To celebrate World Music Day, we’re spotlighting artists and DJs who are bridging musical generations, recentering forgotten sounds on the dancefloor, and reshaping how we hear the world. Those taking the sounds of the past and bringing them to the present and future through the lens of modern dance music. World Music Day continues to teach us that while music is being brought forward in new and imaginative ways, an appreciation of music’s past is ever present. London’s Anu is guided by the fluid principles of music and art.
The DJ, radio host, animator, author and visual artist navigates creativity with a curiosity to learn and through her weekly NTS show Soup To Nuts, she has explored the nuances of everything from Japanese Hip-Hop to Tamil film scores. Her musical exploits have a direct impact on her art, where she has created comic books and hand-bound zines portraying her take on song lyrics and genres that mean the most to her. These ventures are through CAMP! (Creative Alternative to Mainstream Publishing), a publishing house she co-founded alongside Sana Barclay, that amplifies the voices of radical queer and trans communities of colour. With such a keen interest in discovering eras of music, Anu pays respect to scenes far and wide and has a hand in bringing them into further public view.
We speak to her about her musical background, the guiding principles behind Soup To Nuts and why research is key to her creative approach.
Tell us a bit about your journey with music.
Anu: The earliest moments for me were probably when I was a teenager and started making mixtapes. I learnt how to record on a tape deck we had at home. So I would take songs from CDs or the radio and then put them together. I would think about what sounds work together and how a mix or a mixtape can really tell a story. Growing up, I was very much obsessed with the radio. I shared a room with my sister, with a radio between us that we’d fall asleep to every night.
My first DJ gig was when I moved to Berlin when I was 18. I ended up playing my first set at the end of Berlin Art Week in 2012. I didn’t know what I was doing, but they needed a DJ. So I just faded between iTunes and Spotify and made it work! From then on it was just constantly learning as I go, which is something that I still do to this day.
Where do you think your curiosity for music comes from?
My family. My dad is a music head with eclectic taste, so I grew up listening to a variety of sounds. Jazz, Indian Classical Sade and a lot of Punk. My brother played me The Prodigy’s ‘Firestarter’ when I was about three years old. I remember being obsessed with it and watching the music video – which should’ve been quite scary for a three-year-old – but it blew my mind. He put me on to so many good bands like Deftones and Nirvana.
What sounds do you find yourself gravitating towards these days? What do you think they bring out of you?
It changes quite a lot. I always gravitate towards anything that’s guitar based because it has that feeling of nostalgia for me. There’s a level of nostalgia that kind of flows through all of the music that I gravitate towards, whether it be guitars or Street Soul. Honestly, I struggle to describe what I play or what I showcase on my radio show by genre.
I really enjoy the research side of things – that’s what I like to hone in on. With research comes discovery! It leads you to different threads within music, different eras and ways in which certain scenes have influenced others. There’s always a contextual or historical relation to the music I play,. That’s why I often veer towards sounds from the past. The research side of music has kept me engaged in this part of my craft since the beginning.
Tell us about your Soup To Nuts show on NTS – what are some of your guiding principles?
The main principle is: anything I like, I’ll play. It doesn’t matter if it’s the most mainstream Pop. If I think it’s a good song, I’m going to play it. I like to have a good balance between guitars, soulful feelers (ones that really get your heart going), electronic leaning sounds, newer music and then the rest is whatever I’m feeling that week. I treat all of my artistic outputs as my world building, they’re all a form of storytelling to me. All of my radio shows act as a diary of sorts, an indication of how I’m feeling that week.
Your radio shows and mixes often explore musical eras that might not be known to most, such as Japanese Hip-Hop or Tamil film music. What is the rationale behind shining a light on those scenes?
When I discover an influential artist or a scene, I go down some really deep rabbit holes. My mind is immediately like, ‘okay, how can I put this into a show, put forward all of this information in a concise way and condense it into two hours?’
I did a show which was showcasing the work of Ilaiyaraaja, who’s known as the maestro within Kollywood (the Tamil film industry). He’s one of the earliest South Asian musicians to use electronic elements in his work, especially within the mainstream. He’s scored over 1000 films! This is a good example of me getting deep into a rabbit hole of research, where I’m up till 5:00 a.m. There’s just more and more to discover. It’s such an exciting feeling.
“Research leads you to different threads within music and different eras and the way that certain scenes have influenced others.”
How do you negotiate and integrate your various musical influences in your shows and musical content?
