If you’ve ever met Charlotte Devaney, you know she’s a force of nature—captivating, electrifying, and unapologetically herself. She doesn’t just bring energy to the table; she flips it, spins it, and sets it on fire with her outrageous positivity and sharp, no-nonsense industry insights. Whether she’s pioneering new sounds, turning MCs into holograms, or dropping beats that demand attention, Charlotte’s hustle is unstoppable. She’s an advocate for hard work, a champion for women in the scene, and a powerhouse of creativity, seamlessly balancing music, business, and sheer unfiltered fun.
From her latest single ‘Latina’ (shot and directed in LA with a signature Devaney splash of colour and madness) to returning to the ever-evolving drum and bass landscape, she’s always pushing boundaries. And if you thought her Narni Shakers days were behind her, think again—2025 is bringing a fresh revival with a legendary reunion in the works! With a US tour on the horizon, a game-changing collab with Kele Le Roc, and a never-ending drive to shake up the scene, Charlotte is proving—once again—that she’s here to make noise, challenge norms, and keep the energy levels permanently maxed out. Let’s get into it…
Hello, How are you?
I’m good! 2024 was another amazing year and I feel very blessed to still be here making a living from this amazing industry, a very hard industry at times, but I’m blessed. There’s lots of exciting things happening.
What have you been doing recently?
I’ve been releasing music, touring, plus turned a few MCs into holograms too!
I released four singles in 2024, and I’m now releasing remixes of all of the singles. I went out to LA in April 2024 and shot a music video for my single ‘Latina’ which is definitely one of my favorite songs I’ve made. It’s totally Charlotte and encapsulates everything about me really. It’s fun, bright, colourful and different. I wrote and spat the verses about myself! I’m definitely finding as I’m getting older, I know myself more, so it’s a lot easier to write about myself and feel confident with doing that!
I shot and directed the video for ‘Latina’ and I’ve just dropped a second video (the street edit)- when I went to LA, I shot way too much footage. I thought “I’m here, I’ll just get a little bit more and a little bit more.” It went way overboard! It’s definitely one of my favorite videos. Tt kind of reminds me a little bit of my video for ‘Flip It’ ft. Snoop Dogg. It has a little ‘Flip It’ flavor to it with a drum and bass twist!
What I’m trying to do with my music is just bring fun into everything, bring fun and color which I think there’s a lack of at the moment. I also released a track called ‘End Bad’ in 2024 , which is another one of my favorites – it features MC Neat , as you’ve never heard him before! He sounds amazing, and a rapper called Dvyne who I discovered when she was only 14, she’s 18 now. She’s from Chicago and is super talented. This is her first ever dance tune, as she’s a hip-hop artist. That tune did really well, we had a lot of support from Radio 1 and Nia Archives supported it in her Equal Playlist Takeover, it had a lot of underground love too. I just dropped a couple of remixes for ‘End Bad’ too. One by my girl DJ Millz, and another up and comer I came across recently Four D, both mixes are fire. I also released a garage record called ‘Don’t Let Me Leave’ with a singer called Leanne Louise, and a solo ballroom-style house record called ‘Hot Topic’.
Right now I’m in the studio working on lots of new music , and have some exciting collaborations cooking , including one that I’m particularly excited about with the legendary Kele Le Roc, a beautiful liquid D&B love song, which will be coming out early summer! It’s something that’s really different for us both, so I can’t wait for everyone to hear that!.
Of course, Hologram Sessions as well, I’ve recently dropped a new one with Riko Dan and Killa P, which has been really well received.
I wanted to ask you about Latina because it’s so catchy. I listened to it a couple of times and then I was singing it all day…
Yeah, it is catchy – that’s what everyone keeps saying to me! That’s why you never know- it definitely has hit potential. My track ‘Flip It’ took a long time to become a hit- about four years. I made it in 2012 as an independent and then it got signed three years later to Capitol Records in the US and remade, it was a really long process.
