A genre-defying force in the world of rap and electronic music, producer DJ Haram is equally celebrated for her bass and club music heavy DJ sets, detail oriented analogue sound design, electronic-folk Middle Eastern production and abrasive rap collaborations.
The DJ and producer now shares her debut album Beside Myself via Kode9's Hyperdub label, featuring established collaborators such as Moor Mother, Armand Hammer and Aquiles Navarro - the latter will also join her on stage at Le Guess Who? 2025.
Beside Myself is testament to the survival of the spirit as an artist reckoning with the present global hellscape. A reference for rage/grief and also the alienation of feeling out of step with the world, the album title functions as a double entendre. With a decade-spanning career, the “multidisciplinary propagandist” insists on evolving in times of war and weaponized entertainment, challenging herself and her peers, she asks “how can this be, how can we live with ourselves, how can we find each other and the truth, how can we get free?”
The album immediately identifiable as her work, but simultaneously unclassifiable; a syncretic ensemble built on middle eastern music that finds equal space in its tormented live production for Jersey Club, punk, noise, electro-acoustic instrumentation and sampling, tambourines, shakers, darbuka drums and violin, matched with trancelike rave synths, walls of 808's and lurking, rumbling bass. Often at the centre is her own performance of unflinching, heartbroken poetic verse, in conversation with inspiring thinkers like Audre Lorde and Nawal El Saadawi (who’s words are featured on the album).
DJ Haram & Aquiles Navarro perform at Le Guess Who? 2025 on Friday 7 November. Also performing at the festival are a.o. upsammy & Valentina Magaletti, Al Wootton & Youmna Saba, Mopcut ft. MC dälek, and more.
