Since launching in 2020, HE.SHE.THEY. Records has carved out a singular place in dance music, a label and community built not around one sound or scene, but around the idea that electronic music’s roots in Black, queer and underground culture deserve to be centred. Founded by Sophia Kearney and Steven Braines as an extension of the HE.SHE.THEY. events series (itself running since 2018), the label, managed by Ashraf Ejjbair, has spent five years and a hundred releases building a genuinely global, genre-spanning catalogue, picking up recognition along the way from DJ Mag, the FEMMY Awards and IMS, while touring across 60 cities and 26 countries.
To mark the milestone, HE.SHE.THEY has just released its first-ever VA compilation, a twenty-five track retrospective spanning deep house, techno, African club and UK bass, pulled from across its back catalogue and featuring a slew of underground talent, from Maya Jane Coles and LSDXOXO to a powerful new cut from Floyd Lavine. We caught up Sophia and Ashraf from HE.SHE.THEY. to talk about the compilation, the realities of building a values-led label in this day and age, what community actually looks like day to day beyond the music and where they see the label heading over the next five years.
Listen to the VA compilation below and visit here to purchase.
Five years and a hundred releases is a real milestone, congrats! Looking back at your very first release in 2020, does the label feel like it’s become what you originally set out to build or has it evolved into something you couldn’t have predicted?
Sophia: Thank you so much, it’s been a labour of love from a small, passionate and dedicated team. On the label front for us it’s definitely what we set out to build, we wanted the label to reflect a wide variety of genres in the same way it reflected multiple intersections of people’s identities. Everyone was welcome to submit as long as the music was great. We also didn’t ever just want to release purely underground club records, but sought to release more radio friendly records also as the goal of HE.SHE.THEY. has always been to bring our ethos of inclusivity to the mainstream through positive story telling and representation.
Your mission has been described as building “a planet without prejudice”. Five years in, does that phrase still feel aspirational or does it genuinely describe the world you’ve managed to build within the label and its community?
Ashraf: Within the Label, there have been so many wins to celebrate: signing music from across the world, getting truly underground artists played on national radio, witnessing huge streaming figures for up-and-coming young producers. The world, however, feels somehow more dangerous, more aggressive and more willing to shut out anyone who appears different point blank. In the UK, the Supreme Court ruling last year completely rolled back hard-earned progress for trans rights and gender equality, while Trump’s “anti-wokeness” in the US put an end to valuable DEI initiatives. There’s been a very tangible swing across the world against “diversity” and that can be felt in fewer opportunities, more financial risk and very real fear in individuals just to live their daily lives. When it comes to the planet, there’s a lot to be done.
A lot of labels talk about community, but you’ve built actual infrastructure around it such as events and a radio show. What does community actually look like day to day for you, beyond the releases themselves?
Ashraf: Community means so much to us and can never be taken for granted. It’s a magical thing to be able to bring people together in these big, euphoric moments and there’s also a lot of responsibility. At times, the idea of maintaining community can feel like a tough ask when we’ve got all these various strands of what we do, each slightly in its own world. Staying consistent is a huge factor, especially being a values-led organisation, and that’s a big part of why people want to show up again and again for us. Then, making sure that every release is wildly amazing, along with each event and every radio mix – if we ever stop giving everything, that shows and that’s when people start to tune out.
What do you think has kept HE.SHE.THEY. Records relevant and moving forward for five years?
Ashraf: The talent is out of this world. If we were only to focus on addressing the ridiculous gender imbalance in electronic music, we would not have enough days in a year to release all the amazing tunes that people are making. When you consider a diverse catalogue of releases and artists, you factor in the range of gender, ages, ethnicities, sexual orientation, disabilities, economic background… then add in a range of genres, WOW. Our world is incredible for its diversity, so reflecting that in our label really opens up endless possibilities. Also, challenging ourselves to think and work more diversely has been crucial. We’re always growing in our approach, with time.
Within the VA compilation, Floyd Lavine’s “Bold” weaves in a 1963 James Baldwin speech about the risk inherent in creating something truthful. Did that song’s themes feel like they captured something essential about what HE.SHE.THEY stands for as a label beyond the track being strong musically?