At the moment, I’m balancing a busy work schedule alongside a weekly radio show. So it’s a lot harder for me to plan specials or even plan at all. I did a Ryuichi Sakamoto special a few years ago, which was a 2 hour, chronological retrospective of his whole career. It took two months of planning and research and I definitely didn’t touch the sides of his career – he’s worked within so many different genres, shaped several scenes all over the world and has collaborated with an incredible amount of artists.
I do most of my show planning through playlists on YouTube. Currently, I’m planning a Trip Hop special – I’ve been adding songs to this playlist for about a year. It gets to a point where I feel like I’ve collected everything I possibly can and then the show goes out. If it’s a show that’s extensively researched, then I’ll work on that for two to three months, gathering songs, snippets from interviews and writing out my research that I sometimes share on a blog.
What’s the relationship like between your DJing and your other creative outlets like animation? Do they influence each other?
They definitely inform each other – everything I make is part of the world I’ve created. It might be as simple as hearing a song, becoming obsessed with it and then the lyrics of that song inform a comic or animation or a zine. I taught myself how to animate because I wanted to bring my characters to life and expand the storytelling within my comics through movement and have music go alongside them. I’m always thinking with a wide lens of how all my different practices can inform each other.
Are there any modern revamps of classic genres that you’ve observed recently?
I love that guitars have entered the mainstream again, with lots of different forms of experimentation. Music in general, is really traversing genres at the moment. I’m enjoying hearing different forms of sampling within music – Tyler, The Creator, recently sampled a rare Tatsuro Yamashita track, bringing City Pop into the mainstream! I love hearing obscure references in mainstream music. I feel like tapes are coming back too, mixtapes especially. More chopped and screwed sounds, things that aren’t super polished – a bit crunchy and lo-fi. Sounds that might just be an idea.
How do you stay creative?
Through my friends and the people around me. My art is very much diary based, it acts as extension of myself – comics are one of the easiest ways for me to tell stories. Conversations with friends always make their way into my work, a sentence that they’ve said could inspire a whole comic! I love taking voice recordings wherever I go – I’m always finding new sounds whilst I’m travelling, or in bars, clubs, in the park. I’m just very inspired by the world around me.
What are some of the proudest moments of your career to this point?
I feel like the inclination is to answer with a huge club that you’ve played at. I played at Berghain a few years ago – when I first started DJing I thought that playing Berghian would be that “I’ve made it” moment. Unsurprisingly, it wasn’t. It was really one of those “don’t meet your heroes” moments. As I’ve gotten older, I’m realising that those huge moments are never what you build them up to be in your head. Some of my proudest moments have been playing in a small, sweaty rooms with my best friends. Those are the most memorable ones, the ones I’ll always think back to. Honestly, I’m just proud to still be here in this world, still on the radio, still making art.
How do you want to exist in the music space in the next five years?
For the past two years I was feeling really shit about DJing. I think it’s because I’m getting older, people coming to clubs are getting younger. The way that music is consumed is constantly changing (I blame TikTok). Sometimes it feels like music is just there to be consumed, rather than understood. I had to do a hard reset where I was like, ‘what do I actually want to be doing in the club and what do I actually want to be playing?’ So I think in the next five years I want to just continue to hone in on what feels good to me when I’m DJing, and the way that I can translate that into a dance floor setting to others. Ultimately, I want to be nourishing myself and others through whatever I put out within music and constantly enriching my understanding of music.
What does World Music Day symbolise to you?
World Music Day makes me think of discovery – having no boundaries when it comes to finding out about all types of music and sharing it with others!
Tell us about your World Music Day mix for Mixcloud.
For this mix, I’ve imagined a new world, allowing myself (and hopefully you, the listener) a moment of healthy escapism. A moment of escapism from the ever-growing fascist, racist and capitalist world we currently reside, existing under the thumb of imperialism. Whilst we watch this current iteration of the genocide of Palestinians in real time, maintaining hope and mobilising is more important than ever. The growing knowledge towards the systemic oppression in this world enlightens us to other genocides all over the world, currently and within history.
I recorded this mix during a week where hope was faltering, so I wanted to imagine a completely new world – imagining what sounds would encompass the feeling of landing in a foreign – confusion, hope, fear and exploration. Through putting this mix together, I’m reminded of how free movement is a privilege as we witness this right being stripped away from so many. This mix has also reminded me how art forms like music can hold an incredible amount of power. Power to transport you to places that do or don’t already exist. A medium for hope and change. A tool to politically move yourself and others. A way to tell stories and archive moments in history.