music producer

KARABA: The Juno-Nominated Producer Drops New Single ‘Siren’ and Announces Upcoming EP TIDES

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Photo Credit: Paulo Vivanco

KARABA is a French-Congolese DJ/producer and former professional dancer at the forefront of Afro house.

A professional dancer-turned-DJ and producer, she’s quickly established herself as one of the most exciting new names in Afro house. Now based in Los Angeles, her path has taken her from France to Canada to stages across Europe and Asia, blending her global influences with a sound grounded in her Congolese heritage.

Earlier this year, she earned her first Juno Award nomination for Underground Dance Single of the Year with her breakout track Mad Mess. Her latest release, SIREN, continues to build on that momentum—setting the tone for her upcoming self-titled EP, KARABA, which fuses Afro house rhythms with her background in dance and deep respect for the genre’s origins.

With a combined following of over 1 million on TikTok and Instagram, KARABA is using her platform to spotlight rising Afro artists in her sets and bring more visibility to a scene she’s deeply invested in. Whether performing alongside Rampa of Keinemusik or sharing new music from her home studio, her focus remains the same: to create from a place of authenticity.

In this interview, KARABA talks about her journey so far, the inspiration behind SIREN, and how dance continues to shape her approach to music.

Your journey has taken you from being a professional dancer for Drake, Camila Cabello, and Selena Gomez to becoming a Juno-nominated DJ and producer. How did that transition happen, and what inspired you to step behind the decks?

I reached a point in my career where I felt like I had achieved what I set out to do as a dancer. Touring with A-list artists was my ultimate goal when I started dancing at seven years old, and I had accomplished that. But as a commercial dancer—mostly performing for other artists—I realized I couldn’t fully express myself the way I wanted to. I knew I had a bigger story to tell, and to do that, I had to step outside the dance world in a new way.

For many dancers, the next step is choreography or teaching, but I never felt like that was my path. I had always admired DJs, especially from going out to underground scenes in LA with my friends. So in 2016, I decided to take classes and learn how to DJ—and that’s really how it all started.

You’ve built a massive social following and use it to spotlight rising Afro acts. What advice would you give to DJs and producers looking to grow their audience while staying authentic?

Do what feels right to you. It’s easy to see what’s working for others and try to recreate it, but the key is finding what makes you unique and leaning into that. When I first started, I was just excited to share my art, so I never held back on who I was. I’m a high-energy DJ—I love to dance, smile, and let loose—and I want my audience to feel that with me. So I embraced that fully, and I think that’s what helped me build my audience. People connect with artists who are unapologetically themselves—at least, that’s how I connect with other artists—so that’s always been my approach. 

What’s the story behind your new single Siren?

My whole upcoming EP is about my relationship with water and how that translates into my everyday life. 2024 was a very chaotic year for me, and I kept having dreams about water while also watching a specific documentary about deep diving called The Deepest Breath. That inspired me to explore the different ways we navigate challenges, drawing a parallel between that and diving into the ocean.

With that in mind, Siren represents the moment when I’m deep in the water, where I’ve finally found calmness and am moving with the flow rather than against it. The bridge is my favorite part—it’s heavily inspired by my love for Daft Punk. I wanted to create something mystical, galactic, and yet somehow hopeful.

If you could go back and give one piece of advice to yourself at the start of your DJ/producer career, what would it be?

Don’t overthink, especially as a DJ. I’m an overthinker, and it sometimes kills my creativity, especially when I first started DJing. I’d spend so much time perfecting my sets, which is fine—dedicating time to your craft is important. But I’ve learned that at a certain point, you have to let go and just throw yourself into it. I often strive for perfection, but that doesn’t exist. Some of my best sets have been the ones where I just flow with the music, without overthinking.

Coming from dance, I’ve always tried to perfect things, but DJing has helped me slowly break free from that mindset. Now, when I step behind the decks, sometimes I have an idea of what I want to do, and other times, I just let myself freestyle. It’s so freeing. The same goes for producing—I don’t overthink it. In the studio, I just let myself flow and see where it takes me

What’s your best networking tip?