Ashraf: Cor, I find Baldwin speaks so much truth in his speeches. This extract in “Bold” is a really powerful and intriguing reflection on the personal cost of being creative, how artists are unique in their ability to reflect the world and I love the complexity of that thought married with Floyd Lavine’s stunning orchestration. It is an epic masterpiece and I love that we don’t shy away from complexity in dance music, especially in this album which is so much about celebration. “Bold” has a realism about it, yet in its fullness, there is soaring hope – that resonates with the essence of HE.SHE.THEY.
The compilation moves through deep house, techno, African club and UK bass across twenty-five tracks. When you’re building a body of work this genre-spanning, how do you think about coherence? Is it the message that ties it together or do you trust the ear to find the throughline?
Ashraf: I would be so interested to hear from others what message or throughline they experience. Please let us know! With all our releases, we have spent a great deal of time and care with the artists and music across the entire process, and so we develop these really deep, emotional connections with the music. Building this body of work and wanting it to reflect the label’s journey, range, our major successes, it all felt like a very personal process for all of us, it was instinctual.
You’ve built relationships with artists across such different scenes and geographies, from Berlin to Johannesburg to London to LA. How do you find new artists for the label now, five years and a hundred releases in, vs how you found them at the very start?
Sophia: To be honest, it’s much the same as it always was, we’ve signed records that have just dropped into our inbox as demos from an unsigned artist in India, or it’s come from artists we manage or managed previously, people we’ve really connected with at a conference, artists who’ve played our shows and we got to chatting in the green room, or pitches from established artists themselves or their teams. I think the beauty is in that variety of connections.
HE.SHE.THEY. Records was developed as a response to the commercial homogenisation of club culture. Five years on, do you feel like that homogenisation has gotten better or worse (or even just changed shape)?
Sophia: HE.SHE.THEY. as an events brand started in 2018 and the label began five years ago within that time frame and it’s been a wild ride building what we have through the times of COVID, the cost of living crisis and the rise of social media. I feel club culture is an ever evolving entity that both represents society and also expresses the antithesis of it and voices frustrations about its direction. The best ideas and cultural movements are always born out of frustration of society, just like the origins of the scene were. Other artists, club nights and labels are also ever born and evolving based on the viewpoint they feel needs expressing. I do think it’s never been easier for artists and communities to develop online to a certain point, but due to the rising costs of running a label / events and constant competition and saturation I feel like the variety is there if you want to find it, but the level of support that the audiences can grant attention-wise and financially to things even if they believe in them is a tough ask. I feel in some scenes and genres it’s getting better, for example the volume of women selling great hard ticket numbers in the techno space I’ve definitely seen increase, so we have to take the positives where we can, but ultimately there is still a lot of work to be done.
HE.SHE.THEY began as an event series and has since grown into a label and a global platform, with events in 60 cities across 26 countries and a fourth stage takeover at ADE coming up next month. As it’s grown, has it become harder to preserve the intimacy and intentionality that shaped those early parties?
Sophia: This is a great question and one I think about often. For me the biggest thing I’ve learnt is regardless of the size or the volume of parties we are doing at any one time we have to ask ourselves why are we doing this particular one? HE.SHE.THEY’s first events were at Ministry of Sound, Pacha Ibiza and Watergate Berlin; traditionally venues that would not host more inclusive ethos driven events, and it’s as important to us to throw events in this space to educate and open minds of regular ravers to these spaces as well as open up these spaces to a demographic who perhaps never felt the space as for them. This for me is important work as much as throwing a party in India for 200 people is also important work. A rave can change someone’s life. Sometimes at the parties, the people who approach me about an event being a core memory for them or it’s where they met a new best friend / partner, they might not be the ones I would have expected and that’s made me view all of our raves as important, in some way, for someone. The main thing for me is there is an identical magic at our shows, where I’ve stood on countless dancefloors around the world at 2am once the event is in full flow and I realise that energy is the essence of our brand, no matter where we are. On the rare occasion I’ve not felt this, I know this isn’t the right promoter / venue etc for us and we go back to the drawing board and work out how we move forward from there. It’s ever evolving and we are ever learning and that’s how it should be.
Looking at the next five years, what does success look like for HE.SHE.THEY from here?
Ashraf: A number one record in the world would be wonderful. Events in every corner of the globe. Brand deals lining up to work with us, too. The magical thing about virality is that you can have a quirky corner of the internet stumble across a track, find something they love in it and send it absolutely stratospheric. The music industry is changing quickly; thankfully, as a small team, we’re very adaptable, plucky and can hopefully keep pace with this brave new world. AND bring our community along for the ride.