Throughout 2021, RA will host a series of interviews in partnership with Black Minds Matter UK, an organisation whose mission is to connect Black individuals and families with free mental health services by professional Black therapists.

The interviews, which will be published as written features and audio RA Exchanges, focus on Black creatives working in electronic music at all levels. These conversations will touch on issues surrounding mental health, in keeping with Black Minds Matter UK's mission to "make mental health topics more relevant and accessible for all Black people in the UK, removing the stigma and remodelling the services to be relevant for the Black community."

On this edition, Vanessa Maria chats with Tash LC, the London-based DJ who runs her label Club Yeke, presents on Kiss FM, Worldwide FM and BBC Radio 1Xtra, and co-founded party and DJ collective Boko! Boko!, alongside Mina and Juba.

This is a full transcript of this week's edition of the RA Exchange, edited slightly for length and clarity.

Yo, what's good, it's Vanessa Maria here, and I'm excited to welcome you back to a special edition of RA Exchange in collaboration with Black Minds Matter. I'm a DJ, broadcaster, and a digital marketer at Sony for Black Butter Records. And I'm not alone today, because I am joined by the lovely Tash LC. International radio host, DJ, music collector, label boss with a love for sounds from Africa and the diaspora both old and new. Tash LC balances highly palatable afro-jazz with uptempo meetings of kuduro, gqom and global club sounds. With the backing of some of dance music's most influential institutions, and an effortless ability to command a dance floor, the Kiss FM presenter, bad b selector, and all round bundle of joy is quickly becoming one of the UK's most exciting new talents. Tash, what made you smile today?

Oh, that's a good question. You made me smile. We've been cracking up, we've been creasing for ages. You know when you have the whole morning, just at home, and then you see a new face and you're like, "ahh."

Oh, that's so lovely. I always hope that people say that.

I said the right answer.

Yeah you said the right answer.

I hope I get a prize.

[Laughs] Do you know what, you're looking very lovely today, you're giving me autumnal vibes.

I do like an autumnal vibe. I had a bit of a wardrobe clear out the other day, like a big one, I was proper savage. And I still just want all new clothes. Who on the podcast wants to give me money for a whole new wardrobe?

You look comfy. And we're heading into winter.

We are, which I don't mind.

I don't mind it either. For me, it's a transitional period from summer to winter. And I feel like it's been a year where there's been lots of new changes, new things happening, things have opened up for the first time in a long time. How would you say you have transitioned, or transformed as a DJ this summer?

Well definitely coming off the back of everything last year and starting again, I would say it was definitely intimidating, because you kind of like "whoa, does anyone know who I am? What gigs am I going to get?" So I think I've sort of transitioned into maybe being a bit more open minded. I'm playing slightly different parties to what I was playing before, which is nice. I feel like I'm a part of new communities, which has been lovely to experience. I've been finding my feet again. And I've found I'm almost starting again in a lot of ways, which is what I did find intimidating, but now it feels exciting. So I think the transition is constantly happening, if that makes sense.

That makes a lot of sense. And I feel like music transitions itself, there's a lot of transition periods in music and genres. And one thing that I've noticed with your label Club Yeke, I hope I pronounced that right?

Club "Yeh Kay."

I've noticed that there's been a lot of transition. And that's something I felt was really nice. Especially coming into winter, and seeing how on your newest release, you've got Brasa No Mapa diving into local Brazilian grime which is incredible.

It's so sick.

But then when I was looking at some of the first releases, you had ANIMALS which was more underground electronic sounds from the African diaspora. How have you transitioned in running your bad girl label?

