Interview by Edie MuskerPortrait by Isaac Aylward

EM I saw you DJing at a Refugee Community Kitchen party, and it was an incredible set. You played music I’d never heard before on vinyl. What was your introduction to music and the surrounding culture?

KM I have loved music from a young age. My mum worked three jobs to give my brother and me music lessons, and I’m so grateful – the moment I heard the drums of a one-drop reggae song from a sound system, my whole life changed on a cellular level. I couldn’t believe it. It was in Norwich, with Rebel Lion Sound System. I spent ten years on my own, following every sound system I possibly could in my free time. I went all across Europe to experience the sound, though the culture behind the music was just as important. To me, the culture fostered a sense of belonging and identity, and I was around multi-ethnic people for the first time. Having grown up in a homogeneous, middle-class town, exploration and integration were really important to me. Now, I would call myself a semi-professional DJ working in multi-genre music. I’ve been running a vinyl collective, Vinyl Sisters, with two other people for four years. It’s an intergenerational, inclusive group. We do monthly relays in Brixton, where we give a platform to younger selectors or those who are newly entering reggae. When I first joined the scene, I was mainly interacting with older men. There’s always this dynamic between a younger woman and a man where you’re just trying to understand, learn and participate in a culture without giving the impression that you’re interested in that way. It could sometimes be difficult. I’ve been producing my own music for five years, but the resources and self-belief to keep going are hard to come by. I’m getting there, and now my productions are actually worth listening to. Everything I’ve done has been propped up by people believing in me, like Rebel Lion in Norwich, Kane FM in Guildford and my brother. Kane FM was a pirate radio station and one of the first radio stations in the UK to go from pirate to legal. They championed the community radio licence and heralded what it meant to be a true grassroots movement. In London, Ben of Lion Vibes and Mark Feltham of Felt Sound System have always been big believers in me. It’s these people who have given me the confidence to do what I’m doing now.

EM What does it mean to be a selector?

KM It means you are the steerer of the ship, the navigator. Your role is to transition people. My emphasis has always been on the message of music. I love reggae, especially 1970s reggae. The message has always been about resistance, politics and race. In the 1960s, it was very much about dancing and romance, and in the 1970s, it was all about cussing down Babylon. Now, as a multi-genre artist, my role is to embed joy and continue to spread the message, but with a more uplifting, liberating feel and with other kinds of sounds.

EM As a selector, part of your work involves collecting and sourcing records. I think this idea of collecting to share is an interesting subversion of the colonial archetype collector who draws from around the world and then sits on a pile of wealth.

KM I know people who voraciously travel across the world, and do exactly what you’re talking about. They buy really cheap records and then sell them for extraordinary prices. There is a sense of guilt about collecting something that doesn’t always feel like it belongs to you. The message of Rastafari isn’t my own culture and history, but the decolonial message in the music is, so I don’t feel that bad. I’ve always been very aware of cultural appropriation as a Gujarati Persian; I know what’s mine and what’s not. With collecting, you’re like a little animal: scurrying around and looking in crevices, sniffing and delicately trying to find your particular sound. It’s not easy, especially when you’re quite fussy. But it’s intensely addictive because when you find what you’re looking for, it’s like you’ve struck gold. Music doesn’t have to be expensive for you to have that feeling, that sense of hearing something on the radio, spending two years trying to identify the producer and label, and then finally coming across it again. If you ID a bassline, it can be a roadmap back to the original or to new versions. The Studio One 1967 piece “Real Rock” appears in so many tracks, for example. One time in Nairobi, someone working at the Real Vinyl Guru record shop was playing music to me for four hours, and I noticed a particular sound that emerged in conjunction with a massive confluence of Muslims, Indians and Afro Caribbean people in Mombasa. You could hear the Indian, Asian and African. I found this seven-inch of “Harambe/Liverpool” by Mac & Party from the Mzuri label for $7. When I returned to the UK, I found out that the tune was worth £500. I would never sell it. That’s where value really comes into your aesthetic appreciation for sound, art and meaning. You can’t put a price on stuff like that. But I’m not a rarities collector; the culture around vinyl can become so wanky. People love the aesthetics and pride of owning the original; I’m just in love with music.

EM You’re a vinyl person, and your way of sourcing music by going out into the world is an analogue process.

KM Going to dances has been my way of finding music. I heard “Try So Hard”, a Bobby Melody track from Downbeat Melody played by Paul Solution, and the feeling of holding that record in my hand weeks later felt so precious. Modern technologies, especially social media, flatten our cultural sphere so we’re unable to see the greys. I can’t access the music I like through Spotify because the algorithm doesn’t really work for me. But the possibilities of listening to DJs and radio shows from halfway across the world, and finding new collectives, promoters and scenes through the internet, do massively enhance access to music in general. Historically, you would listen to the radio show of the DJ you liked every week, and you would text the studio asking for the track ID, and they would say if you were lucky enough. But Shazam is amazing: it’s instant access to wealth, it’s like the NHS to me. It feels just as vital. .