Kwarteng was coming off a long breakup when a friend invited her to join him on location during Men’s Fashion Week in Paris. A change of scenery was just what she needed. “He was like, ‘Girl, come here and stay with me,'” she jokes. “So, very spontaneously, like me – Sagittarius-ascendant – I booked a flight.” In early January 2019, Kwarteng was outside her friend’s Airbnb in Paris, waiting for a locksmith.
A filmmaker making a short documentary about Kwarteng had set up a shoot with his European videographer that day, but Airbnb’s door was not closing. Kwarteng was delayed by around 90 minutes, which is why she was able to spot and strike up a conversation with longtime hero Gilles Peterson at Superdry Records, the filming location.
“I was like, ‘I’m just going to tell him he’s been really instrumental and someone I’ve looked up to for a really long time’.” Peterson gave her his email and she sent him a link to her show, followed up a few weeks later – he replied.
“He said, ‘Are you going to be in Europe this summer? I am curator of this festival called Worldwide and I would like to book you. And I thought, “Well, I have to be in Europe this summer.” Inspired by that single booking, Kwarteng began hitting festivals across Europe, landing three more bookings: Field Maneuvers, Westival and Lost Village. She decided to move to Berlin. This chance meeting and this invitation was exactly what the doctor had ordered. After years in New York, Kwarteng was beginning to feel at odds with the timeslots and reservations on offer. “I had so many sonic interests, and I found myself being pigeonholed.”
The DJ had always had her eye on Europe and felt that she might need to leave home and start fresh in a city with no history of her, no expectations. Fast forward three years, and bookings are coming in droves and fast.
Those early New York sounds, deep, sultry grooves, are still there, but in Kwarteng’s later mixes you hear the dirty bass drums and stab-like chords of British rave and the abstract techno riffs of his new hometown. Has she noticed any changes in her style? “I love playing a little louder,” she told DJ Mag. “And it was really great to incorporate a little more techno, to have time slots where I can just do it if I want to, but still bring it back – that’s what I love to do.”
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