April 6, 2022 |
On the go doesn’t even begin to describe the fast-paced lifestyle of DJ and radio host Jyoty Singh. The 31-year- old is always on the move; every few days, there’s a new destination. In a rare moment of calm, she calls from her Dubai hotel room ahead of a soundcheck for her DJ set at the Jameel Arts Centre, hosted by Burberry and local creative platform Sole DXB. “I’m extremely hungover,” she admits, but has the perfect cure: room service has just delivered a triple stack of pancakes, and she’s demolished them.
Born in Amsterdam and raised in a traditional Punjabi household, Singh left home at 22 to study for a masters degree in world history and cultures at King’s College London. The young music enthusiast couldn’t wait to experience life outside of the Netherlands. She had visited the British capital with her friends as a teen and dreamed of living in this thriving, musical city with the freedom to roam and do as she pleased.
“The Netherlands is very small, everyone knows each other and it’s very predictable in a sense,” she says. “You can’t really hide from anyone or anything.” Singh never felt appreciated by her Dutch peers, often feeling like the loudest person in the room. To make ends meet, she worked as a cloakroom girl at Dalston club The Nest, rising through the ranks to become the beloved door girl. “I was a really chatty door girl. All the DJs, managers and agents knew about me because I was loud and was always chatting their ears off.” Later, she would manage the door of Boiler Room’s weekly events, eventually curating her own club nights for the online music platform alongside hosting a radio show for Rinse FM.
Singh’s official big break came during the thick of the first lockdown after a clip from her carnival-themed set played at Boiler Room the previous year went viral on streaming platforms around the world. During a time when clubs were closed, house parties broke the law and ravers yearned for the dance floor, Singh’s viral set quenched a thirst for the escape of a hedonistic night out. The clip has amassed more than 2.4 million views on TikTok, with the set itself being watched more than 1.5 million times on YouTube, bringing a euphoric blend of dancehall rhythms, funk and Afrobeats to bedrooms globally.
“This set going viral has really given me a huge platform,” she says. “I am being very grateful, very thankful, and I’m taking the opportunities where I think I can change the perspectives or the minds of others.”
She considers herself to be a healer through music. This journey began on her show for Rinse FM, where she would curate slow-burning mixes to keep her listeners relaxed. “For the first four years after starting my radio show, the first thing I always used to say was, ‘No matter what’s going on in your life, for the next two hours I’m going to make sure that either you forget, go harder, fall asleep or calm down’,” Singh says. “I used to say that because I was very aware of how putting on a good mix, album or radio show used to make me feel. It was an escape.”
For two hours, her slot runs with no guest mixes, no interviews, nothing to disturb the connection with her audience across the airwaves. “People say you should listen to your heartbeat during breathing exercises – that’s a rhythm, that’s a pattern, that’s something you can understand and hold on to.”
The pandemic has brought huge and continuing disruption to the music industry. Wages have been slashed, travel restrictions imposed and gigs cancelled, especially in the face of Omicron. Everything is still uncertain, though for Singh, it has been the best time of her career. She attributes a lot of her success to luck – being at the right place at the right time. Throughout lockdown, she focused her restless energy on staying active, curating, presenting, freelancing, hosting talks and streaming DJ sets online for all to join. “I consider myself a one-man agency,” she says with a laugh.
Being trapped indoors for the better part of the last two years has helped Singh fall back in love with music. During the early days of quarantine, she would sit in her bedroom and spin records almost constantly. “I just remember lying on my bed with a scented candle lit beside me and listening to A Tribe Called Quest and Mathematics by Mos Def. I kid you not, I felt high,” she says. “My body had this release because I had been overworked for years. I just felt this out- of-body experience and that was a personal moment of healing with music that made me realise I should implement it more often in my work.” She began to curate her sets with that ethos in mind. Singh tends to break down her mix by interweaving a slow tune to help her audience unwind before she drops another floor-filler. “I like to have that moment where everyone realises that we’re all together. Alicia Keys’ “You Don’t Know My Name” was my breakdown song for a recent show in Munich and I realised that it’s not even about me or about the song; it’s all about that moment where everyone sings together, which is something we haven’t been able to do for two years.”
Singh has made a success of the pandemic-led pivot to online but her happy place will always be the DJ booth of a sweaty club night where her naturally energetic and enthusiastic spirit wildly unravels. In February, she launched her own event, Homegrown, which marked a special moment in her career. “It is an ode to all the parties in Amsterdam and London that raised me,” she says of the sold-out night held at Colour Factory in Hackney Wick, which delivered an unmatched atmosphere full of borderless tunes and breakout beats.
By melding music and healing in her work, Singh concocts cathartic dance floor experiences. This shift in her creative process has allowed her to keep in mind what effect her sets will have on crowds after the lights come on. “I think about how it’s going to be perceived,” she says. “Will it have a knock-on effect on what people will do afterwards? Will it open someone’s eyes to these types of sounds or artists that make a certain kind of music? Healing has made this not about me.” Post-pandemic, Singh believes that the healing properties of music will exist in an increasingly digital world, which excites her. Whether that means seeing her across a dance floor in east London or through a screen in the metaverse, the remedy is in her sound.
Portrait by Jason Lloyd-Evans. Taken from Issue 68 of 10 Magazine – FUTURE, BALANCE, HEALING – out NOW. Order your copy here.
