Lady Blacktronika
The self-proclaimed “First Lady of Beatdown,” Lady Blacktronika is a prolific producer, DJ, vocalist, and label owner known for her raw, sensual take on house music. She began producing in the early 2000s, quickly landing releases on international labels and carving out her own lane in the global scene.
Her latest album, Tripple Blackness / Future History, pulls from “many parts of her life,” blending Industrial Techno, Jazz, Hip Hop, Gabber, and New Jack Swing into a deeply personal and genre-bending project.
IO:
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey as a music artist, when did you start DJing/producing?
Akua:
Well 2026 will be 20 years of production but I started playing out in 2009.
The thing is music has always been my primary obsession. I’ve wanted to be a producer since back in the days when a drum machine weighed 200 pounds and you needed an actual shit ton of equipment to do it. I didn’t have access to those things. But when I bought my first laptop in 2006 I started trying my hand at it and I have never looked back.
IO:
How has your time at IO impacted your career?
Akua:
Well for me it was amazing to learn so many things I didn’t know I didn’t know for production in Ableton Live. Those classes really helped me improve my skills and helped me create this album.
IO:
What does your workflow look like when you start a new track?
Akua:
Ok well in spite of learning a lot of correct and better methods I’m still a little or a lot chaotic in my process. I am a sample fanatic and I usually will just start testing samples and drums until I hear something I like. If I get addicted to the loop then I know I have something I want to flesh out. Often I’ll start with a loop for a basic beat just as like a substrate to test samples before adding my drums cause I’m not a huge fan of prefab loops hahaha.
IO:
Can you talk about your recent album Tripple Blackness/ Future History? What was the inspiration behind it?
Akua:
Well I felt inspired to go back through my large, huge library of samples going back to 2011. I lost my first laptop and had a hard drive crash so I couldn’t exactly go back all the way to the beginning. I wanted to merge the old things with the new and see what came of it. I combined deep house and disco elements with industrial techno drums, hip hop, jazz and even a Gospel parody comedy sketch from In Living Color. So many inspirational elements to express my love for music and the history of dance music.
IO:
Is there a skill you learned at IO that changed the way you produce or perform?
Akua:
Well I learned how to swing my drums in Ableton which was a game changer because I had been using Synapse Orion for my signature Lady Blacktronika sound and I love swung drums and the wobble of weird oscillators and I was severely missing those elements. Well I learned how to do that in Ableton thanks to Dylan I got my groove back!
IO:
What do you hope listeners feel when they hear your music?
Akua:
I hope they feel I have taken them on a journey cause that’s what it is and was for me. I arranged all the tracks as if it was a dj mix and actually made sure they would sound good if they were played in the mix. So I hope they feel they’ve been taken somewhere really!