Trailblazing music champion, DJ and 2023 Music Week Awards winner Jamz Supernova recently met up with Music Week at Glastonbury Festival for a conversation that covered breaking genres, diversity, the culture at BBC Radio 6 Music and much, much more.
As one of the UK’s leading tastemakers, Jamz is widely known for her current slot on 6 Music, where she shines a spotlight on a wide array of genres including broken beat, hip-hop and electronica – to name only a few, as well as her shows on BBC Radio 1Xtra and Selector Radio for the British Council.
She works in both A&R and consulting for her label Future Bounce, which she set up in 2018, and has also recently released the first season of her podcast, Between The Lines, which goes deep on the craft of songwriting through the works of artists including Hak Baker and Yazmin Lacey.
And to add to those musical plates Jamz is spinning, she also played multiple sets at Glastonbury this summer, as well as being part of the BBC’s presenting team. Next month, she is also set to DJ and broadcast live from All Points East.
“To be able to do all those different parts of my career that I love, it’s like a birthday present!” she laughs. “If I got to tell my younger self I would be doing all these things, even myself five years ago, I wouldn’t have believed you.”
With that, we dive into a candid conversation where Jamz Supernova goes deep on the importance of community, how the industry can be investing in long-term artistry and why we must continue to ask the important questions...
Reflecting on what you’ve seen during festival season so far, what sounds and genres are you hoping to be seeing more of on line-ups in the near future?
“Representation is so important, and I have seen more and more being represented, like Glastonbury's dedicated South Asian space in Shangri-La this year – there were South Asian DJs and the way they decorated it, the production value that went into it, it was the first of its kind. It would be nice to see more R&B, maybe next year there could be a dedicated R&B space, something that could be headed up by someone like DJ Ace. But genres come and go, and what I've really loved seeing is different communities and conversations. I went to a talk about how optimism is a sign of protest, which spoke about all the little things we can be doing in our communities to stop us thinking that the world is shit! We can do stuff to help our neighbours, people down the road who are less fortunate than us. It’s just about thinking of it on a micro scale rather than a macro scale. We need unity and we need togetherness.”
Last time we spoke, you said that the industry needs to be investing more in ‘artistry which takes time,’ instead of focusing on fast results. Do you feel that we are any closer to achieving this?
“I’m not sure, but something I am noticing is that there are more things like EMI North that are happening, more incubators that are feeding into the larger industry, and the smaller grassroot ecosystems are being used more to do artist development. Some good examples of that are English Teacher, who had a very gradual process and are now with Island, and Olivia Dean, whose trajectory is really interesting. It would have been around 2019 that I first saw a video of her in the pub, then saw her at Glastonbury just last year, and now to see her on the Pyramid Stage – she's become a household name. I think that’s the kind of thing we need, maybe easing artists into the [industry] is a fairer model than being [thrown] in for 18 months and if it doesn’t work, getting dropped.
"My partner is also trying to do that in Bristol; he works closely with Bristol Beacon and Team Love and they’ve got this thing called Next Level, where artists get two weeks of mentorship, two weeks of studio sessions working together, talking about their art and their craft, and then they perform at the Beacon, at Love Saves The Day festival and at Glastonbury, it’s huge. Watching the crowds for them, they were so responsive – there was someone called Ava Zarate who was really good, and Sambee, who was brilliant.”
How can the industry be doing more to champion representation and diversity in the long term?
“It’s about the flow of money. You can’t fund a project once and if it doesn’t work, that’s it. I’m noticing a lot of that in TV and film at the moment; during the pandemic there were a lot of projects being made, and maybe they didn’t reach as many viewers as they thought they would, so now they’ve been canned. That’s happening across the board, and when there’s an economical crisis, the first things to go are often the things that might not have the biggest reach, which tend to be the marginalised things.
“Power Up is a really great example of long-form change. That’s a 10-year dedicated programme for Black-identifying artists and business people. There are 20 music industry people and 20 artists every year – that’s 40, times that by the 10 years they've been doing it, and that’s 400 people who would've gone through the Power Up scheme, who would've had funding, mentoring and are part of the community. There’s years of people in a Whatsapp group now, so if I need a lawyer, an accountant, anything, I can just go onto Whatsapp and ask for it. And that really is long-lasting; because it’s a dedicated 10 years, it’s not going to be like, ‘Oh, we lost money, it didn’t work, it’s done.’ It’s only going to keep on going, because they put the dedication in.”
"I love the culture of 6 Music because it’s adults; it’s adults being adults and treating adults as adults"
When you started at 1Xtra, you had a mission to broaden the conversation around how Black music is understood. Has that conversation expanded and been embraced in the way you hoped?
