This time last year in the life of Enada things were a little intense… She was entering her final year of university and was just about to launch Dynamics; a comprehensive resource that highlights, celebrates and pushes all womxn and non-binary artists in bass music.
Back to the future and the Bristol-based dubstep DJ’s life is still intense, but in a different way; post lockdown her gig schedule is busier than ever, she’s about to join an all-star cast of DJs at SWU FM with her own residency and Dynamics is now an established tour de force in the push for more diversity across all forms of bass-related music. What began as an idea for a database has now become a one-stop resource with regular editorial content, a mini documentary series and production courses with Education & Bass.
With plenty more to reveal in the coming months, both Dynamics and Enada are in an exciting place. We called Enada up to look back over the last year and see how things have progressed since we last interviewed her when Dynamics launched last October…
You’ve been busy with the gigs!
It’s been crazy. Pre-lockdown I don’t think I was that well known at all. I’d done a few things here and there but over lockdown I did a lot of mixes for different brands and focused on getting myself out there and I’ve felt that’s had a great effect. I’ve got a lot more shows now, I can’t quite believe it.
Sick! And all higher profile, too…
Yeah, I’ve had some great support off Sgt Pokes, he’s booked me for Croydub a few times and got more coming up. He’s been great. I also couldn’t believe I was opening the Calibre Presents stage at Hospitality In The Woods, that was unreal.
You set the tone on that stage! The type of tunes you were playing, though. It’s been a while since I’d heard 140 through a big system outdoors. So nice. Dubstep’s in a great place musically, isn’t it? Who are you feeling right now?
Musically it’s not been this exciting for a while. There’s a lot of new generation artists coming through with fresh ideas. For me there’s always a big D&B presence in my life so a lot of my sets include dubstep stuff from people like Monty, Black Barrel, Alix Perez. It gives dubstep a different sound when you’re coming from the D&B side so there’s been a lot of that type of stuff in my sets. Beyond that, new talent I’m loving is Kercha who has releases on DNO, a cool Brighton label. There’s a guy called Yoofee who’s very musical with his stuff and always inspiring, there’s Gnasha from Leeds who’s absolutely killing it. There’s also 11th Hour from Belgium who makes incredible dungeony type of stuff. To be honest, every artist coming out of Belgium is so sick.
Bredren!
Totally. There’s that minimal influence isn’t there?
Massively. You mentioned the presence of drum & bass in your life. There was a point I wondered if you would switch genres. I’m sure you posted about it.
I had a bad time in May when I might have posted something that would suggest that. I was in a dubstep group on social media called Shitty Dubstep. There was a line-up from Hatcha who did a 48 hour live stream and it only had one woman on a line-up of about 70 artists. There was a thread on the group about it and I jumped in and shared my feelings. If it was just the history of the genre, then okay, but they’d included some male newcomers, but not women. That happened, I spoke up about it and I got ripped into horrendously. People in my inbox saying the most horrible things.
Oh woah. Sorry to hear. That’s not acceptable…
Totally. And because I’ve seen the progression in drum & bass and seen how people are embracing the need for diversity, it makes it even more frustrating with dubstep. Still to this day there’s much more of an attitude like, ‘Why is this an issue? There’s no problem. Don’t kick up a fuss.’ A lot of the scene is being really resistant to change and it made me very upset at the time. I felt I was fighting a losing battle. I’ve seen a bit of an improvement since we’ve come back, but I’d say dubstep is quite far behind drum & bass. I know it’s much more of a longer game and I’m doing the right thing with Dynamics.
You’re making noises with that! Loving the editorial. The Inclusion Rider article was a great piece that I saw being shared loads over my feeds…
Thanks. I try to be controversial in the best way possible. I don’t want to constantly call people out, and there’s a lot of stuff I’ve held back on believe me, but I’ve tried to ask uncomfortable questions to make people think.
That goes beyond the editorial and with everything you do behind the scenes too…
Yeah, we speak to a lot of label owners and promoters. We’d rather take the approach of not doing things publicly and doing it on a one to one level because you can sometimes get the wrong result doing things publicly. Some brands have taken our approach extremely badly. Others have taken it really well. We do a lot behind the scenes and get in touch and suggest different ways to think about things.
