Uncovered: Kemistry & Storm
”Know your artists” is Artsy Audio’s regular column published on a monthly basis, where I share a profile of a producer that made an impact on the broken beat scene.
Today’s first edition of the Uncovered series will be dedicated not to one, but two unique female artists. Back when my biggest concern was which doll to play with next, they’ve already been hustling full-time. Get ready for a history lesson kiddos!
photo credit: Monkey, dogsonacid.com
You could call it a story that changed the history of d’n’b. A story of two ravers becoming sought-after DJs.
It all started in mid-80s in Kettering, UK, where New Romantic oriented Jayne Conneely met Kemi Olusanya, a New Wave/Punk type of girl. It was more of a group meeting along with some other friends, so they didn’t even get a proper chance to talk.
But that wasn’t the end of their story, quite the opposite. Fate had different plans for them.
Jayne worked as a Radiologist and got a job in London. Kemi moved there just recently, living in a Finsbury Park in her more than spacious room. When she heard Jayne is around, she offered her to share the space. They were quite different at first though. Kemi’s interest was in parties and music. For Jayne, on the other hand, it was all about work in the hospital (which equals to zero spare time to go out)
photo credit: DJ Storm, bassrush.com
As you can imagine, Jayne started to get influenced by her new roommate, falling in love with DJ Randall’s shows on Centreforce FM. She felt for it completely soon after and during one night at their favourite club Heaven, they found themselves staring at the DJ with open mouths. That’s when they realised this is it. This is what they want to do.
Around this time, the golden teeth warrior, Goldie, returned from the US. He noticed Kemi in a bar for a short moment & approached her. Following a chat and few drinks, they both changed their relationship status on Facebook to ”in a relationship”. Easy as that! The newly formed trio went to a party that week, but Goldie found it hard to mingle around, as he still wasn’t quite used to the mixture of white/chinese/black people. This was due to his stay in still so segregated Miami, missing UK’s ”Summer of Love”, during which all kinds of people came together in peace.
Eventually, they made him come back the next week and he didn’t regret. Similar to girls’ first encounter, Goldie felt for the sound and all 3 started to work together & setup their now so famous Metalheadz label. (enter a milestone in drum&bass’ history)
I feel like this could be a whole new topic for the next article!
photo credit: Angus Harrison, thump.vice.com
But back to our ladies. Kemi started to DJ under the name Kemistry, inspired by her father, who was a biochemist. Jayne became Stormy, as people kept telling her she has a stormy nature. That would however make it too obvious that these two could actually be females behind the decks, so they agreed to Kemistry & Storm. This way, no one was expecting to see a woman mixing, well, at least until they saw them playing right there at a party.
They worked their way up through precise mixing and later got an offer to record DJ KICKS. These series of mixes skyrocketed them into the limelight, landing an opportunity to perform worldwide. Everything was going well…
But something no one in their wildest dreams would expect has happened. Shortly after their US tour when going home after a gig in Southampton, Kemi got hit by a cat eye from the road…
When you are in a garden, which flowers do you pick?
The most beautiful.
Let me close with a great tribute to Kemi taken from Thump’s interview:
Kemi will most importantly be remembered as an inspiration. An individual who possessed almost spiritual qualities—an aura which inspired constant invention and unflinching devotion. So, while it’s true we’ll never know what DJ Kemistry might have gone on to do, we can be sure that what she did is protected from the passing of time, indefinitely. And even if we never know, perhaps she did. Kemi always said she’d be the Marilyn Monroe of the drum and bass scene. ‘I’ll be notorious,’ and well, that’s actually what happened.”
/written by Andy
Thumbnail photo credit: Monkey, dogsonacid.com