At this point, Shy One might be familiar to most music fans as one of the hosts of NTS's daily breakfast show, Soup To Nuts, where she helps listeners across the UK and Europe settle into their morning routines with an eclectic and soulful selection of dance music and downtempo. But the London artist has been around a lot longer than that, with a discography that goes back well over a decade.
She started releasing music as a regular on Scratcha DVA's label, and it was there that she sketched out a recognizable but impressively varied approach rooted in her home base of London. On her records, Shy One sometimes feels like London incarnate, synthesizing the histories of Black British dance music—drum & bass, grime, UK funky, broken beat, jazz, you name it—into one syncretic and immensely appealing sound. But her music glows with the warmth of American deep house, too, which lends it a timeless, ageless quality that has proven immensely appealing. She furthers this mission with Private World, a party she started with Ruby Savage. The name kind of says it all: she's inviting you to her own personal space, but what awaits is a whole wide world of music and culture.
Her RA Podcast feels like a hybrid between a club DJ set and her morning show, and here, she zeroes in on a the lineage of American house music from the '90s and beyond, featuring tracks from the likes of Green Velvet, Marcellus Pittman, Roy Davis Jr., Wbeeza, Jay Daniel and more, plus a spotlight from Baltimore club king DJ Technics. It's patient and easygoing but perfect for a small dance floor (or a livingroom party), focused but stylistically diverse. It's everything we've come to expect from an artist like Shy One, who weaves stories and histories with her DJ sets, and does it effortlessly, too.
@shyonebeats
Read more at https://ra.co/podcast/911