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Meet London’s most demanded DJ: Siobhan Bell

Elle Evans

By Elle Evans

Elle Evans

7 May 2019

I got the chance to sit down with one of London’s hottest DJ’s and producer’s – Siobhan Bell. Travelling across the globe DJ’ing for names and brands as big as Gucci Mane, A$AP Mob, Skepta, Versace and Vogue. You can catch Siobhan spinning on any average night in the most talked about spots around the world. Siobhan has been making waves within the music scene since 2010 starting out in Dalston, East London.

Now internationally recognised, Siobhan’s taste in Fashion doesn’t go unknown. Siobhan is posing for many established clothing lines and featuring in big campaigns. Becoming one of the most demanded DJ’s worldwide isn’t where it ends – Siobhan’s talents also venture into producing. Creating and producing her own music and remixes as well as working with other producers and artists. Creating a world of her own through intervening music, DJ’ing and fashion together has found her travelling the globe daily and more recently at Coachella’s Revolve festival earlier this month spinning the decks. There’s still a lot more to come from the high profile tastemaker.

siobhan-bell
Siobhan Bell

E: How did your journey begin? I believe you started out as an Intern?

S: Yeah, so even before that in East London before it got really commercial it was still kind of underground. So me and a few friends had a few nights – Work It, Livin’ Proof and even Visions as well before everyone started going we were throwing parties up and down that strip in Alibi and Bar 212 so that was our scene. We all just used to book each other and DJ. We were the party throwers of that era. I was interning at Atlantic Records that’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to get into A&R and Marketing. I just felt that I was too underground the music was so different – commercial and underground it was two completely different worlds.

E: You have DJ’d for some major names and brands now. What’s it like being a female DJ in such a competitive Industry?

S: I feel like today it’s a lot more open and there are so many female DJ’s. When I first started there was only a handful of us. There was people that I looked up to like Vashtie but she was doing more fashion and brand stuff. There wasn’t really a female DJ that was on hard live line up’s. I think it was just going to nights out and seeing the lineup’s and I just wanted to be a part of it.

E: How did you get into Producing?

S: DJ’ing for me is actually a skill that I learnt. Naturally when I’m mixing and working out beats and stuff it just raised another interest into making beats. I started off doing remixes so I have loads of little old school remixes. I actually got the idea’s from Jersey Club when that was popping like 3 or 4 years ago. They would remix old school songs and r&b songs into faster club songs so that made me want to get into doing club remixes for my sets as well. I just wanted to develop and start playing my own music on my sets so that’s where it grew for me getting into production.

E: I think you’re such a good role model for younger women. What advice would you give to younger women that want a come-up in this industry?

S: I would say the most important thing that I’ve learnt is being patient because everything is so fast now. You can go on Instagram and build a million followers in 2 months and all of that stuff but it’s so important to be present in real life. My journey has been a lot slower but I have real relationships with people. That’s what I like to come in and meet people because it’s so important to be present amongst all these tools that we have access to – we have amazing tools but we need to remember to be there in real life as well. 

E: You recently remixed MadeinTYO’s song “Ned Flanders” which features A$AP Ferg – which btw is so hard! How did that come about?

S: It’s so crazy, so I knew his DJ Jeh Mahk and they are both from Atlanta. Jeh Mahk, I met him first and he was actually DJ’ing for Tokyo and I’ve known him for a long while. It was just a natural thing. I really liked the song so I was just playing around with a couple of remixes and then I did it and just showed it to him and I said I wanna put it out. That was my first official remix that I had done for a label and helped me to start all my artist pages so all around that was a good one.

E: Are you working on anything of your own ATM?

S: Yeah so, I’m working with a lot of producers as well as still working on my own production. I’m helping other producers to produce tracks – I’m just trying to use all my network that I built have over time. Especially being International as well not just in America but in Africa or South Africa. I travel so much I make sure that get to know the music even in Paris down to some of the rappers there. I was in Denmark the other day and they have their own music scene. I just make sure that I’m tapped into where I travel to because there are whole different music scenes there.

E: What are your thoughts on the U.K. scene ATM?

S: With the U.K. scene I was a bit out of it because I’ve been in the states a lot. Where I kind of left it was when Skepta was evolving into his artist and his name and doing the whole crossover. Artist’s have done that before but he’s not tried to be American, instead he’s bought our culture into America. Americans love that. I’m English and go to America a lot and they always want to hear who’s the rapper of that time and hear my accent. My accent over there is so powerful so it’s just a thing of being ourselves in another place because that’s what they want to see. I think now people are catching on to bringing our sound to them like the collaboration with Roddy Ricch, Yxng Bane and Chip so it’s about more collaborating now. 

You can listen to Siobhan’s remix of “Ned Flanders” below.
Follow Siobhan’s Instagram here.

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