De La Haye is one busy Junglette, also managing the Brizbass event mailing list and local broken-beat website that she founded in September 2008, and regularly playing hip hop, funk/soul, house, disco, garage and reggae sets as well, as a resident DJ of Junkyard Sessions, Rumpus Room, Rum Jungle, Mr Percival's, Felon's, Riverbar, The Loft, Solbar, Kerbside, Brew, Soleil, F45 to name a few. However her main focus for 2020 is to lend more time to production. Given the accomplishments and talent shown so far, where she will go from here no one can predict.

"Originally from Wellington, I was introduced to Jungle around 1998 in NZ, via a Kenny Ken jungle classics mix and a Vibes & Wishdokta (cassette tape!) mix both of which I still have. I've been madly in love since. I kinda fell, very accidentally but beautifully into playing/promoting (and dabbling with production) DNB through a series of quite random events after moving to Australia - and music just instantly felt like I'd found my place in the world."

Q.  What tunes are you listening to at the moment and why?

A. Jungle/DNB wise - my local homies Operon, TOMIX, Missledz, Sal, Dynamix & Aradale are all on fire with wicked releases right now! Keep an eye on these names.

Some current fave tunes..

Operon & Chris Munky remix of The Nextmen & Gentleman's Dub Club - Highs & Lows

Terence & Philip - Fusion

Zero T & DRS - Talk About It

Charli Brix, Visages - Full Circle (and Chali's Brix Don't Roll podcast!)

Kanine - Depth

Stakka & K.Tee - Living for the Night (re-digging this classic - tuuune!)

Everything by Myth, RMS & Alix Perez.. Too many... haha

Totally obsessed with contrast and layers at the moment - within a tune... within a set, and now I'm thinking about it, my colourful style too haha

Outside of DNB, listening to a lot of LoFi hiphop like Kick a Dope Verse..  and (Aus) house like Doppel, Somersault & one of my fave homies, Butterz, whose new tunes are ridiculously good!

Q. From your perspective, how have things changed for womxn in the drumandbass community in recent years? What would be your hopes going forward?

A. Definitely noticed an increase over the last year or so & during COVID it seems, at least locally there's a huge amount of femxles having started mixing for example, and a lot of female collectives similar to EQ50 & Junglettes starting up. I remember thinking at the last Sun & Bass 2019 how many wicked female artists were on the lineup, and how many more I met last year at the festival as well, especially through that EQ50 video interview many of us participated in. (Despite my extreme nerves, that was an awesome idea!!

Hopes going forward? Just general equality really, with all humans whether gender, race, sexual preference, feeling welcomed to get involved - music unites us and doesn't judge. We're all one on a dancefloor (and behind the decks!)

Q.  2020 has been a tough year for a lot of us, has it affected your creative output in any way? Is there something that you learned or rediscovered about yourself during this time? 

A. So many things! Hard times often teach us the most valuable lessons right. This year really gave me the space and time to dive more into what has already been a pretty epic growth and health journey over the past few years. I feel super grateful to have had an awesome year compared to many (bank balance aside!) BUT made the most outta a bad situation for sure, and focused on what truly matters anyway - connection with loved ones (specifically my awesome partner and son who I moved closer to), self/health, nature and just, stopping for once to smell the roses!

Literally, as I swapped city life for a slower paced bush/farm & beach life which is something I never thought I'd love so much. I'll take cows & kookaburras over traffic any day now thanks! I've naturally spent less time online, swapping screen time for treetime! It's inspired me a great deal, with music, writing, being more present/getting back in alignment with self, seeking more meaningful work and a better balance etc

My creative output was affected in an incredible but interesting way. Actually had a totally blissful silent retreat through COVID as weird as that sounds. After a very solidly booked and busy 18 years I took my first ever break from music! Completely. 6 months no gigs, no buying tunes, no mixing/live streams (only really listened to music when my partner put it on). Again, never thought I'd enjoy that so much! But turns out I REALLY needed it. My instinct told me I needed to totally switch off to truly recharge and refocus properly with music production and a general deep desire to "create' more... And it worked.. Creativity is buzzing in all ways.

Finally embracing slowing down has got me meditating daily too and I've never slept so well!

Q. Is there anything else you'd like to add?

A. Excited to be finally launching my blog and podcast project soon "Spread Love & Basslines' combining my epic personal growth, health/mental health and music journey (which was born from a desire to help others dealing with the same/common struggles also big in the music industry, like anxiety, depression, addiction after numerous friend's suicides). To counter this and the often-overwhelmingly bleak world sitch by pushing out more positive vibes/content, to help others & try to be the change I wanna see. It'll also see my past brand Junglettes re-emerge in podcast-form showcasing womxn in dnb, amongst many other ideas!

Instagram: @spreadloveandbasslines

https://www.facebook.com/delahaye.rukus

https://soundcloud.com/sunandbass/sunandbass-podcast-90-kim-de-la-haye-live-set

https://soundcloud.com/sunandbass/sunandbass-podcast-61-de-la-haye