DJ Siren

Once you've been in the presence of Siren deejaying, you are never going to forget it. She is almost six feet tall with piercing blue eyes and angular features, but, what you come away with is your mind blown by her exceptional music choices and flawless mixing ability. Siren's natural instinct and honed skills have firmly established her as a guaranteed floor-filler. Originating in San Francisco, California and presently residing in New York City as one of the top deejays in her field, Siren's beginnings are a far cry from her existing situation.

"Up until college graduation, my life had been laid out for me," says Siren. "Once I graduated, it was the first time in my life that I got to choose what I wanted to do. I went out to find something. The minute I got to San Francisco, I immersed myself in things I enjoyed doing. I started meeting people involved in music that everyone looked up to. They took me under their wing like I was their child. I felt as if I belonged to a movement. They encouraged me to start deejaying."

Starting her deejaying career in 1997 after a trip to the UK where she experienced drum 'n' bass deejays mesmerize throngs of party-goers at Goldie's notorious Metalheadz night and the Tribal Gathering festival, she returned to the US with the firm idea that she would do the same. Not long following her return, Siren co-founded the Sister SF collective, established to encourage women who had a to desire deejay. The collective not only helped herself, but numerous others reach their goals.

Continuing to be part of the growing San Francisco scene, Siren garnered three residencies. In 1998 at the Bassment (her own party as part of Nikita at 1015 Folsom), in 1999 at Rude Metal, and in 2000 at the city's renowned Eklektic night. In a city known for its proliferation of exceptional deejays, she is the only one with two weekly and one quarter yearly slot in San Francisco. Alongside her burgeoning deejay work, Siren was also the exclusive drum 'n' bass buyer for the longstanding BPM Records in 1997 and wrote about the genre in the respected XLR8R Magazine in 1998.

Accomplishing all she could in her own town, Siren was the ambassador for the music taking it to 1999's Winter Music Conference playing at the OM Records party. That same year, in conjunction with XLR8R, Siren hosted and played at a gig for the magazine at the College Music Journal Marathon (CMJ) in New York City. Following her success with that event, Siren co-produced and performed the second largest drum 'n' bass event at the Winter Music Conference in 2000, United States Of Drum 'N' Bass. Focusing on domestic talent, it was a well-attended and talked about affair. The following year, she was involved in producing and showcasing at the biggest drum 'n' bass event at the Winter Music Conference, World Of Drum 'n' Bass.

Securing her place in the global drum 'n' bass community, Siren's DJing ability has - and continues - to keep her on the road. She has played top spots at events with the most respected names of the genre such as Ed Rush, Optical, Grooverider, )EIB(, Randall, Dieselboy, Bailey, and Craze, to name just a few. Plus she has held her own performing alongside such internationally acclaimed artists as Paul Oakenfold, Run DMC, Sandra Collins, Afrika Bambaataa, Q-Bert, among many others. Proud to support domestic talent, Siren has laid her beats under the rhymes of such talented MCs as Dub2, Posi-D, J Messinian, TC Izlam, MC Duh, and Ms-Ty.

Be it at a massive rave or an intimate club, Siren is sought out by promoters everywhere. She is a regular on the bill with such prestigious promotion companies such as Seattle's USC, San Francisco's Cool World and Spundae, New York's Stuck On Earth, New Orleans' Freebass Society, as well as numerous others. Siren has also wowed crowds at Philadelphia's excellent Platinum night, Los Angeles' long-running Respect and Konkrete Jungle, New York's Konkrete Jungle and Physics, Washington DC's Act Your Age, Leicester, England's Sonic Boom, just to name a handful. She has also toured across America co-headlining with one of the pioneers of drum 'n' bass in North America, Chicago's Phantom 45.

Although having a comfortable and ongoing presence behind the decks at most cities with even an inkling of a drum 'n' bass scene in North America, Siren has not restricted herself to deejaying. Her first original production, a collaboration with Kaos entitled "Pathogen" was released in 2000 on Elite Recordings and championed by the likes of Red One, Tee Bee and Underfire. Additionally her 2000 mixtape for Spundae was the first in that club's series. Her latest mixtape, Metropolis, was released by Red Tape in 2001. Siren's blinding sets can be heard archived on such high traffic websites as psuedo.com, groovetech.com, injection2012.com and Databass at sublife.com. You can also find her featured in articles and fashion layouts of such widely-read print and on-line publications as Flyer, Seventeen, The San Francisco Bay Guardian, The San Francisco Examiner, City Search, and Drum And Bass Arena.

"I feel like drum 'n' bass is open to anything," Siren says. "There isn't a blueprint I can look at and say, "This is what has to happen next. I still have things I want to accomplish, but there's no set thing. The future is wide open for anything we want to make it. It keeps growing. If we stop, that's the only way it's going to die. So I just keep pushing forward."

Siren is currently living in New York City where you can find her at the heartbeat and lifeline of drum 'n' bass for most of the world, the infamous Breakbeat Science. She continues to work on new material regularly in the studio as well as gigging non-stop.

Contact her for bookings at DJSiren@hotmail.com

To connect to Siren on the web, log on to: www.djsiren.com

Written by: Lily Moayeri