From The Artists

Ayah Marar

Well known amongst the electronic music community in the UK, Ayah’s dedication to her music has earned her the rightful title of “The Queen Of Bass.” Her debut album, “The Real” has been attracting widespread attention and critical acclaim, with a recent Vibe Magazine interview, Music Week featuring her song “Alive” as Track Of The Week, and Ayah winning Best Female Artist in the 2013 Drum And Bass Awards.

Dance music is a broad church, but within each parish there’s usually a set of rules. A doesn’t always go with B, and X shouldn’t really mix with Y, but sometimes those rules are meant to be broken or manipulated into odd new shapes. Ayah Marar’s kaleidoscopic debut album, “The Real,” is a case in point: thirteen songs that take inspiration from the underground dance scene, cherry-picking the very best elements of drum and bass, techno and house and bolting them onto well-crafted pop hooks that look set to shatter dance floors. “It’s an homage to dance music in whatever form, whether it’s garage or two step or house or drum and bass,” she explains.

With seemingly every other new pop star trying to marry a gargantuan dance beat to a pretty melody, it’s a competitive world. The difference here is that Ayah Marar isn’t faking it. She lives the life of an underground dance fiend, of a DJ and MC, of a strong woman in a male-dominated industry. Her two worlds, the underground and the mainstream, have been brought together organically, co-existing in a way that sounds fresh rather than forced. “I’m trying something that I don’t think has been done in the way we’re trying to do it,” Marar states. “It’s what I love to do; it’s trying to find that balance.