Blogs

 

09 Feb 2012

 

 

 Starz and Deeza

 

Starz and Deeza are a female and male MC combination currently impacting on the drum & bass scene across the UK and Europe. They featured in 2010 as one of the future sounds of South East London, we caught up with them to find out how the past eighteen months have been and what we can look forward to hearing in 2012.

 

It's been a while since you last featured in Kmag, what have you been up to since then?
Well, where do we start? So much has gone on since the last interview, it's been mad! We've been signed to World Class Management who have been helping us take our career that extra mile and we've done a hell of a lot of raves, but I think the most memorable thing would have to be Notting Hill Carnival. We've teamed up with one of Belgium's hottest DJs, Mr.Quiet, and have released a series of mixtapes called It’s Ain’t Too Quiet and Return of It Ain’t Too Quiet as well as doing various things around Europe. We delved into the promotion world and put on an event for Starz's birthday last year, and now the next big rave from us is Deeza's birthday in just a few weeks. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

What have been the highlight of the past 12 months?
That would have to be being signed to World Class Management. It's a great honour to have the opportunity to represent and be represented by such a respected and well known name in the drum and bass scene. Having somebody to arrange and organise our gigs for us, gives us one less thing to worry about and more time to focus on what we need to do. It's really helped us with our international bookings and has made such a difference to the kind of bookings we receive.

You've played quite a few events in Europe recently, Belgium and France in particular, how are you received by the European fans and how do the crowds and venues differ to here in the UK?
The international market seems to love us. The contrast between the scenes is unbelievable; In places like France and Belgium they have a real love for the artists, that’s the promoters and the ravers. It's amazing, the first thought we had when we started going international was ''it's just like the old skool raves we used to get in the UK!'' The venues vary from place to place but the majority of them end up at or well over capacity without fail. Everybody is really appreciative of the performance we give and they give off such a good vibe it makes us perform even better. It's a good cycle we've got going on there!

So it's pretty unusual to have a male / female combination, how’s it generally perceived in the industry?
It varies from person to person. From what we know most people like it as it's something different and unique, but you know nobody can be liked by everybody. It's brilliant being in a duo because if people don't like Starz, they will most probably rate Deeza, and if they don't like Deeza then they'll probably be feeling Starz, therefore the pressure is shared between us, plus it broadens the amount of fans we have because there's two of us. We've received a lot of positive feedback from some of the top names in the scene for what we do, so we must be heading in the right direction.

What's the writing process involved? Do you write together or separately? How does it work?
There are many different writing processes we go through as a duo. Of course we have our own personal lyrics that we will just write ourselves, but when it comes to our combo stuff, we will sit down at 'The Bar Desk' and write together. We could start off simply with a good word or phrase and work from there, or a whole track could stem from one idea either of us have had. Whatever the process though, we will always put our heart and soul into everything we write, and will not release anything until it is absolutely perfect.

Your last free mixtape with Mr. Quiet showed you spitting over different beats, is this something we will be seeing in the future?
Yes, most definitely. The next mixtape we will be releasing with Mr.Quiet will be 100% Belgian dubstep, plus we have a drumstep track called They Don't Want It Now (to be released on StickyBass Records) which will be out in the very near future. We also have dubstep tracks in the pipeline with Illfigure, a top producer of all music right now, along with a bit of grime, hip hop and even funky house!

 

What are you working on at the moment?
Purely production. We've just recently built our own recording studio/vocal booth which will boost our work rate enormously as we will be able to record when we want, not when we can get a slot in someone else's studio. We are also working on an album which will feature all kinds of music from drums and dub to hip hop, rock and blues.


So Deeza's birthday rave is coming in Feb. Tell us a bit more about The Euro Connexion.
The Euro Connexion idea initially came from our first trip to Montpellier, where we met DJ T'Seb and DJ Sakage. We loved working with these guys so we thought it would be a great idea to bring them over here so England can appreciate them as much as we do. Mr. Quiet is from Belgium, the scratch expert DJ JOF is from Toulouse, France and Navigator is now living in Germany, and with Logan D, Ash-A-Tack, Kombo, SMK and ourselves all being from UK it made sense to make it The Euro Connexion so the point was really to bring all these guys together to do a show for the ravers of Kent and surrounding areas and of course to celebrate Deeza's birthday.

What can we expect from you in 2012?
You can catch us all over the globe this year. We’ll be doing our third Notting Hill Carnival this summer and have a huge amount of releases throughout the year including our dubstep mix with Mr. Quiet and various tracks, plus a secret new project which we will be keeping under wraps until the time is right.  

Anything else you'd like to mention?
Big thank you to our manager Helen from WCM for really pushing us forward over the past few months, it has been exactly what we needed to keep us on the right track to success. Catch us on Kool FM very soon, we will be organising various guest shows throughout the year so keep an eye on Facebook and Twitter to find out who we're playing with and what special guests we'll be bringing along. And of course thank you to all our friends and fans who support us in what we do every step of the way, it can get hard sometimes but it's you guys that keep us going and doing what we're doing. Watch this space.

 

Words: Joanna Ranson

 

 


    Related Links:

    Like it? Share it!
    Sign up for more with the Kmag weekly newsletter.

    Comments