Don’t be afraid of rejection. Last year was tough for me—I felt like I wasn’t reaching the places I thought I should be. It forced me to sit down and rethink how I needed to move forward. So, I knew I had to get myself out there and start networking. One thing about me is I don’t handle rejection well, but I quickly reminded myself it’s just a part of the business.

You have to push past that and really put yourself out there anyway. I knocked on a lot of doors, and I told myself, ‘What’s the worst that could happen? A no.’ And then you move on. It’s all about staying persistent.

I’ve had times where networking led to immediate opportunities, and other times when it paid off months or even years later. You never know what a connection will bring, but you have to keep showing up and putting yourself out there. That’s my best networking tip—don’t let rejection stop you, and always keep going.

For young women and underrepresented artists trying to break into the electronic music scene, what’s one lesson you’ve learned that they should know?

Embrace solitude. I still struggle with seeing many women like me in the genre I’m part of, and I’d love to see more of us represented. But I’m also aware that there are women who’ve paved the way before me, and even though I might not see full equality during my time, I’m still a part of that movement. That thought keeps me going.

We don’t talk enough about how isolating it can feel, especially as a Black woman in the electronic music scene in this day and age. That’s a very real experience. But accepting it, while reminding yourself that you’re contributing to something bigger—that the next generation will thrive because you exist—that’s what it’s all about.

KARABA's new single 'Siren' is out now along with the announcement of her upcoming TIDES EP. 

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Music Insider: Halina Rice

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Halina Rice is an electronic musician and AV artist creating emotive electronic music ranging from evocative soundscapes to beat-driven tracks.

Her live shows have been described as “part-rave, part art-happening” taking audiences from immersive experience to dance-inspired tracks.

With her last album ELISION released in 2022 to critical acclaim, her music has been described as “sublime and infectious” by Electronic Sound magazine and as “modern electronic music at its finest” by Headphone Commute.

As Rice states “my main focus is to present compelling, emotive and innovative music and visuals in order to move the audience outside of their day to day experience. I want people to come away from the shows feel invigorated and inspired.

Read our interview to discover more about Halina’s work and insights.

As an artist who aims to move the audience outside of their day to day experience, which emotions or reactions do you hope your music and visuals evoke in your listeners?

When I think about what I'm trying to evoke in listeners, I'm not really very prescriptive about it because I think everyone one kind of comes with their own experiences and things will resonate or they will react in different ways depending on their own individual experience.

But what I tend to find is that if there's something that I create musically or something that I create working with one of the visual designers, if something resonates with us or kind of excites us, then that's often going to create a reaction in the audience as well. So we tend to go for stuff that makes us feel something. I think it's a really individual way that people react to the events.

How do you prepare for large scale events?

For instance, I had a show at Village Underground on October 3rd. In that instance, it's just mainly about the technical side. Planning is probably the most important way that I prepare because in my shows I'm running the audio, the visual jewels and quite a large proportion of the lighting. It's making sure that I've done all the relevant site checks and understand what the venue capabilities are and checking that my setup is going to interact with their setup OK. Also, that I'm completely in line with the promoter for all the details about the event.

Then another aspect is when I run spatial sounds. In some gigs, I'm running multi speaker systems with sound coming all around the audience. I have a show coming up at Ade on Thursday, October. The 19th at a venue called The Other Side, which has just had a 14.1.5 speaker system installed.

And in that instance, there's a little bit extra planning, which is that you need to receive their speaker layout in order to be able to reprogram your sound so that it's coming out into the formation of speakers in their venue. So it's really just about planning and lots today.

What is the central theme or concept that ties all the tracks on your upcoming EP New Basis together? How did this theme influence your creative process while working on the project?

I think possibly for New Basis, the creative theme is something about contradictions. There's a kind of a clash of classical and more experimental forms.