We've had four releases now which is amazing. It's been a journey. I was very reluctant to start a label at first, people kept telling me to. I'm quite lazy in a lot of ways, I can be hard working but, I'm normally hard working on the things that are easy. I can go to a DJ set, or I can do a radio show. I could post something, and that's not too strenuous. But when it came to a label I was like "ahh, shit." Then people kept telling me to do it and I was like, "okay, fine, let me give it a go." And actually I've really enjoyed it. It is work, and it's the next step in my challenge, and then I want to move on to maybe producing at some point which would be sick. But right now with the label, it's great. I use it as a space where I can explore underground music from across the world. The latest release is so sick, Brasa No Mapa with TONCALi & AKA AFK. For me, my sound palette and what I listen to, especially after Covid-19, I'm not very on trend with a lot of things. I've been really into grime this year and, you know, grime's not really very prominent in the UK music scene at the moment, but that's what I've been listening to loads. And then just old school dancehall. I'm really into older sounds, I'm very much on my own journey of exploring things. So with the latest release for example, I've clocked onto what was happening in Brazil, and I thought, "this is banging, I want a taste of it." I'm really excited by sounds that interlink continents, and interlink cultures.

The label is on a little journey, and I've got an assistant now which is amazing. An official one! She's great, she's been really helpful, and it's been amazing just having someone else's creative eye, and someone who's really on it. I can be very scatty, I have loads of ideas but my organisation can be all over the place. So that's been great. And also just having someone that's excited by it. So yeah, the journey of Club Yeke is great. We're back in the club this month too, which I cannot wait for. Hopefully see you lot there. I want it to be a big, beautiful community.

Lovely. I think it's sick that you're also going to places like Brazil and researching the scenes there. Would you say you've learnt more about the history and the origins of Black music, or just music in general from the diaspora, through running your label?

Oh yeah, definitely. 100 percent. It's all research, whether it's with the label or whether it's with radio every week, I'm always researching. I try and do special shows on Kiss FM. I want to go in deep, so I've done old school house specials, and then I've done a Dennery segment which is like Saint Lucian stuff, I've done kuduro specials. For me, research is part of the process and it's so much fun, it's a massive part of it. A&R of course is at the core of everything, so I'm always looking: Saving links, saving artists, bookmarking things every single day and I'm always like, "Who's that? Who's that?" Whether it's press that I get on my emails or whatever, I'm always tuning into new people from all corners, and kind of creating a subconscious backlog of people that I want to check out. There's just so much to explore with music, it's just never-ending and so exciting.

You said that you're scatty, but you're bookmarking. So do you have a system in place?

To be fair, with Facebook I always save stuff in music. I hardly ever check it but I plan to at some point. And then on Instagram I save stuff into clothes, food, sometimes music, but then Twitter is kind of random, so very all over the place. But then when I decide to dedicate a day or some time to actually look into everything, then I'll sit there and have a scroll. Organisation is not my strength, but I still manage to get stuff done somehow.

I was trying to get some tips there. I also do the same thing, but I don't put Instagram into different categories. I just save stuff which is awful.

It's good to do categories, mainly for food you know, because I get loads of like, what's it called? The explore page? Because of the algorithm, most of mine is food reels, so I'm like, "Ooh, I'm gonna make that." I've never made any of it, but I will at some point.

I'm not a big cook. But I hear it. I love the idea of that. Listen, one thing that always brightens up my day is when I see you hop on to my reel, or I see you on my Instagram, and I see something that you've done. Over lockdown you were in a documentary, The New Rave. We've just been talking about the origins of Black music, and this is a film in collaboration with The Design Museum where Black pioneers in London have been platformed. It shows people who've been shaping music, so it features you, Shy One, Errol Anderson and also Tommy Gold from Bone Soda. How has that experience, being in that documentary and talking about archiving and the history of music, impacted you?