Has Latina got a remix coming out as well?
Not at the moment. I’m on the hunt for someone for a remix, I’d really like to try to find a big Latin artist. Like Snow the Product, she’s amazing. She’s actually one of my favorite rappers. She’s a Mexican-American, one of the hardest rappers ever. She’s so sick! So someone like her would be amazing or just another dope Latin artist, there’s so much talent in that part of the world!
I actually pitched this song to Cardi B before I released it. I was speaking to her A&R and he liked it, but I don’t think she got it. I don’t think drum and bass is really her thing. But I just thought “She would sound amazing on this song.” You’ve got to aim high!
I read back over one of your interviews with us where you were talking about the Snoop Dogg collaboration and the different people you have worked with. And how your whole ethos is just ‘Reach for the Stars!’ It’s definitely working for you…
At the end of the day, you get one life, you’ve got to try. And I’m just a hustler. I just think nothing’s ever too big, they can only say no!
I love that…
So tell me about the second Latina video!?
I shot a lot of extra stuff in the markets, and on the streets , I went to all the Mexican/Latin quarters in East LA- the places that some people won’t go to. I was staying with my mate in West Hollywood and he was like, “I’m not taking you to Boyle Heights. It’s not happening, it’s dangerous over there!” But in usual Charlotte style , nothing phases me , and off I went!
I traveled around those areas for three days in total, Boyle Heights, Elysium Park, MacArthur Park and people loved it. I felt nothing but love and good vibes from everyone. The people were very hospitable, letting me dance around in their shops and in their cars. Everyone in that video are just people on the streets that wanted to get involved. Everyone just loved the accent and the song with its Latin flavor!
Let’s talk about Hologram Sessions because when you started them the world of live performance was in a completely different space, do you think the way we consume live sets has changed since lockdown?
Definitely. Live streams are not as big as they were. I think it was crazy in lockdown, the way that people were consuming live streams. That was all we had, wasn’t it?!
It was kind of making and breaking artists at that time. Now, they’ve just gone back to being like a radio show. I’ve turned Hologram Sessions into more of a music video vibe now, a piece of content that you can consume whenever you want. I put out the clips and they go off on socials and it’s just something that’s always there now. During lockdown it was an hour DJ set- it was made to feel like it was a live experience, but now it’s just a piece of crazy content that goes alongside everything else I’m doing.
The shorter ones have done really well, I did one with Scrufizzer and Bellyman recently. That was amazing. That’s had over 270,000 views on YouTube. The shorter ones are between four and six minutes, so they’re like freestyles- Fire in the Booth vibes.
Do you know how many you’ve done altogether now?
I must be on about 26/27 episodes now, and it’s still a very unique concept!
The first ever episode with Skibadee was in June 2020. The Hologram Sessions will always be a little part of him that he left behind because it started because of him. When I first started doing it, we had a lot of ideas and plans. It was my idea, but it came off the back of a random live stream we did in lockdown. It’s just sad that he’s no longer with us because it’s evolved so much since then.
When we first started doing it, we didn’t know what we were really doing. We were like “We’re going to stick this piece of green on the wall!” which kept falling down, and it wasn’t recorded that well, it was just trial and error. But now the way we do it is so high-tech- we’ve learned so much , so I’m sad that I didn’t get to do a really sick Hologram Session with him.
So how did it originally come about?
When lockdown started people were doing videos with an MC spitting into their phone on one side and a DJ on the other. So I rang Skibba up and I was like, “I’ve done this D&B mix, I’m thinking of making a whole video to it and streaming it. Do you want to spit over it?” He sent me back some vocals but there was no video. And he said, “I couldn’t really stand there for a whole hour with my phone. So I just did the audio for you Char.”
So I went to work on it and I was like, “Right, I’ve got my video and this audio. What am I going to do? I need to do some Hype Williams s**t here. I need to do something fun.” I went online and I found this music video of Skibba on a black background on YouTube and took a little section of it and looped it for an hour.