“The conversation has broadened, which is definitely heartwarming and amazing – it doesn’t feel so monolithic anymore. I did a talk at the BRIT School recently, my former college, and I talked about a lot of the artists I used to play on 1Xtra, who are now household names. I was probably the first person to play Sza on UK national radio, and now she’s headlining Glastonbury. And a lot of what I was playing back then was known as underground, like Ezra Collective, who have a great story – they are the most popular jazz act right now!
“It’s so hopeful, but it’s always important to keep on questioning things. Now, when I think about the crowds and the people who go to see these Black artists, I would just love to see more Black people there, and I don’t know how to get them there – even at my own club nights. A lot of artists who I speak to think that too, it’s like, ‘Why is it like that?’ Maybe it’s to do with the marketing, or access; it’s important to ask those kinds of questions.”
Do you still experience pushback against the music and different sounds you bring to 6 Music?
“I feel like what I do is understood, and if you don’t like me, you’ve probably turned off by now and that’s fine! Things have changed a lot, I don’t see that pushback anymore, and I’m also not looking for it because I’m more confident in myself and my offering – you can’t please everyone and I wouldn’t want to. I don’t want to be palatable for everybody and for it to be like, ‘Oh, she’s alright, I listened to her in the background!’”
You've also spoken about how you never want to be the ‘only Black woman’ to do something, as diversity shouldn’t be tokenised or trophied. Have you ever felt that in your work, and how have you navigated it if so?
“I haven’t felt that to be honest, and I don’t feel it now. Maybe that’s because the evolution over the past few years has been so quick, and there’s been people coming through like Sherelle and Afrodeutsche and all the guest people we have on who are part of the family. I love the culture of 6 Music because it’s adults; it’s adults being adults and treating adults as adults. The way that we’re treated is respectful, and I can’t possibly be more grateful for the way it was when I was pregnant, and the support and care I had when I came back. Even going back on air, being able to breastfeed during the evening news, things like that, that comes from having an amazing woman in charge. I love Sam Moy, I think she’s incredible and the changes she’s making with 6 Music are amazing. It’s intergenerational, and that’s what it should be.”
Can you tell us what is going on for you at the moment outside of radio – with your label Future Bounce and your podcast Between The Lines?
“So we’ve done season one of the Between The Lines podcast, which I’m really proud of. We had artists like Hak Baker, Yazmin Lacey, Daudi Matsiko, a girl called Bina and a techno artist called Bruce who now does pop songs. The podcast is all about lyrics, so we talk about one song, the craft of songwriting and basically who the artist was when they wrote the song. With Hak, we spoke about Windrush Baby, and we talked about our grandparents and parents growing up, which got quite emotional. With Yazmin Lacey, we talked about validation with her song Fool’s Gold, and Bina, who grew up in foster care, has a song about generational trauma and survivor’s guilt. It’s about what it’s like to grow up in care, then leaving that and people thinking you’ve changed, we go into all of that – and it’s also a really fun pop song! So there are a lot of deep topics, that’s what I’m really focused on at the moment.
“With Future Bounce, we’re also signing some great stuff. We’re really excited for the Volume 3 Club release, Kiss Nuka – a really interesting artist from Mumbai who programs live techno – is kicking it off, we have someone called Kevin In Da Field and an artist called Annie O. I feel like I have a nice bit of freedom at the moment, because people know of the label now, it’s more established, so I can really start singing more emerging names.”
Finally, which artists are you excited about right now?
“There’s a couple of artists I’ve been working with who I’m super excited about. There’s Bikôkô, who has done Primavera, done Sonar, she’s smoke on fire – I’m keeping up with her! She’s on the label, she’s got an EP coming out. Then there’s Kiss Nuka, who's really exciting – some artists just have that star power, and those two really have that. Then outside of the label, there’s so much stuff going on. There’s a really interesting artist from Paris, Tatyana Jane, who makes club music. I got invited to play with her one year ago and I’ve just been watching her journey. She's a mum as well – she’s smashing it. I love this guy called DJ Babatr, from Venezuela; he’s not particularly new but he’s wicked and he makes this thing called ‘raptor house’, which is so fun! And then there’s Niks, a producer who runs the Black Artist Database, she’s a community leader and she really embodies not just dance music as a ‘Let’s party!’ kind of thing, but also as a protest. She brings communities together and fights for equality for all – and makes great tunes. She’s a hero!”
Jamz Supernova on 6 is broadcast each Saturday, 1-3pm on BBC Radio 6 Music. Her All Day Glastonbury special shows for 6 Music are available on BBC Sounds. Jamz will also DJ and broadcast live from All Points East on Saturday 17th August (1-3pm)
INTERVIEW: MIRANDA BARDSLEY