It was great to be a part of that, to be honest. It was so sick working with the Play Nice family as well. Shout out to Nate and Ayo. It was great being part of that. I always enjoy experiences where you get to reflect on your upbringing. Because it's stuff that we don't think about. And sometimes we forget, you know, we know where we are but, but we forget where we've come from. Why we are the way we are, why we listen to what we listen to, why we have the energy that we do. When I get those opportunities to really look back and be like, okay, where did my raving roots start from? Why am I into percussion? Why am I into afro-electronic stuff? What is it that makes me move? So when I get to actually sit and think, that was my mum, that was my dad, that was my sister, it's great. And that was a really beautiful documentary and I loved the selection and the way that they chose the four of us to be part of this film. It's all people I massively rate and look up to, who do different things but there's so much crossover. Young Black people in London doing their thing and making moves. So yeah, that was sick. I love that coming together of different visual media, like Play Nice, creative media, music, that was really cool. I'd love to do more documentary things at some point for sure, maybe shoot my own. It was a great thing to be a part of, and I love having archival footage that I can even look back on myself. You know those days when you're forgetting yourself and you get imposter syndrome and you can kind of listen back and be like, "okay, yeah, that's it." If I just need a little reminder of how I got here and why I'm here.

So I realised that I've known you for a while on socials, but I don't know your background. So I read somewhere that you grew up in Croydon?

Yes.

What's your heritage, and how has your identity impacted your music taste?

I'm Caribbean, so my mum's Jamaican, and her mum is Jamaican, and her dad is of Indian descent. He was brought up in St. Vincent. And then my dad's parents are both Jamaican. My mum and dad were both brought up here so I identify as British Caribbean. It's funny, when I tick the forms I put British Caribbean but then sometimes I put British Other because of the Indian side, but I kind of fluctuate. My grandad, my mum's dad, he passed when I was nine or ten, that age when you're not self aware enough to talk to your relatives and ask about their upbringing. He was just my grandad. And now, all those conversations we could have had. He was a proper hard-up Indian man with a St. Vincent kind of east African-y, Carribean-y accent, it's like, "what's your history here?" But yeah, that's my upbringing.

I guess with the Indian side, I don't really have much connection to it directly because I was never really brought up around that side of the family, so musically maybe not directly from there. I was brought up mainly around my Jamaican side, and so that's had a massive impact on me, only as I've gotten older though. When I was younger I was surrounded by Jamaican music mainly at family parties at my grandma's and things like that, and my mum and dad were mainly house heads. My dad was jazz, blues, funk. So I didn't really hear Jamaican music at home. When my sister was growing up she was into dancehall, but mainly house and stuff, so I was never really exposed to it. I guess my affiliation with Jamaican music was always grandma's house, and family, and being loud and arguments and that whole ruckus. People just bare carrying on and me wanting to go to bed. As I got older and started working in music, that was the way that my ears changed. More so in the past few years, I've become obsessive about Jamaican music as my identity and I feel more Jamaican than ever. I'm sure when I go there I'll feel it even more, but I've never actually been. So my identity and the way it's influenced my music taste has just changed, and changed, and changed, but it all boils down to the way I move, the way that I hear things, and the way that I feel as a British Caribbean woman in London. I'm such a Croydon-er, such a Caribbean person. Growing up my identity was always a bit of a weird one because I was into white music and being an indie kid.

Oh, Vampire Weekend?

Yeah, that was my church. All of those things. So I never really saw myself as a Black woman really, I was kind of on the cusp. And as I got older I was like nah, 100 percent I'm a Black Caribbean woman, and that's been mainly through music.

So would you say music has helped you to find yourself a little bit more, know yourself and who you are, not just through history, but also maybe being in touch with what brings you joy?

Yeah definitely, and also just the commonality that I find that I have with my friends and with fellow people from Black backgrounds. Yeah, it definitely brings me a lot of joy, and I love the way that I can flip between, you know, I can feel like I'm from London and I'm Black, but I'm also Caribbean, but then I also feel like I don't feel any different a lot of the time to my friends who are West African or East African, because for me it's about shared experiences as well. A shared understanding, and I definitely feel like I have that, just from being in London alone, and that's something that I carry anywhere I go in the world. I definitely feel like it brings me a hell of a lot of joy, and I'm so glad that I'm at a point now where I'm not my 13 or 14-year-old self, when I was kind of confused about who I was. Now I feel very certain of that, in terms of my heritage and my ethnicity and stuff so yeah, it brings me a lot of joy.