My business partner and I were messing around with it , we put a hologram effect on it and were like, “That looks cool!” , we live streamed it, and it had over 100,000 views! We were like, “F***ing Hell, people are feeling this!” So then I was like, “Right, Ski, we’ve got something here, come round and let’s try and do it properly.” So then he came round and we filmed the first ever episode, which when I watch it back now. I’m like, “My god, this is a bit rough round the edges.” It’s out of time in places and was filmed in my back garden. But people absolutely love that episode, no matter how rusty it was, so many people say it’s their favorite ever episode!
That’s such a great story, to think what it’s become from those early days….
We just learned along the way really and it’s been a lot of happy accidents and a lot of “Oh right that’s how you do this and that’s how you do that!” We did one with Turno that we shot at Defected HQ .That was probably the hardest one we’ve ever done. We wanted the challenge of the world’s first-ever Hologram DJ B2B!
That one looks crazy, I can’t work out how you did it. Were you in the same room?
No. That one took a lot of effort. It took two months to edit that and then we had to reshoot stuff a couple of times. It was really, really hard to do that one.
I wanted to talk to you a bit about women in drum and bass. You’re a bit of a legend in my house. My kids call me a Narni Shaker when I’m dancing around at home- because I’ve told them all about the legendary dancers…
I’ve got some news.
Please talk to me…
I’m bringing back the Narni Shakers 2025 style… and I’m working on something very exciting! So many people talk about the Narni’s and keep saying to me, “Why don’t you do it? Get the old girls back together and then hint that I should get up there! I’m like “F*** off, that’s not going to happen!” But we have got a reunion happening so that should be exciting! All will be revealed in the coming months!
Narni Shakers One Nation Brixton Academy 17 November 2001
Back in the day, dancers were a massive part of the rave atmosphere. You’ve been there through it all- including when there wasn’t much female representation behind the decks or in front of them.
We’ve come to the point now where women can do what they want… And I just wondered what your take was on the whole journey with females in D&B…
That’s quite a deep one to be honest. I’ve been going out to drum and bass and jungle raves since the mid ‘90s. It was very male-dominated back then. You did get women in the ’90s, DJ Rap will always be the queen to me because she was the only female I really ever saw as a raver aside from the dancers. There are so many reasons why she’s such a legend, she really did come through in a male-dominated time. There was Kemistry & Storm, Wildchild and a few others as well, but I really looked up to her, she was the blueprint.
When the Narni Shakers started, in 2001, Rap had gone to live in America, so we didn’t see her on a regular basis playing at the raves. There were very few women at all. It’s still very male-dominated now, but I mean, it was really male-dominated then. Women on the whole weren’t really DJs- they would look to be dancers or agents that was the general path.
I lived in London when I was really young and then moved to a small town in Lincolnshire. I lived there until the age of 19. So that was where my early raving days and my school days were. When I left school around that time it was like “OK, what do you want to do when you leave school? I guess the norm was to be a hairdresser or a travel agent.” There weren’t the choices there are now. There weren’t as many aspirations. So when I left school I went to college to do hairdressing and I quickly realised I didn’t want to do that, so I tried something else, went back again and did travel and tourism – there weren’t as many doors open for women or young people in general.
Going back to the drum and bass scene I definitely feel like one of the many reasons the Narni Shakers were so big is because women really attached themselves to us as much as men fancied us- we were one of the only thing’s for women to look up to. I remember looking out in the rave and there being hundreds of women dressed like us. We were a very powerful influence at that time, and we were fearless, we didn’t give a s**t. There were no rules back then, we were very sexual as well, but we did it in a way where we owned it. We didn’t care. We were going to dry hump each other on stage. It was 2001, no one gave a s**t, there were no mobile phones to take pictures and videos , it was totally free!
