I'm squinting hard as the early dawn light is pummelling through the van's windscreen. We're hurtling down the highway, somewhere between Rhode Island and Brooklyn - it's post-party hour and some friends and I are dropping Reid Speed back home after an all-night rave in an abandoned bank vault.

The gig is all done and dusted, and we're talking shit about breaks, d'n'b and all the things in between - the details are murky, it's the start of the new millennium after all, but I can still hear the passion in her voice and I'm still feeling the vibe of the set she played, and I easily recall my predominant thought at the time – "this girl's really going somewhere, can't wait to see where she ends up..."

It's almost a decade later, and Reid's firmly ensconced in Los Angeles after a move several years back, and I can't help but feel a note of satisfaction in seeing that prediction of her ongoing success fulfilled.

Having made a name for herself through the NYC scene in the late 90s, working alongside Dara at Breakbeat Science and playing all across the east coast, the intervening years have done nothing to dissuade her enthusiasm, or her popularity.

From a slightly wayward introduction to electronic music, she is now counted as one of the founding influences in the American d'n'b scene, and from simple beginnings, her hard work and perseverance have allowed her to grow beyond the borders of breakbeat into a truly versatile entertainer in her own right.

"I was only fifteen when I was introduced to dance music," she explains, citing an almost past-life. "I had run away from home, and was living in Boulder CO. One night I went to a rave called Eden, in a dried up riverbed outside Denver. DJ Dan came on at 4am and played breaks, and from that moment I was hooked.

"I'd been an avid mix-tape maker for years, staying up to record this song or that news broadcast on the radio to get just one line to fit into one part of a story I wanted to tell. Stepping into the rave scene, I understood that there was this whole existing framework for what I'd been piecing together, and instead of just one person receiving my message, I could share musical stories with thousands of people simultaneously, elevating their collective consciousness in the process."

It's this idea of sharing, and a conscious effort to put across emotive music, that has always been a lynchpin of Reid's sets, something that over the years she has expanded upon and made into a near-zen philosophy, giving her unique style plenty of room to manoeuvre around peoples tastes.

"My friends often tell me "I hate every song you play, but somehow when you play them, they sound so good!" she exclaims happily, "I just try to tap into the vibe of the crowd - I've never planned a set and never could. The greatest pleasure I've found in life is the spontaneous sharing of music with people who really want to hear it."

With such a versatility, it's no wonder that she long ago burst from the banks of d'n'b and breaks to incorporate music that flowed, rather than fit -  a feat DJs constantly attempt, but struggle to pull off effectively. As Reid explains however, the commonality between her seemingly mish-mash is as simple as is comes.

"My ideal set is 90 - 120 minutes," she says. "I'll start off with electro or fidget, and move through all the 4/4, then eventually to dubstep, drum & bass, and back again, or the reverse. I find it exciting to mix it up, and terribly boring not to! A two hour set of any one genre is not half as fun - but they all work smashingly together for me - and it's all because of the bass."

Her DJ sets none withstanding, it also doesn't come as a shock to notice the varied list of music that she has produced and released over the intervening years. From popular mixes, to collaborative efforts, and to her own singles, her concerted effort to get her vibe out there is astonishingly varied and, unsurprisingly again, she also finds has her feet firmly dipped into the label pool with all the enthusiasm that grips the rest of her projects – an aspect which merely reinforces her image as a capable, and vastly energetic musical dynamo.  

"Currently I am focusing on running my label, Play Me records, and doing my own productions," she remarks, nonchalantly dropping yet another talent into the mix. "I've been making music since about '99, and have had collaborations with Datcyde, Ming & FS, Hot Mouth, Mike Balance, Queensyze, Origin, Dino, and countless others that will probably never be finished.

"My first solo release was a remix for Le Tigre back in 2001, it really sucked! I wrote an album of d'n'b and breaks with Sense that ended up getting "lost" by the label, and that was the end of me and d'n'b in the studio. Since then I've endured two failed partnerships and become more into making fidget, dubstep, and electro, or combinations thereof.

"This year I've started to back off the collaborations and just do my own stuff. Too much collaboration leads to confusion. I have an original transition tune, as I like to call them, because they bridge genres, coming out soon on Illeven Eleven, and a remix for DJ Denise & Sue Cho almost in the can. I'm also working on my debut single for So Sweet records."

When all is said and done, it's easy for me to look back on that morning, driving down that highway, and think of the great d'n'b DJ that Reid Speed was - however, reading through a simple draft of this very article, I realise that the intervening years have changed that assumption, and, in my mind, elevated her to a higher rank, one that few manage to attain outside of the respective pigeonholes that popularity in a specific genre-scene - a versatile, unique DJ who has managed to not only maintain her skills, but elevate them to another level, regardless of genre, crowd, or scene.

"The excitement of music never fails me," Reid explains, somewhat sagely in the tone that only a veteran can expound, "It's my lifeline, my pick-me-up, the one thing that has kept me here on this earth as long as I've been here, and, regardless of whatever else is going on, I can always count on music to comfort me like an old friend, or seduce me like a new lover."

Words: Fletch Andersen

Inside The Ride / Exclusive mix for Knowledge Magazine by reidspeed

 

Tracklisting

1. Apocalypse - Lynx & Kemo feat. Bango Collective & Dennis Jones
2. Mimic - SpectraSoul
3. Secrets - Survival feat. Christina Nicole
4. Tribes - Rockwell
5. Stay Calm- Rockwell
6. The King - I.D. & Baobinga
7. One Sound - Natural Frequency feat. Tenor Fly
8. Empire State - Jay Z feat. Alicia Keys (Bones Jones Remix)
9. Flux - Spktrm & Arsenic
10. Take It As It Comes - Concord Dawn
11. Deception - Noisia
12. Pimp Slap - Dirtyphonics
13. Rampage - Audio & Meth
14. Chrysalis - Bias (The Sect Remix)
15. Nocturne - Digital Soul
16. Mars - Fake Blood (Terravita Remix)
17. Shellshock - Noisia feat. Foreign Beggars
18. Furyen - Audio & Future Signal >> Hearts Under Fire- Lea Luna Acapella
19. Machine Gun - Noisia (16 Bit Rmx)
20. Get A Bit More - Foreign Beggars (Skism Rmx)
21. Static - Affinity (Reso Remix)
22. Techno Sucks- Hulk
23. Garbage - NumberNin6
24. Thrill of The Chase - Lea Luna & Mike Balance (SPL Remix)
25. City Lights - Redman & Method Man (Mark Instinct & Symbl Dubmix)
26. Bleepstop - ?
27. Get Mad - Wickaman & Sylo Dubstep Mix
28. Headspin - HavocNDeed feat. Skaught Perry
29. 7th Key - Numan (501 Remix)
30. 3Forever - Drake (SPL Remix Alternate)

• Reid Speed

Related Links:

• Top 10 Booty, Bass & Breaks Of The 00s
• Review: Respect, Los Angeles
• Breaks Booty Reviews
• Podcast 01
• Dead Famous Release Remix Album

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