Known for her high energy drum & bass and eclectic bass music sets, internationally revered Empress’s talent has always shined bright.
Empress saw a seminal glimmer of purpose in 1994 when she attended her first rave. “From the first time I ever stepped into a club and felt that free, passionate energy, I knew I had to be involved,” she proclaimed. The next two years found her honing her DJ skills while she worked at Joey D’s Records (then the only electronic music store in Connecticut), and networked with local promoters and DJs on the Northeast coast.
Empress received her first bookings in 1996 at the young age of 16 while she was attending her first year of college. Practicing relentlessly to perfect her craft, she performed consistently throughout New England and became a full-time DJ upon her graduation from College. Something of a prodigy, she graduated college at 17 years old, to then work at Satellite Records (NYC) as the in- house drum and bass specialist from then until the end of 1999, performing frequently and developing her production skills in her free time.
In 1999, destiny unfolded to reveal Empress’ primacy. After thoroughly impressing Jumping Jack Frost in Toronto, she was invited to play at V Recordings’ Movement club night in London, making her the first American drum and bass DJ to be accepted into the insular UK drum and bass scene That was also the first year Empress was invited to play at the Ultra Music Festival during WMC, which she played at for 8 consecutive years.
In 2000, Empress enjoyed frequent bookings overseas and in the US. She found herself playing frequently on the west coast, where she met DJ/producers UFO! and Sage. The three collaborated as Triadd for the 2001 release Hydroxy (Skunkrock Recordings UK). She toured with DJ Sage to promote the release in the US and toured with DJ UFO! on a 3 week multi-country tour of Europe, while making it back over to play at Movement in London again. After that she was booked in Macedonia, where she was the first Drum & Bass DJ ever booked to play there worldwide.
In 2002, Empress and roommate Jinsoo Kim remixed the theme from New York, New York for The Rockettes performance on New Years Eve. Kim, then a keyboard tech for the infamous band Blondie, relayed Empress’s demos to the band. At the band’s request, Empress and Kim produced and mixed four songs for Blondie’s album “The Curse of Blondie” released in 2003 on Sony UK. The same year, Empress recorded Stateside Sessions: Drum & Bass Vol. 2 for Topaz Recordings and conquered a 40-date promotional tour of North America and Puerto Rico.
From 2000-2003 Empress was the resident DJ @ one of NYC’s most influencial dnb parties, “Ignite” that she ran alongside DJs Krunchy & DJ 101– featuring many of the world’s most prestigious Drum & Bass DJs and Producers.
Dominating the drum n bass scene as a DJ and producer for over 7 years, Empress felt the need to broaden her horizons. In 2003, she began to play many of the genres that had always been major influences to her- all styles of hip hop, electro, funk, dancehall, soul, 70s, 80s, 90s & disco. Armed with Rane’s Serato Scratch Live Dj Empress became known for her 5-8 hour extended sets, spanning many genres and sounds while still rocking drum and bass crowds globally. Her production also reflected this expansion of sound–with Empress producing electro & other genres of music. She was continued to spend her time in the studio. In 2004, she sampled Roy Ayers’ “We Live In Brooklyn” for her song “Brooklyn Baby”, which she licensed to a compilation on New Identity Records UK “Jazz and Bass”.
She held a residency at NYC’s The Park nightclub from 2005-2007, playing 8-hour sets every Friday and performing at special corporate events for the Tribeca Film Festival, Condé Nast, Victoria Secret, Godiva & MTV’s “My Sweet 16” events amongst various prestigious Magazines/Papers/Publications, Art Galleries, Charities & other landmark NYC functions & other corporate mixers. It was then that she became sponsored by Serato and was featured in an international ad that was published globally until 2009.
In late 2006, she began vocal training, and produced her first vocal work, “I hope”. In February of 2007, her song “Brooklyn Baby” was licensed to the film “Life Support” staring Queen Latifah & produced by Jamie Foxx, and she eventually sold “Brooklyn Baby” to Universal. The film was nominated for 3 Emmys, including “Best Original Score”.
In March of 2007, after a nonstop week at the Winter Music Conference in Miami of playing the prestigious Ultra Music Festival for the 8th consecutive time, an electro set @ the Future Sound of Breaks party & every other drum & bass event that was held in Miami that year, she went back to Europe to play in Romania, Germany, Portugal & Switzerland. After touring Europe, she went back to London to play @ the End for Renegade Hardware (for both hiphop & drum & bass sets in the same night), Movement @ Bar Rhumba, Therapy @ Herbal, Run in Bristol, Essencia in Bath & other weeklies in the UK.
In 2008 she returned for more UK and European shows. During this time she was featured on BBC Radio 1xtra’s Mista Jam’s show and upon high ratings they asked her back again later that year. She was also the world’s first Drum and Bass DJ brought to play in Tahiti in 2008.
After being based out of London in 2007 & 2008, and touring most of Europe, Empress decided to come back to NYC to form her first band and persue her song writing and singing.
In 2009, Empress wrote, recorded, produced & engineered her first solo album. Destiny called again and she was inspired to return to her Metal and Industrial roots, incorporating those sounds into her song writing and production. She dedicated the year to finish the songs & to teach her 4 piece band, Empower, to play the songs from this new album. It featured her singing with some of New York City’s brightest Musicians. They rehearsed for over a year before Empower began doing shows in NYC. All the while, she kept DJing her Drum & Bass sets, while also taking on Dubstep & Electro House, and was booked to DJ in the Dominican Republic in March of 2010. Also In 2010, Empower performed shows in NYC.
Empress founded Empower Recordings in January 2011 to release “Alien Nation” her first single from the album. She coordinated various genres of bass heavy remixes of “Alien Nation”. Two Dubstep remixes; one from SST, another one from Optimus Gryme, a Drum and Bass one from GenR8 and a techno/electro one from Thrash that were distributed through Itunes, Beatport & Amazon. She then teamed up to create “Alien Nation’s” music video with director Eric Acosta, editor Dee Wassell and camera work and direction by Kermit Mercado and Gabriel Garcia.
Watch “Alien Nation” Video
After doing shows and rehearsals with her band Empower in NYC for almost 2 years, she decided that she wanted to focus solely on producing music, DJing & singing after noticing she felt spread too thin, for since it was her project, she took on too many roles. She is now currently redoing the songs from the album that she was performing with her band & is gearing up to perform those songs live during her DJ sets.
In April of 2013, Empress released her next Drum & Bass singles featuring her vocals and solo production on “Only Love” and “Faithful”. Within 24 hours of “Only Love” being released with minimal promotion on her Soundcloud, it received over 4,000 listens. She also just released her newest Empowercast Podcast mix, also available free through Soundcloud, which amassed over 6,500 listens in less than a month. For WMC she exclusively played at the World of Drum and Bass for the 6th time.
Empress continues to DJ shows all over the world, while working intently on her original production & her live show.
Sought after by promoters, artists, bands and fans worldwide, Empress continues to move crowds, grace studios and stereos across the globe everyday.