DJ KA RABA ISONA MISSION

To Roll Up The Electronic Music Scene

BY ALEX NINO GHECIU

Back before dance music was whitewashed and straightened out, it belonged to minorities. Its origins can be traced back to the 1970s, when LBGTQ+ communities and Black and Brown people in Chicago, New York and Detroit, in the face of stifling discrimination, found refuge in nightlife. Among the genre’s most vital pioneers were women of colour, from house legend Kym Mazelle to disco diva Loleatta Holloway. And yet, on festival stages, in club lineups and in label boardrooms, it’s your Calvin Harrises and David Guettas who dominate the electronic scene. As in, straight white men— the same folks who run everything else.

DJ Karaba is here to crash the bro’s club. The France-born, Montreal-bred producer has amassed a global fanbase (half a million TikTok followers and counting) by carving out space in a genre that can feel alienating to young Black women like herself. After beginning her career as a dancer for pop megastars like Drake and Selena Gomez, Karaba decided she wanted to be the one who makes people move. Inspired by her father’s Congolese heritage, she’s been reclaiming dance music via balmy, rhythmically fluid beats seasoned with sounds of the African diaspora, from Afro house to Ndombolo. Her forthcoming EP, due this spring, features vocals exclusively by Black women. Why? “Because we’re super dope,” she says.

We chatted with Karaba about CBD bath bombs, dancing for Drake, and her mission to amplify super dope Black women in electronic music.

DK: Yeah, it used to be fun! I was in New York and I was like, “Woo yeah! Girl, let’s do this!” And then it shifted. And someone told me, “Maybe you should do more research into what type of weed to smoke. Maybe now that you’re older, there’s a specific one that’s good for you.” I do take the one that just relaxes your body.

ANG: Do you have a CDB bath playlist?

DK: I watch Netflix when I’m in my bath, but I don’t really listen to music. I get bored. I love reality shows; the stupid ones like Love Is Blind or Too Hot To Handle. I just need to watch something and forget about stuff.

ANG: What was your route to get into the professional dance world? Was there an avenue for that in Montreal?

DK: I knew from a very young age that Montreal wasn’t the place for the dreams I had. Obviously, watching Save the Last Dance and all these movies, the main girl would always move to New York. I think I was like 8 or 9 when I already knew that I’m going to have to move to the States. Plus, this was like 20 years ago when Black people weren’t even being celebrated the way they are in the entertainment industry in the world, let alone in Quebec.

ANG: Oh yeah. I imagine growing up in Montreal, you probably didn’t see too many people on TV you could identify with.

DK: There were none. There was maybe like one token person, but to be honest, I wasn’t really watching much Quebecois television because I was just like, “I don’t see myself.” So I was more the kid watching MTV and BET because the States were so much further ahead in their quest of celebrating Black people compared to Canada or Quebec.

ANG: So fast forward a bit — you leave Montreal, go to the States, and eventually become a dancer for Drake. What era of Drake was this? And what was he like to work for?

Alex Nino Gheciu: So DJ Karaba, the masses need to know: do you smoke cannabis?

DJ KARABA: Oh shit, I’m not cool. I used to, but not anymore. It gets me paranoid, so I had to stop. But in my 20s, I used to smoke a lot of weed and obviously, I live in California now, so, you know, woo hoo! But no, I don’t anymore. I had to tone it down. Back in the day I would smoke and go to class and dance and just be about it. And then I think when I was maybe 27, I was like, “Oh, hell no, I can’t do this anymore.”

ANG: Ah, interesting. So you used to be a functional pothead.

ANG: So, you were born in France and your parents decided to move to Canada when you were 7. Why Canada?

DK: It was just the American dream, but cheaper. And then you still can speak French. So they were just like, “We’re going to Montreal!”

ANG: Was dancing your first love?

DK: My first love was music, but then my first reaction to that was to move. So then it went into dance. I just had a lot of energy and I wasn’t a very good singer. So my parents were like, “Let’s just put her in something where she can just get her energy out.” I went into dance and I really liked it. I was just like, “This is what I want to do for the rest of my life.”

DK: It was when he was on The Boy Meets World tour and he was releasing More Life. He’s a cool guy. He’s really nice and really sweet and always just making sure we’re okay. I didn’t really have conversations with him, but for the little exchanges I had with him, he was really cool. It’s the Canadian gene. [Laughs.]

ANG: At what point did you decide you wanted to start making music?

