Surroundings: Flava D

Flava D hustled hard to become one of the UK’s most respected DJs. Though she’s now operating across UK bass and grime’s top table (her recent 13- week London club residency welcomed guests including Wiley, Heartless Crew and AJ Tracey), her musical journey began in slower settings.

“I was born in Bournemouth. It was a dead town to be honest,” Flava D, real name Danielle Gooding, tells us in her London flat. “I was a hermit in my bedroom on my PC learning to make beats with Channel U on my TV. I didn’t have a job, so all I was doing was waking up, making beats and messaging MCs to ask for vocals.” Completely self-taught, production skills weren’t the only hurdle which stood in Gooding’s way. “I didn’t come into the music industry with any contacts, I was just this random woman in a male-dominated scene.”

With a father obsessed with mid- 90s garage and a mother who kept Euphoria trance compilations in the glovebox, Gooding was always drawn to inner-city clubs. She moved to London at the end of her teens and became sonically attuned to what she describes as “a more aggressive environment”. As well as connecting her with a musical family via the Butterz label, London gave Gooding a raw, grittier palette which still informs her sound.

I didn’t come into the music industry with any contacts, I was just this random woman in a male-dominated scene”

Crack Magazine went to meet Gooding in Lewisham, South London. We spent the day walking through her neighbourhood for Surroundings – our collaborative series with Shure, where producers capture sounds from the cities they live in and incorporate them into brand new tracks. Gooding used vocals from a busker, noise from the DLR and recordings from Lewisham market to produce a highimpact UKG banger.

A self-made artist creating dynamic, imaginative British bass music, Gooding has now joined the ranks of the figureheads she once learned from. “Whether I was getting paid or not, I still believe I would be in my bedroom making music and putting it online,” she tells us, reflecting on the most essential driving force in her journey. “I genuinely love making beats. It’s like self-medication. When I’m making my music I’m expressing myself and I need that to stay balanced.”

Flava D recorded her Surroundings using the MV88 microphone and the Shure Plus MOTIV app. Listen to Flava’s track and watch how she made it at CrackMagazine.net

Words: Duncan Harrison | Photography: Ben Brook