It was great in a lot of ways, in the sense that you could do and say whatever you wanted , there were no rules, plus people were not as judgemental in general. I think if you came from that generation, and you grew up before social media, you were part of a very special time, a time that we will never see again.
But on the other hand, for women, there just weren’t as many opportunities or paths and we had to fight for our place, for our respect. From the day I started the Narni Shakers, my main aim was for us to be as respected as the artists on stage that we were working with, to be faces, more than dancers, more than just girls looking sexy as decoration, and we achieved that ten-fold. We were doing female empowerment before the phrase even existed!
Fast forward to now, it’s so much better- but I still think there’s a long way to go. There are a lot more opportunities but I still look at a lot of flyers now and I still see just mostly male headliners, and still some events with no females at all, or just the token women at the bottom of the line up. Although there are a lot of women now, I still feel like there could be more incentives and opportunities.
I also feel there should be it would be good to see more mental health support and awareness for women in dance music. As women we go through so much with our hormones and general health, way more than people will ever see in a lot of cases. We also have children, all while trying to navigate this very tough industry, so I think there should be so much more awareness and support on that level.
I find the change in representation of women within D&B an incredibly interesting subject…
My DJing career has gone on so many different journeys. I haven’t always played drum and bass but I was a huge part of drum and bass when I was dancing. I was always the boss of the group. I was the organiser. That’s just always been me as a person- I’ve always been someone that wants to get stuck in and get the job done.
I’ve always felt very equal to any man. I’ve always felt like that “If you can do it, I can do it.” and I’ve always had loads of male friends. That’s always been my happy place, so I’ve never been phased by wanting to do anything a man can do. As much as there weren’t as many opportunities on offer back in the day, I’ve never felt like I couldn’t do stuff.
I started DJing in ‘03 I had a radio show on Invincible Radio playing drum & bass until ‘06 before I played on the club circuit. And again, there weren’t really many women playing at all around that time. I didn’t really think about it at the time though. I was just like, “Yeah, I just want to play my music.” And again, I was always hanging around with the mandem. I was always like one of the guys.
For me DJing started off with drum and bass and then I got offered via My Space by a Greek promoter in 2007 to play in a club in Athens as my first ever club gig playing hip-hop. Hip-hop has always been one of my first loves and has definitely influenced every aspect of my musical journey.
I love rappers. I think that’s where my love of MCs comes from. I love all the early rap superstars from my generation, Missy Elliott , Busta Rhymes, Snoop Dogg, 50 Cent , Nicki Minaj etc. And even to this day, me and Fabio are huge rap fans and follow hip hop avidly. I started playing hip-hop, EDM and house and ended up having a really amazing time for about 11-12 years and flying all over the world , solo and sometimes alongside a unique DJ show I created with The Narni Shakers, which was the first of its kind. I started producing around that time as well, making EDM and House records – which is where ‘Flip It’ came from. I had an amazing , crazy time and have some great memories from those years!
I left the scene for a bit. I was always there, going to the raves and of course, being with Fabio. I didn’t really start playing drum and bass properly again until lockdown. So when people speak to me about females in drum and bass and talk about me in a legendary sense , I find it quite interesting, because my D&B journey hasn’t been linear. I was a Narni Shaker and then went off doing other things. So I’m relatively new to it as a DJ in reality. One thing I’ll say though, is drum and bass is a musical family, like no other. Once you’re in it, you can go off and explore other things, but that family will always be there…and right now I feel like my life has come full circle, being right back where I started.
But would I call myself a feminist? Yes! And as a pro-female/feminist kind of girl, I still think that drum and bass is a frustrating place for a woman. I find it frustrating myself, let alone anyone new coming through.
I notice a lot, that most of the time the men are at the top of lineups in big letters, lights, bells and whistles. It’s all about the guys. There might be more opportunities for women than there were, and there’s a lot more women who want to be DJs and want to do anything a man can do these days. Great. But what about equal opportunities? What about equal billing? I think that is still a problem. Promoters, most of the time,, think men are going to sell the tickets over women, which isn’t always the case. Because just as I mentioned with Narni Shakers in the 00s, female fans really looked up to us, and it’s no different today so it’s important we’re represented as equally as possible in those main arenas at peak times too.
