world in the work he does and showed me at a young age there’s a whole world out there you can explore when it comes to your work. I’m inspired by my friends, family and creatives I see and work with every day to remind myself what I’m doing is having an impact.

Shoutout to everyone I work with everyday, Sandy Marris who I wouldn’t be in this job if he didn’t take a chance on me! He gives me perspective on everything I work on, not just with the artists we still work with now but other projects I’m working on.

This industry can be intense. What’s your way of resetting or unwinding when things get overwhelming?

As much as I can do leaving the job at the door when I get home, it doesn’t always happen of course. Now that I’m working for myself I can have more flexible working hours.

I’m most productive at the start of the day and the end of the day and try to get home when my partner does so my brain switches off for a bit. I may check back in after this but try not to unless urgent or an especially busy period.

I’m still learning everyday how to manage my emotions in and out of work, especially if I’m feeling overwhelmed or when imposter syndrome starts to creep in and then the anxiety I get about feeling all of those things, and then the classic case of questioning yourself!

It’s a personable job, you talk to people all day everyday which can be exhausting especially if you have other things going on in your life outside of work. My work consists of late nights on the weekends so my weekdays are so precious, Monday to Wednesday / Thursday I’m pretty strict on keeping those evenings free of plans to just be at home, rest & regain the social battery. Trying to eat well, not drink too much, going to the sauna all helps me keep a clear head entering the work week.

Taking time off! Time flies in this job and it will be months before you think wow I’ve not had any days off that haven’t been for work / travelling. I always try to get a week back home in Cornwall before summer kicks in and usually the same afterwards in September / October time. You are your best self when you can take a rest and switch off.

Emily Hornbuckle on Instagram | LinkedIn