Bella (her given name) was born in Las Vegas to Gujarati immigrant parents in the early 1970's. Her father had played in a rock band in his college days in India, and taught her some acoustic guitar, electric guitar, and keyboards as a youth. She picked up violin at age 7 and didn't put it down for 7 years, until she became disillusioned after playing Bach, Vivaldi, and Brandenburg - music that did not even closely resemble the strings of Indian classical music. She recalls becoming influenced by watching her uncles Amrit Gajjar (sitar and dilruba player) and Bhabubhai Patel (tabla player and vocalist) play at spiritual functions, and by learning her native Gujarati Gurba dances to perform at cultural festivals and during the celebrations of Diwali and Navratri. In Las Vegas, and in Laguna Niguel where her family relocated for a while before going back to Vegas, there were few Indian families and even fewer Indian dance and music teachers. So aside from sporadic trips to India, she was forced like many immigrant children to learn of her native music and dance through the films of Bollywood and her family's treasured recordings, mostly in Hindi.
The 80's hit and she dropped all instruments for the radio and records, making compilation tapes of funk-pop and later, punk, industrial, alternative, ska, and rock steady reggae. In 1987 she got a turntable as a birthday gift, and with it more records followed. She connected with DJ's at UNLV's college station KUNV, but was too young to be allowed a DJ slot, so when she finished high school in Vegas and went to UC Berkeley in 1991, the first place she signed up for was the college station KALX. She promoted events, reviewed new music, produced public service announcements, interviewed artists on-air, and hosted a weekly music show. As the KALX Promotions Director and PRC Committee member, she made relationships with booking agents and clubs to setup co-promotions and also reviewed programmers at the station to award radio slots. Maritime Hall was one of her largest promoter relationships. Hip hop was gaining ground through college radio, so she transitioned away from her punk influences towards supporting local underground emcees and learning more about jazz and funk, spinning alongside other influential KALX DJ's Beni B (Bay Area Hip Hop Coalition, ABB Records), O-Dub (Oliver Wang), Karen (Giant Peach), Pal 58, and Matt Africa; club DJ's B-Love, Pam the Funkstress, Dedan, Winnie B, and Tom Thump; and reggae DJ's Jah Bonz, Polo, Jah Yzer, Toks and Slims. She began hosting record release events at Rasputin's Records through Spliff Skankin (KPFA), shared knowledge with the many hip hop buyers and DJ's at Amoeba Records (Rasta Q-Tip, DJ Serg), and scoured local record collector's stacks for more gems (DBA Brown's, Saturn Records, Ashby Flea Market).
In the mid-90's, she connected with Out of Many One Productions and began promoting reggae concerts. Conducting interviews with and often DJ'ing as a concert opener for reggae artists such as Ras Sam Brown, Beenie Man, Everton Blender, Pablo Moses, Sizzla, Mikey General, Joseph Hill, Beenie Man, Barrington Levy, Yami Bolo, Buju Banton, Tippa Irie, Wayne Wonder, Sugar Minott, Mykal Rose and Sister Carol, who greatly influenced her sound. The single largest influence to her is dub master Scientist, who once called her during her radio show to compliment her on the music she had chosen. Soon after, she connected with the Mad Professor, and was selected to DJ the iconic Lee Perry's return to the US show in San Francisco to a crowd of 3,000 two nights in a row, and also to sing/perform as his opening act at a later show. After reading the Oakland mayor's Bob Marley Day proclamation at a concert at the Henry J. Kaiser Center, Fatis (Xterminator) chose her to assist and accompany him on his Bay Area concert tours. As Sizzla, Turbulence, Luciano, and Mikey General were all working with Fatis at this time, she felt especially honored to travel with this crew.
In 1997 she went to Kingston to work with Fatis, and to London to work with Mad Professor. While in London, she discovered the budding UK Asian Underground sounds of Talvin Singh and Nitin Sawhney, through her sister who was researching the scene for a book (to be published in 2009), and also met with Acid Jazz-Roots label producer Dread Flimstone in the studio while polishing some Michael Prophet dubstep tracks. So after returning to the bay area, in early 2000, she connected with Indian musicians, and joined the Azaad collective, which included DJ's Maneesh the Twister, Janaka, and Rhino FX. They threw benefits for third world nonprofit groups at artspace 111 Minna for a few years, playing the new sound of desi-electronica-drum n bass.
An unfortunate accident left her with a badly sprained wrist in 2002, and she was unable to DJ or work for over a year. After recovering, she still needed to slow down to heal better, so she focused on retaining connections to artists to continue to promote events, and formed Riddims Couture with Shania D to expand women's presence in reggae and hip-hop. In 2005, Bella received a message from MTV Desi to audition as a VJ, so she produced a 5-minute video biography at their request. Thinking this may be a big break into a different aspect of the music business, Bella left the Bay to explore working in the music business in NY. MTV Desi folded, so instead she contacted longtime label friends Easy Star Records in NYC, and advanced the Easy Star All-Stars west coast tour while promoting the Radiodread album. She continues to review dub submissions (A&R). She briefly worked at Giant Step in NYC in New Media marketing. In NY, DC and Philadelphia, she DJ'd and promoted alongside V:shal Kanwar, Kollektiv, Nicodemus, Cato, oBAH, RedBud Records, Majestic Twinsound, Solomonic Sound, Anoushka Shankar, Wall Street, and Ladies of Hip Hop.
Aside from being involved in the music business, Bella was an active human rights activist and leader in Amnesty International from ages 14-25. She interned in South Texas assisting refugees with political asylum claims, organized conference workshops, taught students about public speaking and fundraising, and ultimately served two years on the national AIUSA Board of Directors, as well as delegate alternate to the International Council Meeting in South Africa. She is forever indebted to AI for teaching her grassroots organizing skills.
Concurrently, she earned a degree in Environmental Engineering Science from UC Berkeley and has worked as an Environmental Engineer/Manager in the consulting industry for the past 10 years. She specializes in remediation of soil and groundwater polluted by gasoline spills. She has an interest in following the politics of oil in the Niger Delta region.
You can catch Deejay Bella on her weekly radio show, Roots Education, which airs at 6-9AM and 6-9PM PST on GlobalVortexRadio.com. For bookings, contact
[email protected].
