Get to Know - Okami/Kami
By Alex Walden
So if I’m correct Okami is not the only title you use?
Correct, so I DJ under Okami and then I release music under Kami, they’re like two different aliases.
Oh, very interesting, so let’s start with Okami, how did you get into DJing?
So I started on the Kami project first, I was releasing music and then I started doing a radio show on voices radio and they started running workshops on djing for women, non-binary and trans people for free to get them into djing so I just applied and got onto the course and workshops.
And then from there it just took off?
Yeah that’s how it starts
So when I first saw you, I really loved how you aren’t afraid to mix a wide variety of sounds, I remember hearing bashment, reggaeton and so many more, it was so refreshing to hear the various amounts of sound. Is it something that you say you would go out of your way to include or is it just that you listen to a lot of music and want to throw in as much as you can?
The second one definitely, its mainly due to my parents especially my dad. He’s like one of those nerdy record collecting types of guys, like you know on record store day, He’s one of the guys you’ll see queuing for hours and hours just for a limited-edition Bob Dylan vinyl or something so yeah I grew up listening to a lot of music spanning loads of genres and different types of energy. He really likes “global” sounds so that was my introduction into it all, I guess that’s why it comes so naturally to me to approach music in that way and not be so limited in like what I want to play or what I think people will enjoy.
After an explosive DJ set spanning multiple genres from DJ Okami, Alex Walden catches up with the artist to find out that there’s more than meets the eye with this one.
That’s interesting because when I had a brief stint as a DJ and what I found was that I could mix sings super well if they were in the same category but when it came to mixing different genres, I couldn’t hack it.
Yeah that is often the case. The first type of music I started with was house because it has that simple 4:4 beat that’s just so easy to mix but then my knowledge of house only goes to a certain level; like yeah I know some classics and yeah I know what’s out right now, but I didn’t really know where to look for more music to grow my collection of house music. I do love it as a genre but as I progressed, I started thinking like ‘what do I really want to play? What do I love listening to?’ and it was more the stuff I grew up on so I started mixing dubstep and grime
Dubstep and grime, wow! I haven’t heard those two genres in a while.
Yeah yeah haha! I spin a lot of dubstep and grime now.
But yeah my first mix had quite a few different genres in there, I put in some Japanese folky kind of stuff at the start and then kind of moved into hip hop and then your grime and dubstep.
Moving onto Kami, that’s a whole different person in terms of sound. I remember looking up your Spotify and thinking “Whoah! this is not what I was hearing when I last saw you”
Yeah that happens often, haha. I guess Kami is more my internal world; more the music that my soul is trying to communicate. It all started with my best friend passing away really, before that I wasn’t really doing music and I needed a way to process all the grief and confusion and all of that baggage.
“Kami is more my internal world; more the music that my soul is trying to communicate”
Wow I’m very sorry to hear that. Death is never easy, and it shows in your work, congratulations on managing to find a way through it all
Appreciate it!
Despite Okami being more hype and playful and Kami is more chilled, they both exert massive amount of spiritual energy. Do you ever think about overlapping the two sounds?
It’s interesting that you say that because I’m in the process of figuring out how to do that right now. Like the stuff I’m working on in the coming project [as Kami] is a bit more kind of… I’d say that it has a lot more of a playful energy to it. it’s still got that spiritual kind of questioning and introspectiveness to it all but there’s a lot of lighter elements to it; like I’ve got some jungle stuff going on and some bass-y kind of dubstep-ish stuff as well. It’s all starting to fuse a little bit.
And with Okami, I didn’t notice this until a friend of mine told me about it the other day, but she saw I did a kind of ambient radio set and she noticed how the Kami energy is slowly mixing with Okami. But I’m still doing my heavier and more “fun” stuff depending on what the venue is and whatnot but yeah I’m definitely starting to ,like, cross-pollinate the two.
Is it difficult to fuse the two or does it come naturally?
I don’t find it that difficult to be honest. Like you said they are different, but they come from the same place, although what I have found hard is that not everyone sees it, not everyone sees that it all comes from the same place. I think it might have confused some people along the way or maybe they think I’m confused as I’m doing these two different things but for me it’s very much been a natural thing you know. I needed the yin and the yang but now it feels like they’re a lot closer together.
So recently you did a set for Women in Bass right?
Correct!
It’s dope to see that regardless of genre and level of status women are marking their spot in the industry, how important is that feministic image when it comes to you and all your music, are you happy to fly that flag or is it all about the vibes for you?
Ouh good question! I wouldn’t say that the theme of feminism is at the complete forefront of my sound, its definitely there and definitely part of my values that I have as a person and how I operate in life and whatnot and in a way, both Okami and Kami do have a politically charged message in there within the spirituality of it all but it’s not just women; it’s about so much more such as people of colour, people who are queer, just marginalised people in general.
“I needed the yin and the yang but now it feels like they’re a lot closer together”
What is that message?
I guess is just that we have so much more in common than we think. Regardless of who we are, the fight is going to be a lot easier if we band together as one.
the fight is going to be a lot easier if we band together as one
Wow that’s beautiful. I guess my final question is, is there anything you can tell us about that you have coming up?
I’m in the writing stages at the moment so there’s a lot of writing and recording going on. In terms of releases, there’s no dates planned out just yet but hopefully before the end of the year. If everything goes to plan, I want to release a fully ambient project, kind of like a complimentary thing to the EP Kagura, it will have a couple instrumentals from that on there, but it will also have so new stuff on it too. I just want to make a part 2 to Kagura but ever calmer and deeper than that.
Sound amazing, I remember hearing Kagura for the first time and I thought “Whoah this incredibly relaxed, I’m going to have to lay have to lay down for this one”.
Yeah that can happen haha!
What about Okami?
There’s a few shows here and there coming up, we’re sticking with the dubstep and grime for now. I don’t have a date for it yet, but I have a jazz set coming up too with my friend DJ, we’re both obsessed with jazz and he’s a vinyl DJ and he has so many jazz records.
How do you even mix Jazz, that sound crazy!
There’s a lot of fading involved to be fair there’s not much mixing compared to my other stuff haha!