Definitely I created chord structures that have quite a sort of long, almost recognizable contemporary classical structure, but then they would be presented in a sort of electronic instrumentation and I never really wanted those shapes to be 100% recognizable. Things twist and change throughout and there are builds of distortion. Then we kind of reflected that in the creative process.

Working with visual designer Frany Anthony, we actually used scans, 3D scans of natural objects. But then we kind of took those, recolored them and twisted and distorted them so that the visuals were matching the music. Organic and inorganic juxtaposition is what lied through the whole creative thinking behind the EP.

How do you stay inspired and innovative in your music and visual art?

One of the ways that I'd stay inspired is to go and see other people's shows, works or art presentations. For instance, there's a venue in London called Eclectic which is just in Waterloo and it's non profit making so they'll platform quite experimental ideas, students, etc who are just sort of trying things in quite a raw format. And that's really interesting because it can kind of trigger ideas or developments from that. And I'm lucky enough to also play at audiovisual festivals. I was at MUTEK in Montreal a few weeks ago and there was just a huge number of fantastic presentations from around the world.

Sometimes it's seeing other people's work but also just being in venues. For instance, being in a dome projection venue and just thinking this is really interesting and what would I do in this space? So yeah, just sort of getting out and about and having a bit of reflective time while you're absorbing other audience of visual events and you.

What advice would you give to emerging electronic artists?

The advice I'd give to emerging electronic artists is to connect with other like minded people in your area. If there are meetups of electronic, electronic or AV groups, it's a really great way just to share information and learn. Maybe you're going to collaborate or work with a few people that you meet there. And also, in a lot of these groups you're just performing maybe for other people in the group. It can be a really non judgmental place for you to trial before you take that in front of a ticketed audience, for instance.

And I think also it's great to feel like you're connected to a wider community because it can be quite an isolating thing to do. It's good to be able to call on other people as you solve production queries, as you work your way through what the right kind of format and setup is for you.

Halina’s EP NEW BASIS was released on 29th September via AWAL and is available through all streaming platforms.

Catch Halina Rice live at Rescue Rooms in Nottingham on October 12th, and Summerhall in Edinburgh on November 17th.

Halina is also part of the official programme at ADE 2023 this year performing a spatial audio and visual live set at The Other Side on Thursday 19th October, presented in L-ISA hyperreal sound by L-Acoustics.

Artist Spotlight #9: Lau.ra

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Alternative Power List winner, Lau.ra is one of the rising stars of house music. Based in the UK, her dominant basslines and infectious melodies saw her awarded ‘Self Producing Artist of The Year’ by the UK MPG last month (an accolade previously won by Four Tet and Jon Hopkins). Growing up in a small town in the midlands she talks to shesaid.so about finding a home in dance music, juggling parenting, support from the BBC and putting in the graft.

shesaid.so: Tell us more about your artist journey and how your sound has developed to where it is today?

Lau.ra: I’ve been a self-producing artist from day 1 but I entered the music industry making pop music as growing up in a small town in the midlands the only successful women I’d ever seen in the music industry were pop stars so I naturally gravitated towards that world. I was in my mid-twenties before I met other women producers and women in technical roles in the industry. I remember that Mandy Parnell, the mastering engineer in fact, was the first woman I worked with who was successfully dominating and taking up a lot of space in her field. I found that very inspiring. It’s only in the last few years that I’ve realised my home is in dance and electronic music. Feeling supported and celebrated as a self-producing artist in this scene has been a game changer for me. I’m no longer met with confusing looks when I tell people in the industry that it’s me producing all the tunes, instead people are impressed and excited by it. I feel believed, finally! Thank fuck.

shesaid.so: 2022 has been such an exciting year for you so far! What have been your personal highlights?