I feel like that identity also, like having commonality as you were talking about with other people, brings about community?

Definitely, you know it. We're both people who are part of communities, and community is a big part of what we do and what we love. I don't think either of us could thrive without it.

What does community mean to you?

It means being supported, feeling supported. It means knowing that there's people that share similar ideals to me, people who just get it, people I can lean on. You get it, I get it, we're in this together. We're united. It means friends and love, and a lot of it is music too. But then also I mean communities in a neighbourly sense as well, like I've always enjoyed living in council estates because, I didn't grow up in one, but since I moved out of home I've lived in a couple in house shares, flat shares, and I love the sense of going outside and being like "you alright?" All of that, do you know what I mean, and that's so important to me.

Sometimes talking about the weather with your neighbour, or just, you know, "did you hear that noise last night?"

Yeah!

There's that sense that you're not alone.

Belonging, and it doesn't have to be anything to do with careers or anything else, it's just like "I get it, you get it, okay cool."

Yeah, and it's those small conversations that are sometimes the most important, and it can pick up your day, if your neighbour's like "lovely little flowers in your garden!"

Also when you're feeling miserable or whatever, and you're just in your head and you're thinking about working, and someone says something nice, it snaps you back into reality.

Do you know what it is? It takes you to the present moment, and I think a lot of the time we're always in the future, planning, or in the past. And when you have those one-on-one conversations or when you have that neighbourly person who is not affiliated with work, you can only be present really can't you.

I love hanging out with my friends who are not in music. I love my friends to bits in music, but like, even last night my friend came round and we were just chilling and just chatting about stuff.

Same. Two of my best mates are not in music and like, they don't know who Central Cee is, I think they know who Drake is.

And that's as far as it goes!

You find that sense of commonality and community in just being, without having to be like, "that's my favourite song too!".

Without proving anything, or gossip, or drama. It kind of reminds me of myself, who I am.

Yeah, that's lovely. I think the idea of transition and self-transformation feeds into that as well. As I entered into the music industry, as I grew and found my feet, I've also found that I value those friendships more. And I changed the way that I was navigating, because I was like, "okay, cool, I need to prioritise my old friends" and stuff like that. I also feel like music can play a huge role in, you know, transforming and transitioning in yourself. Music is very healing as well. It helps you process your emotions. How has music helped you?

Oh, so much. In so many different ways. It's mad. So with stuff I listen to everyday, say on Spotify, I have bare playlists and they're categorised by happiness, tea time, wine.

Aw, tea time! Is tea time like actual tea?

[Laughs] No, not "the tea." Just for me to chill, my time sort of thing. Different categories based on moods. I remember when I was in uni, I was first getting into music, and I would sit on my ones in my uni room for hours, and go in these wormholes of finding all this music and putting it into categories. All the same tunes that I still listen to every single day. I do add tunes now and again, but not really, because they're so significant and emotive and specific to a time. And so, most days when I'm feeling whatever, I'll just put one of those tunes on and play something from there, and it's just a feeling of like, [sighs], "okay, I'm good."

So not, "the tea.” Who's in that playlist?

There's so much stuff in there, like Animal Collective, there's loads of old Angolan music in there mainly, some old Calypso stuff, there's a lot of Congolese bits in there, and then random stuff from like, Lorde, all sorts.

Lorde! She came with that album.

Pure Heroine. That's such a good album. So just a mishmash of stuff. There's so much emotion in there for me. Even when I'm in the mood to like, not even turn up, but say I get a gig offer and I'm gassed, and I have to buss up one really intense club tune and I'm in the zone. There's always something.

Recently, I had a conversation with one of my best mates, Caitlin, the other day about distraction. About how it's so easy to put on music or put on something because you need something to fill in the silence. So I'm trying to have more moments now where I'm in silence. There's not going to be a perfect tune or a perfect podcast, I'm not going to find or read anything, it just has to be me. So I'm trying to have more silence, and generally I have my go-to playlists and albums. The new Little Simz is gorgeous. SAULT, oh my god. That's an album that's been taking me places, if I'm in my feels, if I want to wind down in the evenings, if I'm feeling sexy, that will do everything for me. There's so much, so many different reasons.

