Kaishi causes with “LovinU”: from a daring DJ and producer

Beatrice Florenzio is hidden behind Kaishi, an oriental name. She’s attracted to bass music, she forges her own style, combining bassline, grime, jungle, drum n bass and hip hop. This great legacy has resulted into “LovingU”, the first track in Firstplanet Academy catalogue. Signs of speed garage and 2 step are also there.

How did you create “LovinU”?
“I wanted to recreate those sounds that, from the drum’n’bass, brought me to fall in love with UK garage and start playing it, but that I had not yet been able to create in my production. Everything started from the classic tour a little ’90s dance (my other great passion), if I may say so. And that’s how it started”.
How would you define the genre of “LovinU”? It looks like a mix of 2 steps, techno and bass house.
“Mainly, we can define a UK garage / 2step piece, sometimes soulful, with a vocal R & B, genre that I love. I’m glad you said bass house too, because it’s part of the genre circle that inspires me for my production and I’ve been very close to it lately in terms of sound, probably already there with in ‘LovinU’”.
In addition to several single tracks, are you working on an album too?
“Not right now. I have already planned a series of collaborations with UK artists, some are ready, and probably an E.P. I do not feel yet ready for an album, perhaps I see it as a somewhat presumptuous and the next step in my artistic career. I think I still have to tell people who Kaishi really is and I also need to be sure that they appreciate and understand my album”.
You are very close to the underground UK. Why do you love this sound so much?
“It all started when I discovered drum’n’bass. In fact, before Kaishi, I played for many years d’n’b in a collective that I founded, the Pinknoise Kollective. I was a teenager and I just started to go to parties with jungle and d’n’b legends, so I fell in love with this genre and started playing. I went to London and Bristol many times; my music partner used to live there at the time. I learned about the music scene, not only in the UK, and I discovered other sounds that had a huge influence on me”.

How did you approach the Firstplanet world?
“Thanks to Stefano B, I met him at the time of Pinknoise Kollective. I sent him ‘LovinU’, he knew I was looking for an Italian label to release it and he suggested Firstplanet”.
How do you see your sound in the next few years?
“A sound … my own sound, that is the fusion of all my passions and background, as I’m trying to do now. Lately I’m producing tracks with darker sounds, recalling dnb, dubstep and electro, halfway between the UK bass and US bass, a little influenced by my latest experience in Los Angeles, but this will not exclude more melodic tracks in the future. Because I am like that, halfway between dark and the harmony, this is Kaishi”.

Short bio. Kaishi took her first steps into the music world as a dancer, later as a graffiti artist where she dsicovered her love for hip hop music. She started as a DJ many years later, as member and founder of an all-female drum’n’bass collective, Pinknoise Kollective.