DRIIA * 1999
( One For The Future? You Choose… ) - Friday 3rd May 2024
Words by Isaac Solanki. Photography by Pepper Macpherson. Thanks to Charlie Small and Ella Williams.
Introduce yourself and describe your sound…
“Hey, I’m DRIIA, a producer, singer, DJ and radio host from London. My sound is currently changing; it's moving into more of a 90s/00s revival space - it’s kind of like a Portishead, Moby and Massive Attack meets London Grammar and Lana Del Rey kind of thing. It's a real fusion of different sounds and there's a lot of inspirations crossing over.”
What do you think makes you different to the other young up and coming artists of today?
“I'm trying to think outside the box, I’m trying to go back to an era that I'm not sure many people have really delved back into before, especially in terms of the break-beat stuff that they used to do back then. I think genres like jungle have been revived recently with the likes of Nia Archives leading the way but the era I’m working on hasn’t quite had its turn yet.
I think it's really important to remain authentic and when you do that, you’re then able to do things a little bit differently within your genre; you’re able to bring a fresh stance that no one else can and that’s what I hope to be able to do one day.”
What’s your story? How did it all start and what challenges have you faced along the way so far?
“So, I've always wanted to be in and around the creative arts industry. At first, I wanted to be an actress and I wanted to be in The West End - I remember watching Annie, Oliver and The Sound of Music when I was younger, I dreamt of singing and acting on stage one day.
Then, I started both singing and piano lessons when I was nine, which was really fun. I'm classically trained in both but when I was 13, I opened up Logic for the first time, I loved it and I’ve now been producing for 10 years. I started writing songs for other people around the age of 17 and in my final year of Uni, I put my out my very first single – no promo, no money, just produced by myself, mixed and mastered by my friend and now here we are.”
Moving forwards, what are some of your short-term and long-term career goals for the future?
“I’d say that in a year's time, I'd love to be in a position where I've co-written a couple more chart songs. Green and Gold, the track I co-wrote with Rudimental, Charlotte Plank and some other very talented people was the most played track on Radio 1 the other week. I was obviously really happy about it but it’s definitely more something that I’m going to look back on in the future and think oh wow, that actually happened, a track that I co-wrote, a track with my vocals on it actually hit the charts.
I’d also love to have released my first four singles with Ministry by this time next year and to have built up my image and my brand to a point where people can see and understand my overall vision as clearly as me. I also think a Mix Mag feature or something similar would be an amazing thing to tick off at some point soon.
Long term, a proper prestigious feature and a late night show appearance would both be amazing for me. I also want to be able to travel the world and do what I do comfortably for a living.
I’d love to be able to continuously make the music that I love and hopefully be in a position where I don't have to prove anything to anybody anymore – I think that being a female producer, there’s this feeling that you have to prove yourself 10 times more; it might not be the reality but that's how the industry can make you feel sometimes. So, I think be in a position one day where people know who I am, they know what I can do and they just know what's up when it comes to DRIIA would be incredible.”
Talk to me about some of the unsung heroes of your music career to date. Is there anyone that you perhaps wouldn’t be here today without?
“My family, for sure, they're such a big support system of mine – they've always championed me in whatever I’ve chosen to do. They've never controlled me and I’ve always been allowed to discover things very much on my own. My dad did introduce me to logic when I was 13 though, which was obviously a big thing.
Jaguar from Radio 1, she’s another; I always say that she's been a real champion of me l. Since I signed a single to her label and she's played me on radio and got me shows and stuff.
In terms of musical inspirations, obviously a lot of the 90s and 00s stuff has impacted both me and my sound. I lived in London for the first 5 years of my life and I actually still hold quite a lot of emotional memories from those times, that naturally connect to the music from that time. Somehow there's a lot of nostalgia from when I was 5 and I feel like when I started making this sort of music, I just really wanted to be taken back to that time, that was my goal. I'm like back in London now and it’s nice being back where it all started.”
“MY LOVER’S MIND” by DRIIA
“I wrote this maybe like a year ago; January 2023 was when I started to explore this newer sound, away from the garage drum and bass. It began very privately, just me, myself and I – I curated what was essentially an album's worth of music and this was one of the songs. It’s largely inspired by Olive, You're Not Alone and that sort of breaks with an 808 and smooth female vocal. I produced it in one sitting, as I do with all of my songs - if I don't feel it, I don't carry on.
I very often write from other people's point of view, which is quite weird I guess but I feel like you have more creative freedom because you're not tied down to your own concepts. The track is basically about feeling doubt in a relationship and I guess I’ve definitely felt that sort of insecure feeling that you don't know where your person is or, I've never taken it that far personally in my relationships but when will you learn not to give it another chance, you know. The toxic cycles of relationships where you know that they're not doing something right, that insecurity within yourself for doubting and wondering do I deserve this? Should I be in this?”
Favourite lyric from the track…
“The second verse, it goes “When we taste the thrill, the pleasure soon subsides. Eventually they're going to leave you behind” and it's about chasing something or someone so much that it doesn’t work or if they chase you for too long, they get bored of you because it's subsides really quickly and there's no way you can get it back.”