I really relate to what you're saying about the silence. Once I started working in music, I stopped listening to music. That was a really weird thing that I noticed about myself, I think because I was so overwhelmed with music always playing, I was so used to having to listen to it for work. So I actually started sitting in silence more.

It is nice.

It is quite nice. And it gives you a sense of peace.

Yeah, it's just me and my thoughts. What it does most of the time is it takes away the need to think. Whether it's radio or whatever, radio for me is always a comfort. That's like having a friend. I do like radio in the morning, first thing. When I wake up, that's when my brain is most stressed. It's weird, the minute I wake up, I'm like, "argh," my brain is thinking it's late, or I need to text these people or check my phone, all this stuff, and then I'll gradually calm down, but that's the moment where I'm like, okay, the radio really needs to be on because this is too much. So learning to be up and ask, "how am I feeling right now? Let's just assess." It's weird. Like how this, yourself, can be the scariest thing.

Honestly, it's so true. Well radio is a friend, it's just there, Charlie Bones.

All of that, Charlie, a bit of Mary Anne Hobbs, Jamz [Supernova] on a Saturday. Like whether it's Tiffany [Calver] on 1Xtra, Kenny [Allstar], as long as it's a voice for me. Growing up, radio was on all the time, it makes sense I love it so much. But quietness is also good.

You've also been killing the radio game. So you're a Kiss FM presenter. You've also had BBC 1Xtra residencies. And you've got a show in Athens?

Yeah, Movement Radio. So once a month, they asked me to do that. And I was like, "I can't do more radio!". And then I thought, "okay, well, you know, if you're going to give me a little offer for it." So I said yes.

With that show I want to play all the music that I listen to, and not stuff that's clubby or anything that's like intentional, it's just music that I've been listening to on my Discover Weekly or whatever it might be that's popped up. All those shows have been based around emotions. Stuff that's made my heart go "ooh!," if that makes sense.

So basically your favourites on Spotify, the things that you're like "ooh, yeah."

Kind of, but just random stuff that pops up or has been suggested that I think is gorgeous. Or stuff I've heard out and about and found on Shazam, really ambient, soulful, beautiful harmonies and stuff you wouldn't really hear me play elsewhere. That's the thing isn't it, with DJing, it's rarely everything you listen to.

Yeah, it’s always a mash-up isn't it.

It's always lit stuff, but there's so much else that you actually enjoy. Having personal music is nice too.

I have a playlist that I don't share with anyone.

Yeah!

That's my me time.

Proper me time.

Yeah, and it's really random stuff in there. But it's great. I have the Grease soundtrack in there, you know, my morning shower song.

That's my favourite film of all time.

Oh is it?

Yeah, love Grease.

Grease is amazing.

[Sings] Grease lightning!

[Sings] Grease is the word.

[Sings] Grease is the word, is the word, it's got groove, it's got meaning, doo, doo, doo...

You weren't lying!

[Sings] Grease is the time, is the place, is the motion, Grease is the way we are feeling!

That film is timeless.

Timeless! You're such a busy bee, you've got how many residences now, how many radio shows?

I have Kiss every week, and then I have Worldwide once a month and then I have Movement once a month.

How do you keep on top of everything? How do you find balance? How do you restore yourself?

It can be hard sometimes. There are so many days I wake up and I want to sleep all day. Or I just want to watch Squid Game or something else and just like, that's it, nothing else. But that's rare. It can be hard, running is the thing that does it for me a lot of the time. I do love running, so I try and do it as often as I can. The thing with boundaries and working for yourself as a freelancer, you can just keep working, no one's going to tell you to stop, so sometimes it'll get to 6:30 PM or 7 PM and I'm like no, you need to stop, the day is finished. Everyone else is finished, so why am I continuing? There's no need. So then I try and run, that's the thing that really balances me out. I love going on walks. I like going just in my local area most of the time. So that's like a nice balance for me, or meeting friends or just chilling with my housemates. A lot of the time it's one of those things. I want to have more time, or create more time even, for going to things, like random dance classes and things like that. I've started roller skating a bit.

