1.Growing Up
Growing up I lived with my mum, grandma, grandpa and my uncle. My uncle was a drummer in a band. I would watch him rehearse every day. He opened my world musically. When I was six, he bought me my first keyboard. From then I self-taught myself and started writing my own songs.
2.Inspirations
Timbaland, Kanye West, Prince, Alicia Keys, Lauryn Hill. Anyone who produces and writes their own music is a true music artist in my eyes. I love versatility and feeling in music productions, as well as speaking the truth lyrically.
3.Your Crew
Right now I have some pals in the music biz who I hang with. DJ Lavida, KLP, DJ Hookie and a couple more. I also have a few close friends from when I was a teenager, my ‘day ones’. I always thought about DJing, but back then, I thought being a girl, it was so out of the question. I got into DJing by helping out a friend in their band. I would go to shows with them and help backstage, until their manager asked me one day, “Hey, do you want to be the DJ for our group?” So I started DJing and then rapping in the group. We toured, did shows, then I left the group a year later as they wanted to go on talent shows, and I didn’t want to go down that path.
4.The Music You Make And Play
In the next month I’m excited to be finally releasing my very first single ‘Stay’, which I produced, wrote and did the vocals for. It’s a bit of a chilled track, as opposed to a club banger, which I’m sure people would be expecting. I took so long for my first release, as I took a year experimenting with so many different musical styles; I didn’t want to rush it. You can’t rush the creative process. I love hip hop, R&B, trap, house. I try to fuse a bit of each element in my productions. I love mixing old-school classic tracks and new-school in my DJ sets.
5.Music, Right Here, Right Now
Right now, I think the Aussie music scene is so great. We are really glorifying producers at the moment, and there are so many talented producers, writers and singers/rappers who I have been with in the studio. There’s also a big shift musically in the clubs. House, bass house, trap and hip hop are my genres, and it’s so prominent right now in the scene.
Helena Ellisplay at Parallel Universes: Star Wars runs Friday June 10 and Saturday June 11atThe Argyle.