Lau.ra: Playing Radio 1’s Big Weekend recently was a real buzz and in fact all the BBC radio support that DJs have shown my music this year has been unreal. I started the year DJing at Circoloco at DC-10, Ibiza on New Years Day — the absolute best way to kick off the year. I think that lit a rocket up my ass for the rest of the year ahead. And then just recently I won a UK MPG award for ‘Self Producing Artist of The Year’ — an accolade previously won by Four Tet and Jon Hopkins. To win that award knowing it’s voted for by peers and alongside the absolute best in the UK music industry feels very validating.

shesaid.so: On your Reprezent takeover you spoke about the barriers you faced getting into music production. Could you share how you’ve overcome some of those?

Lau.ra: I’ve just quietly kept on going. Actually not even that quietly most of the time. The beats have gotten bigger and better and I’ve just grafted away. Mastered my craft but still learning all the time. I’ve just put the hours in and surrounded myself with people who absolutely know my truth and story and will speak up if they hear anyone twisting that or making assumptions that aren’t true.

shesaid.so: We have a brilliant, active, parenthood committee. As a parent, are there ways you’d like the music industry to evolve to support parents more?

Lau.ra: Visibility is important and goes a long way to making people feel supported. It’s been refreshing seeing some other women in the scene share their parenting journeys and open up a little more about the challenges that come with young children and a career in music. It’s only very recently (post pandemic?) that I feel people have been talking about this. Up until the past few years it’s still been very taboo or just not done. Or maybe I just wasn’t looking for it? Not sure.

Following Annie Mac, Anna Lunoe, Logic1000 and Jamz Supernova have been very inspiring to me and made me believe that I could do this. More support for self-employed parents in the industry would be great.

One thing that’s become apparent since becoming a mum is that blocks of creative time are going to be very hard to come by during these early years. I barely manage to record an hour’s live mix without being interrupted! Perhaps a fund where parents could use the money to cover childcare costs and book themselves into a residential studio for a week? That would be dreamy. When your babies are small you don’t want to be seperated from them but equally there is a pull to ‘get back to it’ and a need to be creative and keep those juices flowing so you don’t touch out and lose yourself completely. A fund or support that might enable parents to do both these things alongside each other in those early days would be brilliant.

shesaid.so: shesaid.so is a community guided by intersectionality. In your opinion, how could the music industry do better in terms of inclusivity?

Lau.ra: I’m seeing more women and gender minorities coming through and rising the ranks but still very few black people taking up the space they deserve. Both on the artist side but particularly on the technical side and executive roles in the industry. I don’t think I’ve ever had a label or publishing meeting with a black woman sitting on the other side of the table, which is absurd when dance music is black music. House/Techno/Garage/DnB, all of it comes from black culture and creators, we owe everything to the black and queer scenes that the sounds evolved from.

shesaid.so: Has community played a role in your evolution as a creative?

Lau.ra: To some extent. I produce and create most of my music alone or remotely from the artists that I work with and my studio is at my house so I don’t get to experience community in my work environment but it plays a big role in everything else. Artist communities like The FAC and PRSFoundation have been so important to me as I’ve been navigating my way through and carving a career for myself in music. Also Instagram! I have some fans that have followed me from day one, from project to project and grown up with me. Even though we aren’t close IRL there’s a sense of community that’s very supportive knowing some people have chosen to take an interest and stick with you as you’ve been developing and evolving as an artist over the years.

shesaid.so: And finally, could you share three bullet-point top tips for artists just starting out? What would you have loved to hear?

Lau.ra:

“Keep going. If you can afford to ride out the lows and it’s still bringing you joy. Keep going.”

Trust your gut, if it feels too good to be true it usually is. Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions. A lot of people in the music industry rely on artists not asking the obvious questions. Transparency is everything. A few awkward moments may save you a lot of money/sanity.

Don’t over-promise and under-deliver. It’s frustrating for everyone. Better to be the person that says they’ll have something done in a couple of weeks and deliver it in one rather than be the person everyone needs to chase. This is not always easy or possible, as I’ve discovered since becoming a parent. But it’s always something to aim for!

Keep up to date with Lau.ra via her website and Instagram.

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