Oh did you? Amazing.

Yeah, I've been doing that for a few months on and off. So those are the things that I really enjoy doing, but sometimes I do really struggle to implement them into my schedule. And then they feel like a treat when actually I want them to just be part of the day, like necessities.

Yeah, they should be a priority right.

Yeah. But you know, sometimes it's so easy to de-prioritise the things that are so important, and the things that make you happy. It's wild how our brains will just flip what we need to do and what we should do, and what we actually need to do to keep functioning, otherwise the rest of it just crumbles. So I try to do those things as often as I can, but there's always time for more.

Has the pandemic and the lockdown made that more obvious, to find time to balance and stuff? Because for me, that's when I really got to rest and I was like "Oh, this is quite nice!" You know?

Honestly yeah. It did, obviously the pace of life was so different last year, and then it just kind of came back. Although it wasn't sudden, it was obviously very gradual and very slow. But still when it happened, it felt like no time had passed. So yeah, I think it kind of changed things, but if anything probably made everything feel more intense. Because then it's like, okay, you need to keep it moving just because you don't want to slack. I wish that life was a bit more 50/50, with pandemic mentality and then post-pandemic mentality.

[Sings] Bring back the lockdown. No, no, no, that was not... Maybe?

No, no, no, don't wish that on us, but let's just slow down a bit because sometimes it's like, argh! Even when you're looking at Instagram, it's like "this is what I'm doing! This is what I'm doing!," every minute. Just let me live. Remember when Instagram was down for one day?

Yeah, everyone was like, [sighs].

It was bad, I woke up and it was back. I thought it was going to be a little bit longer. I guess you just have to learn how to work with it.

Yeah and take time, your time, tea time. Put some tea time on, have that playlist running.

Yeah, skincare, bath

Bath! Cooking, dinner.

Cooking is another one. I really love cooking and I love following a recipe. I'm not really an intuitive chef, but I like following stuff. And that's another thing that I want to make more time for, because that's just another thing I really enjoy. That's like meditation fully. Tune on, following a recipe like, do not talk to me if I'm cooking, that's really annoying.

Those are the good things. And you mentioned being 14-year-old Tash, being young Tash, and you're happy that you've evolved and grown since then. What would you tell your 14-year-old self now?

I would say to her: "Don't worry about how people are trying to categorise you. Do you. You are way more intuitive than you think, you're sick." What else would I say? Probably, "this music stuff is going to take you somewhere." And "people are going to make their mind up about you and presume and judge anyway, so just fuck it. Just do your thing."

Sick. Be yourself.

Be yourself, literally. I think she was, but probably also kind of allowed herself to be told what she was. And she ain't it.

You did that. You have had such a wonderful year as well. Wonderland. Amazing. Congrats. Working with Tommy, Kiss, killing the game, loads of gigs. And Boko! Boko! is up and running as well in Glasgow. I just want to thank you. Thank you on behalf of RA for joining us, and we wish you all the best for the future as well. And you're such an inspiration to me. And it's been so lovely to talk to you.

That went so quick.

It went real quick. Real quick. And we've been chatting before. So yeah, I just wanted to say that you are incredible.

Oh, thank you, Vanessa. So are you, honestly. You're a big inspiration to me.

Oh stop now!

No, you are.

Girl! Girl!

Girl! Let's just re-do it and we can do this the other way around. Someone needs to be interviewing this girl because she's sick. But honestly, thank you. It's so sick to have this little community of us supporting each other and picking each other up. You know when you see each other's names in people's comments, we're all there for each other. It's just love. We have to remind each other that we're here for each other.

100 percent.