DK: It was actually when I was touring with Selena [Gomez], which was before Drake. She talks about it in her documentary; she got lupus. And so she had to cancel the tour, and that was in 2016. We did the North American leg and the Asian leg, and then we were about to go to Europe and South America and she was just like, “Yeah, I can’t physically do it, so I’m going to have to cancel.” That’s when I was like, “Oh wow, okay. They can just cancel like that.” And that’s nothing on her—she was actually like, “I’ll keep you guys on payroll until the end of the tour.” That’s someone that really cares about their staff. She’s actually really nice.

ANG: Yeah, that’s actually pretty dope of Selena.

DK: But I was like, what’s my plan B? My life depends on someone else’s schedule, basically. So that’s when I was like, okay, I need to find something else that I like or another passion. So that’s when I started taking DJ class. Then 2017, that’s when Drake happened. And then 2019 is when I was like, okay, enough. I have to just focus on DJing, focus on me. People will debate on this and say you don’t need music to be a dancer, but personally, I need music to be a dancer. So really, I went back to what I liked about dancing, which was the music.

ANG: Nice. Did you ever show Drake any of your beats when you were touring with him?

DK: No, because I wasn’t producing at that time. I actually brought my controller, but I was so shy. Now thinking about it, I should have been like, “Listen, you gotta let me play.” Because he would have after parties after the show; we would go places to hang out and he had a DJ that would play. I was just so shy because I was only a year into mixing, and it’s Drake, you know what I mean? It’s not like it’s a bunch of your friends. Like, I’m not going to embarrass myself in front of Drake.

ANG: You should DM him now! Be like, “Yo, remember me?”

DK: No, nooo I don’t do that kind of stuff. I let them come to me. Every step at a time. I want him to, like, come back around and be like, “Oh my God. you’re that girl!” And I’ll be like, “Yeah!” But I ain’t gonna be in his DMs because everyone does that, so yeah, no. You gotta be special, you know what I mean?

ANG: This is the cliché music journalist question, but how would you describe your sound?

DK: I’m just making what I like. I’m super inspired by Afro house from South Africa and I just want to make music that reflects where I come from. Well, where my Dad comes from; Congo, Africa. After that, to say what kind of music I make, you can call it whatever you want, as long as you like it. Or maybe you don’t.

ANG: Maybe you can tell me this: Why is it important for you to inject your to know that there’s so much more music coming out of Africa. I feel like people would listen to it and be like, “Oh, where is she from? Oh, okay, she has Congolese in her, so what’s the music like out there?”

ANG: Can you elaborate on that? Why is it important for you to have a project showcasing Black women?

DK: Because we’re super dope. We’re just easily put aside. So I make it my mission to feature as many Black women as I can, and make sure they’re being heard and seen. And maybe down the line I’ll be like, okay, fine, I’ve done it. But right now, that’s really one of my motivations because I listen to so much music every day and I just don’t feel like I see that—Black women on Afro house tracks, in French.

ANG: Yeah, you’re right, that is super dope. [Laughs.] Especially when you consider the lack of women in electronic music today. I saw a study saying that on the Billboard 100 Year-End Chart only 2.6 percent of producers were female in the last decade.

DK: I saw even less than that — something like 0.3 percent of people in music production are women of colour.

ANG: That’s hard to comprehend.

DK: It can be very lonely. I don’t have anything against men, but sometimes I just want to be in a room with women making music and not just always dudes going, “Arrgh!” But at the same time I think it’s going to slowly change. If I’m not living when the change comes, at least I’ll be part of the wave trying to make a change for the next generation.

Congolese heritage into your music?

DK: There’s not a lot of women in music producing, let alone women of colour. And I don’t think there’s a lot of women that do what I do. So I think that’s why, for me, it was even more important to have my African roots in it. If I think about music that is being played in Quebec, I don’t see any people like me, Black women, being celebrated. I want people to know where this music comes from. I know right now, there’s a big movement with Amapiano, which is from South Africa. I would love for people

ANG: What can you tell me about the music you’ve got on the way?

DK: I’m working on this new EP. For this one, I want to work with Black female vocalists and I want to have a full-on French project. So the music kind of stays the same, but the direction is different. No matter how much people say, “Oh, you should do it in English,” I’m just like nah, I’m still a French girl. Therefore I want to make a project that celebrates that, with Black women.

ANG: Why do you think there are staggeringly so few women of colour in music production? How do you explain it?

DK: I just think it’s because we don’t see it. What you don’t see, you can’t get. If I’m a little girl and I don’t see someone like me doing it, then it’s hard for me to think that I can do it. So it’s about representation and making sure women that are doing this are being put in front. It’s about being equal; as many women as men. We’re not trying to say that we want to be in the front. It’s just that it should be fair game for both genders.