Spreading family values

The Canadian DJ and music producer took inspiration from her late father for her latest album and says the dance-floor is the perfect place to share stories of struggle.

Words LOU BOYD Photography NABIL ELDERKIN

Jayda Guy – better known by her DJ moniker, Jayda G – enjoyed her big breakthrough on the dance music scene in 2017 thanks to a video of her high-energy Boiler Room set at that year’s Dekmantel Festival in Amsterdam. Before long, the Canadian DJ and music producer’s joyful disco-infused house music, infectious enthusiasm and energetic dancing behind the decks had gone viral.

But anyone who listened closely to Guy’s sets could tell there was more to this DJ than good times. A qualified environmental toxicologist, she inserted natural sounds including the calls of orcas and other marine life into her early work, with the aim of starting conversations about the conservation issues close to her heart.

Now 34 and based in London, Guy’s latest music finds her shaking off the party persona and drawing her audience closer with a deeply personal release inspired her family. The album, Guy, features archive recordings of her late father telling his story as a young African American man making his way in a difficult world. “I wanted the album to be a blend of storytelling about the African American experience, death, grief and understanding,” she says. “It’s also about so many people who wanted more for themselves and went on a search to find that.”

Here, Guy talks to The Red Bulletin about how it felt to build an album around the memory of her father, and why dance music is the ideal medium for expressing complex emotions…

Guy is more personal than your previous work. Was that a conscious decision?

Yes. I feel like ‘Jayda G’ is pretty one-dimensional. She’s happy, she dances, she plays fun music, she’s very extroverted and bubbly… but there’s a whole other part of me, Jayda Guy, who’s super introspective and tries really hard at life. I wanted to bring more of those elements of myself into my music.

Why did you structure it around archival recordings of your dad?

My dad passed when I was 10. He knew for about five years that he was sick, and when he didn’t have much longer he started recording videos about his life. Recently, around 20 years after his passing, I realised that so many of the stories my father told in those tapes would be good inspiration for songs and lyrics. That started a trajectory of digging into his videos and getting a better understanding of who he was and the kind of life he lived.

Tell us about him…

He was a Black man growing up in Kansas City in the ’50s, in what we would now call the ghetto. He grew up in poverty and knew he had to get out. He did that by enlisting in the army, and he served in Vietnam, stationed in Thailand. I always imagine him going from Kansas City, where he’d only [known] one type of life, and just being plopped into Thailand, a place that couldn’t be further or more different. From there, he became a night-time radio DJ in Washington DC, inadvertently got caught up in the 1968 race riots, and finally found a new life in

Canada with my mum. That really speaks to how adventurous my father was, and how he really wanted a better life for himself. My siblings and I are a product of that.

You’ve said Guy is for all the people “who wanted more for themselves” – what do you mean by that?

You’ve said Guy is for all the people “who wanted more for themselves” – what do you mean by that? This album is so much for people who have been oppressed and have not had easy lives. The older I get, the more I see that it’s a pretty remarkable thing to want something for yourself when you haven’t seen any examples of it in your community or your environment. Not a lot of people are able to do that, to envision a different life for themselves, but that’s what my father did. This record is for everyone who knows how that feels.

Why do you think dance music is a good vehicle for stories like this?

Dance music – specifically house music – came out of struggle, from the Black community in the States, and the LGBTQ community. They cultivated a sound that was a safe space. It was the sound of freedom in a lot of ways. When you have a genre with that essence, it has the power to make people listen. I try to find creative ways of using dance music to bring messages to the forefront.

What message do you hope people take away from this album?

Things will happen in your life, good and bad, and it’s your choice how they inform [your direction]. Looking at my father’s life, I like to think people will see he chose to be better, to try harder and learn from his mistakes and become a better person. He instilled that value system in me and my family, and it’s in this album.

What do you think your dad would have thought about his life story being shared through your music?

Oh my gosh, my family talk about this a lot. We joke that he’d be tooting his own horn a bit. But also we say he’d probably be amazed, happy and excited. Yeah, he’d be proud. Guy is out on Ninja Tune on June 9; Instagram: @jaydagmusic