I love how it’s the full stop on the old chestnut that people always say – “there aren’t enough female artists in the scene.” Dynamics is the end to that argument isn’t it?
That was always my aim. I was so sick of people saying, ‘There’s not enough women for me to book’. So I took three months of my life to find all the women and non binary artists and put them in the most accessible place I could so I could do that and say, ‘There, look. There are loads of women.’
What a commitment of your time and energy. How are you feeling after a year of Dynamics?
I’m happy. I’ve had some big labels get in touch and say, ‘I love your website, I’ve booked these people because of your resource.’ So yeah, it’s made a bit of a difference, which I’m very happy with. People often complement me on it so that’s nice. It’s funny, when I first approached you about it this time last year, it was going to be a spreadsheet. Then it turned into a website. Then we added editorial. It was only meant to be a simple database! I have to big up Averil Averse who’s a major part of the team and helped me develop the brand into what it is now.
Big up Averil! I love how it started as a database, then into a website, then into editorial content, now you’re making short documentaries….
Yeah the Sweetpea one has gone down really well and we’ve had some great feedback on that. We’re working on the second episode, which should be ready by mid-November so watch out for that.
Will do! What other new ideas and cool projects and collaborations do you have coming up?
Loads. We’ve recently created a great relationship with Education & Bass. Raff and Nomine are very supportive of Dynamics and have been amazing to work with. We did a beginner production course, which was backed by Ableton, where we did three sessions for women where we selected 20 women applicants and they got a copy of Ableton as well, which was wicked. We’ve got more planned, which I can’t quite announce yet, but it’s really exciting and could be a gamechanger.
That sounds amazing. Encouragement into the studio is the next big step isn’t it? I learnt this earlier in the year when I reached out to you to find producers aged under 20 and there weren’t that many in comparison to male artists. A lot of women producers start as DJs then go into the studios later, don’t they? So the next step is about making studios welcome to young women artists to feel welcome in the studio environment from a young age…
100% I think it’s really important to create a safe space and environment for aspiring women producers. A lot don’t feel comfortable if they’re in a room predominantly full of men and don’t feel confident to ask questions. So what we’re trying to do is create a safe space with small classes of women where the can inspire each other, vibe off each other and encourage each other. It was actually a surprise to me, too, when you asked me about artists aged under 20. I thought it would be easy to find, but it actually highlighted there’s still a lot of work to do.
I think it’s also a society thing as well. From an early age women aren’t told they’re good at technical things, they’re discouraged and it’s not until later in life you might find, ‘oh wait, I can do this technical thing.’ So there’s still a lot of work to do with making sure girls feel welcome and encouraged.
If my daughter’s technical ambitions are an example of the next generation not having that barrier in place then I’d say it’s only a matter of time, but there’s definitely a big shift that still needs to happen there. So how about your productions?
They’re coming. I’m on two courses at the moment, the EBRSL course with Education & Bass and I’m also on their dubstep mentoring program which has got N-Type, Cimm and Gnasher as the tutors which is amazing. So yeah you’ll definitely hear stuff from me in the next year I’d say and I’ve been working on productions for well over a year now.
Are you sneakily testing things out in your sets as IDs?
I’m not quite at that stage but hopefully I’ll be in a position to do that soon!
Look forward to hearing them! What else does the world need to know about Enada right now?
So much of my time is invested in Dynamics, I feel I’ve taken a backseat as Enada to do that. But I’m working on rebalancing that, I recently represented at Hospital’s Women In D&B panel and I’ll be hosting my own show on SWU FM in the near futute, too. I’ve also finished uni and I’m starting a 9-5 that doesn’t take up my brain or bleed into my personal time, so I can focus on all things Enada and Dynamics in the evenings. The dream is to run Dynamics, DJ and produce full time.
I could imagine some awesome Dynamics takeovers in the future…
Definitely. One of things we’re looking at is collaborating with brands and venues. We did one at Lakota earlier this year and did an event at Bristol Mix Sessions which is run by Will Keeno, which popped off. So yeah, that’s the plan – we will be pushing the event side of the brand and we’re in talks with brands to do workshops and loads of other interesting things. It’s all really exciting. Watch this space!
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