We’ve got to make promoters believe that women can sell tickets and that they should be put up there on a pedestal with the men. It will always be better than 20 years ago and hopefully in 20 years time, the conversation will be even better than it is now. We can only hope for progression to continue. But all of this aside , I still believe you have to work hard for whatever you want in life, male or female. I’ve never wanted to be a token woman, I’ve always wanted to be respected for my talents regardless of my gender.
I wanted to talk to you a bit about Karma London. You do a lot of business related stuff in the music industry. So for the people who might not know, what is Karma London?
Karma London is a 360 production company, record label & management company. We’re a production company in the sense that we do filming, editing-creative.
I learned to edit in the early stages of my career. I’ve always co-edited all my music videos , just because I’ve always had a flair and been creative. I wanted everything there for myself, I was paying out so much money for music videos, it’s so expensive to pay for everything singularly. Me and my business partner just started buying all our own kit and we’ve ended up with a production company, recording studio and filming studio. We are fully self-sufficient, we do advertising work and shoots as well as all the music stuff.
So there’s that side of things. And then the management company that manages Fabio & Grooverider and also myself and all our affiliated brands such as Return to Rage, Hologram Sessions , Fabio’s Generation Liquid. I’ve always been a boss from the early days of the Narni Shakers, so this side of me was a natural progression.
You’ve got your business hat and got your creative hat, is it hard to balance the two different aspects of the business and of your career?
Yeah it is. I must admit though since getting involved with Fabio & Grooverider , it’s also helped me in my career and my business. But yeah, you do have to have one hat for manager- the bitch telling everyone what to do, the organiser. Then the other side is this fun crazy character that I’ve built for myself over the years. Which has evolved into the love/hate figure that is here today!
Unfortunately the Charlotte Devaney brand comes with lots of people who love it but then lots of trolls as well.
That’s the other thing about being a woman, I’ve noticed that online women get a lot more trolling than men. Some of the things I see written about me I’m like “Have a day off will you?!” It doesn’t bother me, because I was getting trolled , before social media on the forums. Drum & Bass Arena, Dogs On Acid. Narni Shakers used to get so much abuse. So, again, it was always women getting picked on.
I find mostly middle-aged men who just seem to find women an easy target, it’s kinda mad. Today in drum and bass if you’re pretty, glamorous or in any way outlandish or colorful or anything apart from the head down, do as you are told type. Straight away you’re labeled as cringe.
It doesn’t bother me because I have enough self-belief to know I’m a bad bitch. I’m good at what I do, not everyone is going to like me and that’s okay. I’ve built my whole career on being a polarizing artist, I want to stand out and be uniquely me. I pride myself on it, but with that comes some hate and jealousy.
When I read trolling comments, I think “But I don’t know you though. So why do I give a f**k what you say about me? Furthermore, if you’re talking about me, it’s all good- keep the algorithm going! I’ve had so many extra streams on my music, and extra followers when I’ve had posts go viral with people fighting about whether they like me or not in the comments, so I just sit back and laugh.
Women in drum and bass get trolled a lot. I just want to know why we can’t just live and let live? Why can people not just scroll past if they don’t like something, why do we have this pack, bullying mentality online? I will never understand it. When I first started out, it was about peace, love, and unity. I don’t think we’ve got a lot of that at the moment. I think there’s too many opinions and because of social media , people don’t seem to be happy for others’ success, so they channel that into baseless hate. I have to say if I wasn’t the strong person I am,, it would really get to me.
Going back to Karma London, it’s very busy. There’s a lot going on, so much more than people will ever see! I’m running a lot of stuff behind the scenes , like the The Fabio & Grooverider Outlook Orchestra Project for instance.
