The Mix 010: Keyrah

Your style is quite eclectic – you really have it down as a selector. What sounds are you resonating most with right now, and where do you see dance music styles moving this year?

At the moment, I feel like I’m going through a bit of a broken beat stage. Somewhere within that, I keep finding people on Bandcamp who don’t know how to describe their sound themselves, it’s like broken beat mixed with deep and soulful house. I feel like that’s the kind of space that I’m in at the moment.

There’s been such a massive focus on edits for the past year or so off the back of TikTok, it’s becoming a lot. I think it would be refreshing to go back to something that’s not necessarily focused on nostalgia, which is funny for me to say because I do play a lot of edits. But I’m also not the biggest fan of mashups because I feel like it’s a lazier form of production that we’ve already heard before. As music as I love nostalgia, if you’re gonna draw from it, it should be combined with something new and fresh.

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Do you feel like you have to play more edits now with the trends going that way?

Not so much, I’ve been playing edits for a while and it just so happened that it became a massive trend. Soulection has been doing that for years already, everything works in trends and cycles. I’m not surprised that it’s come to that point when we’ve got DJs like Kaytranada who’s been making edits for years, but now it’s come front and centre and everyone’s an edit DJ. It’s good to mix them in because there’s that sense of familiarity, especially if you’re trying to educate a crowd and push them into new sounds that you wouldn’t necessarily hear in the club. It helps bridge that gap a little.

Can you tell me a bit about your Rinse residency? How’s that been going?

It’s been going well, they’ve supported me loads over the past year. I toyed with radio for a while because, as I’ve been doing more of it, I’ve had to become less anal about my mixes. Before it would take me half a day to record a mix because every transition had to be perfect. Up until the beginning of last year, I only had about four mixes out across my whole DJ career, and it’s not because I don’t enjoy recording them. It’s just that I felt like they had to be perfect. So Rinse has really shaken that out of me and allowed me to be more experimental with what I record, and to not focus or stress that it has to be this perfect soundscape that I’m putting out online. It’s just a nice place where I can experiment and build on songs that sit in the Misc; world, and most importantly, it’s a place for me to play songs that I wouldn’t necessarily put in my sets.

How did your first headline show at Phonox go? What was the vibe like?

It went really well! I was super happy with the curation on that one. It took me a while to figure out who I wanted as the special guest, and Lil Silva was amazing to fill that slot. Sonically, we had Sanasesh and Rishy Malik who are big on all forms of house music from Latin through to Afro. It was impossible not to dance to their set. Then we had Kojey who can go anywhere from garage to broken beat and deep house. It was like a journey, and a tester for Misc; and where I could take it. I got a vibe for what the crowds were into, and how I could build out the Misc; world. It was a fun night.

You’ve supported artists like Jorja Smith and Loyle Carner in the past, is there anyone you’d like to work alongside next?

Everyone that I’ve ended up working with has come about organically, and I’ve always been a fan of them prior. It’s just ended up happening, so I don’t have any particular standouts or anyone I’m dying to work with, but I just hope that I can continue to create more organic relationships with musicians that I admire.

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What’s next for you? Where do you go from here?

This summer will be my first taste of a proper festival season, so I guess we’ll see how that goes. I’m excited! I like to play to bigger crowds in different scenarios because it’s a lot different to your standard club. Then I’m planning some more Misc; dates throughout the summer. As much as I think it’s important to have some form of a plan, I never have a rigid idea. I think it’s good to see what the universe throws at you and where you can take it.

Can you tell us about your Mix?

So this mix was recorded in LA (shoutout to Soulection for letting me use their office!). It’s inspired by a few tracks I’ve found along my travels – I always find journeys are the best time to dig for music. It’s also got a lot of tracks that I’ve been playing out recently, as well as some that I’ve had on repeat at home. It’s a journey as always, but it feels like the perfect intro to summer!

Keep up to date on Keyrah’s forthcoming shows here

Gemma Ross is Mixmag’s Assistant Editor, follow her on Twitter