I really just fell into DJing randomly. I was throwing a block party with my friend and became frustrated when trying to find DJs playing the music I wanted to hear. It was then that I just decided I would start. I didn't have any set ideas about it but when I played my first show and realized how it made me feel, I knew I had found something special. Back then I played dancehall, early 2000s, and house, but since then really expanded my repertoire.

When I started DJing I became obsessed with it and would DJ anywhere I could – bars, restaurants, yoga studios, etc. That really helped me practice and refine what I wanted to do. Travelling to do gigs in cities like Montreal and New York really opened up my perspective on electronic music and ultimately helped me solidify my identity as a DJ. Those two cities – especially Montreal – have incredible music scenes that were and continue to be really open to genres like global club, ballroom, reggaetón, jersey club, garage etc.

Toronto has a pretty significant Caribbean population, and even though that’s not really felt in the music that makes it to the global or mainstream market, all of us grew up listening to that. I’m Jamaican and it’s always been important to share that music alongside the other music I like because I think it’s been so influential to so many other genres and pop culture in general.

I think that Jerk remains diverse and regarded as a safe space because my first intention when I started it was to play for my friends. Club culture at its worst can be exclusionary and pretentious, and Jerk represented me wanting to make a space for the communities I was actually from. There is also a big focus on it being a platform for music exploration and I’ve had DJs from all over the world come and play.

I think that music has the power to create spaces that socially disrupt people. I want people to come away from my DJ sets or parties curious and open to hearing music that isn’t on the charts or even in the language they speak.

There are so many things in the music industry that bother me. I think the things we see exaggerated the most are reflections of our idealisms as a society. The narrow definitions of beauty, sexuality, and gender that we see communicated in the mainstream are so harmful and show us how many people have been denied access to platforms and real label support because they did not fall into those margins. Often, I think of all the talented underground artists I know who should have such a bigger reach but probably won’t because of how exclusionary the industry is. Hoping that we see music as something that can reimagine our values rather than keep them at their most basic level.

I think that electronic production breaks rules between genres and can show that the same ideas that exist in one genre can exist in another. A lot of the music I play uses samples and breaks, and that allows me to flow freely between such different genres. I spend a lot of time looking for music either inside or out when I am at clubs. My playlists are mostly based on songs that I’ve been compiling for a couple of months, and it’s really based on whatever I am feeling at the moment. It could be really abstract or sometimes, I will go off a phrase or title that pops up in my head and start building it from that.

Watching Jerk grow from three hundred people to one thousand and still be considered authentic is probably one of my career highlights. I think that’s really hard. When any project gets bigger or corporate in any way, it can lose its function or intention. I also went on tour throughout Asia last year, and that is something I could have never imagined for myself when I started.

(Laughs) I don’t know but I definitely want to be making music I love and working with other artists I admire. I want to be travelling and touring. I can’t communicate how much it means to me to be in a new place meeting other people who love music as much as I do.