Bio
Alewya is a child of many worlds: born to an Ethiopian mother, Egyptian father and raised in West London. Now, as a multi-hyphenate artist — singer, musician, painter, sculptor — Alewya draws from many worlds, too. At home, her parents’ Arabian and East African music influence gave her a spiritual release. Revolutionary singer Teddy Afro and jazz icon Mulatu Astatke were on rotation, alongside drum-heavy sounds infused with the meditative strings of the krar and masenqo. Her brother’s tastes in alternative rock and electronic music showed her alternative ways of being as a young woman of African descent, exposing her to the Pixies and Smashing Pumpkins, among others.
Out in the streets, London’s pulsing sound-systems gave her a physical release, raving to funky house drums, junglist breakbeats and the meditative bassweight of Caribbean dub music. These inspirations have all come together in Alewya’s sound: a raw, renegade blend of the devotional rhythms of East Africa and the funk ‘n’ grit of Black Britain.
Alewya considers herself a late bloomer — she worked in fashion in her teens, and started writing music in her twenties — but “I’m ahead in the sense that I’ve had experiences that leave me with no illusions, it’s harder to tempt me with the usual” she says. “I’ve seen behind the curtain, and that allows me to align with what I need to do and who I need to do it with. This could all go tomorrow, but I know that creativity is in my spirit. It can’t be taken from me.”
Others recognised Alewya’s creative spirit immediately. In 2019, she met UK jungle legend Shy FX in a London club and, after seeing her perform, he became her manager and hosted her on his stage at the iconic Notting Hill Carnival. Teaming up in the studio with Shy FX, and co-producers Dean Barrett, Craig Dodds and The Busy Twist, Alewya wrote and produced her debut EP, ‘Panther In Mode’, led by singles ‘Sweating’ and Play’. The EP was released in November 2021 on Because London Records. “I’ve got a family of people to create with, but the demo of most songs starts with me in my bedroom,” she says. “I know what Alewya sounds like, so forming and presenting that to the world is our process. We work harmoniously and I feel so understood with the people I surround myself with.”
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Busy Twist is one of the leading lights of the new global dance underground, effortlessly hotwiring vibrant sounds from across the continents. He connects the dots between bass-driven Afro, Latin, Caribbean and UK influences, with DJ sets that have taken him everywhere from Glastonbury to Nyege Nyege in Uganda, to the Barranquilla carnival on the Colombian coast. His releases, meanwhile – a kinetic collision of cultures, where deep-rooted rhythms meet forward-thinking production – have found a home on tastemaking international labels including Because Music, Jamz Supernova’s Future Bounce and Soundway Records.
The DJ and producer (aka London-born Ollie Williams) has spent over a decade immersed in emerging musical scenes from around the world and his versatile productions have established him as an in-demand force in the studio. He is just as at home spotlighting the next generation of talent as he is collaborating with African heavyweights like Amadou & Mariam. For his team-up with the legendary Malian duo ‘La Vie Est Belle’, he went to Bamako and recorded with them on their home turf. “It was important to me to go to where Amadou & Mariam lived and meet their fellow musicians and to get a deeper understanding of the culture,” says Busy. “I can’t wait for the world to hear what we made together.”
The past year has been a breathlessly creative time for Busy. He capped off 2024 with the ambitious ‘LDN Palenque’, boldly creating a sonic bridge between the historical Colombian coastal town Palenque and the UK capital. He collaborated with local hip-hop stars Kombilesa Mí and paired their vocals – sung in the distinct Palenquero language that’s distinct to Palenque, the first ‘free town’ in the Americas, founded by those who fled a life of slavery in colonial times – with euphoric dance music that called to UK house and London’s club scenes. The title track made its way onto the EA SPORTS FC 2025 soundtrack – an impressive feat for a dialect only spoken by a few thousand people worldwide and playing a small part in helping to preserve its heritage.
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Goldie (born Clifford Joseph Price MBE on 19 September 1965) is a pioneering British DJ, producer, visual artist, and actor, renowned for his transformative influence on the jungle and drum and bass scenes of the 1990s and beyond. Emerging from the UK rave culture, he became one of the first breakout stars and most recognisable faces of electronic music, known for his fusion of breakbeats, orchestral textures, and emotive vocals.
Goldie first gained recognition as a graffiti artist in the early 1980s, contributing to the UK’s burgeoning street art movement. His passion for hip-hop and breakdancing led him to the U.S. in 1986, where he immersed himself in New York’s hip-hop culture and began crafting gold dental jewellery—a signature element of his image.
