As the nightlife champion, DJ and producer releases her surprise debut album With A Vengeance, she sits down with Dazed to break down her ideal London clubbing experience
In the run-up to making debut album WITH A VENGEANCE (WAV), south London DJ and producer SHERELLE was a self-described “hot mess”. She’d had to cut off a few toxic friends. She wasn’t eating enough. The original copy of the project was lost forever when her bag was stolen in Antwerp (“That’ll go down as the worst 30th birthday of all time”). And, to top it all off, she’d been traumatised by a dodgy seafood restaurant experience. “I knew things had to change,” Sherelle tells Dazed, and that change came through music.
Now vegan, and perfecting “the art of letting go”, WAV is the soundtrack to Sherelle getting her life back on track again. She had long been a staple on the international DJ circuit, with her 2019 Boiler Room debut becoming one of the platform’s most-loved sets, but this week’s release feels like a turning point in her artistry. Between euphoric jungle breaks and infectious juke and footwork breakdowns, it’s a club record with a point, a sweaty, spiritual awakening set to Sherelle’s signature 160 beats-per-minute.
“I am in a really lovely place with life at the moment but it was hard,” she explains. “I had to take out and distance myself from a lot of people and things and now feel a lot lighter and happier to just be in the moment, something I had struggled with before.”
Along the way, Sherelle set herself the goal of making a new track every day, and it was during one of these sessions that she stumbled upon the building blocks for what would become ghetto house banger “FREAKY (JUST MY TYPE)”. “ I hated the instrumental originally, I was completely confused by what I had made,” she says. “ I showed it to [producer] Loraine James and [emerging RnB singer] George Reilly when we were all in a session together and George instantly liked it! She wrote that song in 15 minutes and we had our demo down in an hour. I will never forget that day.”
In many ways, the track arrives as a crystallisation of WAV's sonic and spiritual themes – there’s Detroit’s frenetic juke and ghetto house dance genres, a sprinkling of DnB, and lyrics which take sexual liberation onto the dancefloor. Reilly describes the track as a “bisexual anthem”, but SHERELLE takes it even further: “Baby! Anyone can get it. If anything ‘FREAKY’ is a pan-anthem about freedom of sexual expression. The same as Blur’s ‘Girls and Boys’ but more sexy and fast paced.”
More widely, this spirit of healing through clubbing is one that Sherelle has long championed. Last month, she appeared as a key voice in the BBC-produced documentary Nightclubs: Is the Party Over?, in which she advocates for the importance of protecting UK nightlife, while her recent SHERELLELAND UK tour imposed a £10 cap on ticket prices to ensure that clubbing remains accessible for all.
“The current nightlife scene needs support and isn’t getting it,” she tells Dazed. “Clubbing is something that people do to forget about the lack of affordable housing, the right to benefits or the pension cap. It shouldn’t be a luxury, yet here we are. Ultimately, anything I can do to give someone vital relief in a week of constant stress and pressure makes me happy.”
It’s a cause that is clearly close to Sherelle’s heart, considering that WAV helped her escape her own “hot mess” era, but that doesn’t mean she regrets going through such turmoil. “I’m glad those people mugged me off actually,” the nightlife champion concludes. “It was a long overdue wake-up call to how much I needed to change both mentally and personally.” SHERELLE is certainly back WITH A VENGEANCE.
Below, Sherelle breaks down her dream night out, from the pres to the post-club munch.
What day of the week is your ideal night out happening?
Sherelle: Friday.
What essential party supplies are you bringing out with you?
Sherelle: Earplugs and my lip balm.
Where are you heading for pres?
Sherelle: Dalston.
What are you drinking?
Sherelle: Depends on how my day has gone. On a good day, I’ll have a gimlet. On a bad day or a long day, I’ll have a Negroni.
Where’s the main event?
Sherelle: A friend’s banging party. Let’s do Tropical Waste by Seb Wheeler.
What time are you getting there?
Sherelle: Early. I have come to stomp around 160 bangers.
Are you DJing? If not, who’s on the lineup?
SherelleE: Not this time, but I would like to see me some Kode9 and RP Boo.
What songs are you requesting from the DJ?
Sherelle: It’s my day off, love – I am actually looking for track IDs.
When’s the right time to leave the club?
Sherelle: When the lights are up and I am on my fourth or fifth Club Mate and tequila.
Right, the rave’s done. Where are you heading for some scran?
Sherelle: I desperately need chips and I am now rushing back to Dalston to the bossman’s chip shop opposite Dalston Superstore.
Finally, I hear there’s a vacancy for the London Night Czar position. Who are you appointing?
Sherelle: Myself, and it would kick off! So I don’t think I will last very long. If not me, then I would get I.Jordan in. Or Judy from Fabric, or DJ Paulette!
WITH A VENGEANCE is out now. SHERELLE is also performing at the Camden Roundhouse tonight, grab tickets here.