Big up for that, by the way…
It’s very exciting. Myself and Noah from Outlook Festival came up with that idea and we’ve grown it as a brand that’s getting bigger and bigger year by year. We’ve got the Royal Albert Hall in March which sold out in four days.
It’s great for the scene, and I think it’s good for the diversity of the scene to show the roots of where it all came from. I would love to see a bit more diversity like it was in the ’90s/’00s.
And you’re touring soon?
I’m doing my first US tour in October 2025, which is exciting. My first gig in America was in 2006, when I was a dancer. And almost 20 years later, I’m coming back to do a proper Charlotte Devaney DJ tour, which is amazing.
I’m really excited because for a long time I’ve noticed a lot of support from America for my music. A lot of American people hit me up. They love the style, and the crazy vibe!
They love that energy, don’t they… Do you think you’re going to play a different type of set for the US compared to the UK?
Not really. When I went out there in April and did a one off gig for Respect, I played my normal set and they loved it. My drum and bass sets are very mixed anyway. I like to throw in some old school, some rollers and a couple of jump up tunes as well. I just kind of go with the flow and whatever I think the crowd are into really. I never plan my sets.
I’m old school. I learned from Fabio and Randall and these are people that taught me and you just didn’t do that back in the day. You’d look at the dance floor and you’d go, “Okay, yeah, the tune is not working- next one” I find it very hard to plan my sets. Sometimes you have to for certain things, but yeah, it’s always better not to.
I feel like you can tell when someone’s reading the room. I think you get a different vibe to when a set has been planned.
Anything else you want to say?
Watch this space for more Charlotte Devaney madness and good vibes injected into the world! I ain’t stopping anytime soon… Sorry haters!!
I just want to keep trying to smash down doors against sexism and against ageism because I’m very passionate about that too.
I don’t like ageism. I find it repulsive to be honest, I hate the label Heritage DJ’ I personally find it really disrespectful. At the end of the day, if you’re good at what you do, it doesn’t really matter how old you are or how long you have been around. I’m very respectful of my peers, those who have opened doors so I and others could walk through them. I would never dream of calling someone ‘old’ or ‘past it’ or ‘heritage’ , I just have too much respect.
Age is another thing in which I feel like women get unfairly treated way before men. For instance, a 45 year old woman compared to a 45 year old man, the woman is deemed old, but for a man that’s considered fairly young. When I was modeling, dancing and acting by the age of 25, you were considered old. The pressure that I felt to be skinny, to be young was insane. I look at all the CVs that I used to write from back then and I used to change my age every single year, a year back, a year back, a year back, same with my Wikipedia page.
Now I don’t care as much. I’m owning who I am a lot more and that’s the great thing about today, you can be unapologetically yourself. Whereas back then, you couldn’t really own who you were as a woman. You had to be this young sexy thing forever. It was a real thing.
I’m much more open about talking about the fact that I was around in the 90s and I’ve done all these amazing things because I should be proud of it rather than trying to pretend that I’m still 25. I’m not, and that’s cool, I have a story, a legacy and I’ve become wise and can help influence others now which is a good feeling!
All we can do is keep trying to break down the doors and barriers… I really respect that you mentioned ageism…
It’s not something I‘ve personally felt, not as a DJ not in this day and age. But I guess you never really know how others perceive you.
I think DJing has always opened itself up to being slightly ageless. But with drum and bass I do notice that there’s a kind of conveyor belt of young female DJs. They’ll be a flavour of the month for X amount of time and then there will be someone else. Again it just comes down to ageism, because you can have a 50 year old Male DJ up there for years , but you can’t have a 50 year old female DJ, not that many of them anyway.
But anyway- Thank you for having me. I will continue to just be myself , and hopefully inspire others along the way!
Big up UKF for always supporting me from day one. I never forget people who have supported and helped me and anyone reading this shouldn’t either.
