YASMIN

Going from spinning records to making them.

When Wonderland meets Manchester born, Glasgow raised DJ and musician Yasmin at the Ministry Of Sound headquarters in South-east London, she recounts a recent review from a well-known music magazine that she eagerly wants to clarify. “I did a gig in South Africa” Yasmin begins. “And when I got a copy of the magazine I was flicking through and the headline was something like ‘British hiphop vixen Yasmin – we watch her blow some more in South Africa,’” she says aghast. “I was like ‘did not one person proofread that’?”
    Keen to reach the conclusion that the publication could only have been meaning that she was about to ‘blow up’, this term encouragingly predicts the trajectory of a career that has been quietly building over the last few years. With her own music soon to be released, the beginnings of Yasmin’s career in the industry are found in the world of DJing. “I’ve always written lyrics, I’ve always sung,” she says. “It wasn’t a conscious thing – I just became a DJ. When I was 17 I became a friend of a guy and he used to play in this club every week and I would go and hang out and say ‘play this – I bet everyone will like this’ or ‘oh I’ve not heard that in ages – play that.’ Eventually he just let me play one or two tracks when he went to the toilet and I just got the hang of it and I got a buzz off it and ended up getting my first gig and things went from there. A lot of DJs become producers, but I’ve never really been a beats-orientated kinda girl – I love a great beat I don’t like tracks without songs on them. For me [song-writing was] my natural progression.”
    Describing herself as “the warm-up DJ’s warm-up DJ” from when she first started out, Yasmin’s DJing antics have seen her moving from Glasgow venues to London’s West End clubs to  DJing across the globe, and supporting the likes of N.E.R.D and Eve on tour. When we meet, she is fresh from supporting rap artist Example on his UK tour and this experience harks back to her comment that she was once the “warm-up DJ’s warm-up DJ”, appearing on the billing as warm-up to grime artist Devlin who played ahead of the main star (she also played DJ between her own, Devlin and Examples sets). Despite still playing the supporting role, Yasmin is ready to make the transition into the spotlight. Her guest vocals on Devlin’s recent hit, Runaway, may give an idea of what her voice is like – however her own music is more 90s infused with a hiphop edge (Yasmin sites Massive Attack as a main influence) sounding familiar, yet fresh. Her material will be released in the UK from the beginning of next year but already a scramble is occurring over the international release rights. A process the artist is slightly baffled by. “I’ve had quite a bit of interest already,” she says with a slight expression of disbelief. “What I find so hilarious is when some people are so interested and they’ve not heard a single song. I’ve been plunged into this world in the past six months but I’m not blinded by the lights of it. I’m aware that I got DJ gigs off the back of the way I look or being a girl and in a way, the pop industry’s the same thing. But with being a DJ, I proved myself and I’ve got some really respected DJs that will stick up for me and be like ‘that girl can mix!’ and that the same thing I want to do with my music.”
    Keen to retain her own artistic integrity, Yasmin warns that other aspiring artists should be wary of offers that might not be what they seem. “I really want to be a role model,” she starts, “and I know it sounds cliché, but honestly I think it’s so important. I want to inspire other people in the way that I’ve been inspired. When I was on tour with Devlin, we went to some performing arts college near Newcastle and we did a performance and a Q&A and a guy asked all the kids in the class ‘do you want to be signed?’ They all said ‘yeah’ and I said to them ‘it’s not all about that. I could call people right now in my phone book that would give back their record deal, just to be able to make the music that they loved.’ I quite like to break down the façade. It can be quite frustrating. It can be misleading.”
    Taking a moment to think, Yasmin concludes, “I think a lot of people need to ask yhemselves – do you want to be famous or do you want to be a musician?”

[Originally published in Wonderland Magazine Issue 24, November 2010. Photography Nik Hartley.]