His musical journey began with collaborations under the alias Rufige Kru. In 1994, he co-founded the influential label Metalheadz, which became a cornerstone of drum and bass, releasing seminal works by artists such as Photek, Source Direct, and Lemon D. His 1995 debut album Timeless, featuring the iconic track “Inner City Life,” reached number 7 on the UK Albums Chart and is hailed as a landmark in electronic music. “Inner City Life” was recently included at number 12 on Billboard’s list of the 100 Best Dance Songs of All Time.
Following Timeless, Goldie released Saturnz Return (1998), a deeply personal and ambitious double album. After a period focusing on acting and television, he returned with The Journey Man (2017), an expansive project blending drum and bass with soul, jazz, and downtempo influences.
Beyond music, Goldie has appeared in films such as The World Is Not Enough (1999) and Snatch (2000), and on television in shows like EastEnders and Celebrity Big Brother. In 2016, he was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for his contributions to music and the arts.
Goldie continues to shape the sound and culture of electronic music through his label Metalheadz and projects like Subjective, a collaboration with producer James Davidson. Most recently, Goldie and Davidson relaunched Rufige Kru with the album Alpha Omega, featuring a collaboration with CASISDEAD. He has been touring the UK, US, and Europe with his live band and is currently working on a new Goldie studio album, slated for release in 2026.
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Like the waves of the ocean, Joalin is always in a flow state. The Finnish artist and dancer’s creative practice has always been inspired by movement – whether in her fluid, breathtaking pop melodies, dancing practice or the constant motion of her colourful upbringing. “I’ve always been a very creative person, but the place that always allows me to go deep is anywhere by the water,” she says. “I love being near the sea; we just have a special friendship. It’s what inspires me.”
Like her source of inspiration, Joalin’s meditations on love, heartbreak and self-trust are moving and all-encompassing. Set to an intoxicating blend of pop, R&B and reggaeton-inflected productions, she can effortlessly glide from ethereal falsettos to puckish rap-speak, from English to Spanish.
“When I was living in Finland, writing in Spanish gave me security because nobody understood what I was singing about,” she says. “That gave me the privacy and extra confidence to be more vulnerable in my art.” Currently based back in Mexico, and recording for the first time with people who speak Spanish “has been a pretty important experience and has resulted in a sound that is fuller, louder and more confident. It’s me really stepping into this, in and out of different energies and sounds, in my own way.” Inspired by her return to Mexico and her love of regional music, her upcoming five track mixtape, CAMALEÓN, is “a little bit warmer… I’ve definitely been influenced by all this noise and people and happiness and culture.”
Joalin was born in her native Finland but emigrated to Spain as a toddler with her dancer mother. At the age of ten, she moved to Mexico and stayed in the vibrant country for a decade, before returning to Finland with her family. Though she considers herself someone who “grew up a bit everywhere”, it was her formative years spent in the charming beachside town of Playa del Carmen, where her family founded a dance academy, that helped her bloom into the artist she is now. “This is the age when you learn more about life and your own personality comes through. These are the years when I actually became who I am,” she says with a smile. “And now I’ve come into my own.”
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“This album is me, now. It shows every side of me, from explosive, raging tunes to deeper melancholic moments and it refracts so many of my influences,” Simon Neale says. “The diversity of my passions is what I could finally showcase on an album project. It’s full of emotion and is, in essence, the story of how I got to where I am right now: my journey documented.”
Two decades into his career, Simon Neale, AKA Shadow Child, is finally ready to release a debut album that expresses who he truly is. Delving deep into his past and his early love of rave, breakbeats, hardcore and jungle, A Break In The Clouds is Simon telling the story of his musical journey through a distinctly modern lens. “It’s a record that I could have only made now, at this point in my career,” he says. “It’s the passions of all my experience brought together.”
Across 12 tracks released on the storied London Records, he produces some of his most immediate and infectiously kinetic music, moving seamlessly from the euphoric rave vocals and shuddering breakbeats of “Say It Now” to the John Barry-inspired strings and pulsating drum ‘n’ bass riddim of “Trippin”, the R&B vocals of Tendai feature “So Into You”, which harks back to Simon’s crossover Top 40 hit “Bad Girl (At Night)” in 2007, and the rolling UK Garage bass of MJ Cole feature “Searching”.
“I came out of the pandemic questioning my place in the dance music world and where I wanted to go next,” Simon says. “I was inspired by the lo-fi explosion of artists like Mall Grab and DJ Seinfeld and it made me go back to my roots, exploring the raw, stripped back sound of the jungle and rave tunes I grew up with. As a result, something like ‘Trippin’ has a happy-sad feeling thanks to the strings, while ‘So Into You’ is a love song, which feels mad to have on a rave-inspired record. It’s something I’ve only had the confidence to do now at this stage in my career – sticking my flag in the ground to showcase who I am and to prioritise feeling over all else.”
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