When Flavourmag first ranked the UK’s most in-demand female DJs, the scene was fighting for space on the line-up. Revisiting the list now, it reads like a prophecy, and the new generation has taken the baton at full sprint.
Back in 2017 we put together a list of the fifteen hottest female DJs in the UK, hottest as in busiest, most booked, most talked about. Reading it back is a reminder of how fast club culture moves and how right the original call was: almost every name on it went on to bigger rooms, bigger festivals and, in several cases, genuine institution status. Here’s the story of that list, and the new guard carrying it forward.
The class of 2017
Hannah Wants had already crashed the UK singles chart with ‘Rhymes’ and built her What Hannah Wants brand into headline tours and Glastonbury takeovers. She’s since become one of British house music’s most reliable arena-fillers, still running competitions to pull new talent up behind her.
Annie Mac was the sound of Radio 1’s dance output for a generation. She signed off from the station in 2021 after seventeen years, but her influence, as a broadcaster, curator and relentless advocate for women behind the decks, is stitched into every dance line-up in the country.
Flava D remains one of the most respected producers to come out of the grime and bassline world, with a back catalogue that runs from Wiley and Ghetts collaborations to garage and drum & bass. Nicole Moudaber, tipped by her mentor Carl Cox as ‘the most underrated DJ’ back in 2009, is now a techno headliner with her MOOD imprint and radio show reaching every corner of the globe.
Mollie Collins was two years into her career when we first wrote about her; she’s since become one of drum & bass’s flagbearers, all without losing the club-culture-first attitude that made her stand out. DJ Moxie parlayed her Rinse and Kiss FM years into national radio and countless fabric Room One appearances. Emily Rawson built Rock The Belles into a platform for female hip-hop DJs; Melody Kane took her Female Takeover across Europe; Charlotte Devaney kept racking up international bookings and studio credits; Syreeta carried her East London tech-house energy from forest raves to Ibiza; and Sarah Giggle held down residencies from Egypt to Dubai.
The new guard
If the 2017 list proved the talent was there, the years since proved the demand. Sherelle detonated into national attention with a viral Boiler Room set and now fronts the 160bpm jungle-and-footwork revival. Jaguar became the voice of new dance music on BBC Introducing, championing exactly the kind of emerging names our original list existed for. Sam Divine, name-checked in our 2017 piece as a peer, is now Defected Records’ definitive selector. And Monki went from Radio 1 tastemaker to globe-trotting house mainstay.
The point still stands
We wrote the original piece because the talent on the decks didn’t match the balance on the posters. That gap has narrowed, you’ll now find women headlining Printworks-scale rooms and closing festival main stages, but it hasn’t closed. So consider this list both a celebration and a nudge: if your favourite night still books fifteen men and a token guest, show the promoter this page. The UK has never had a deeper bench.
Image: Photo by Zakariae Lahkim on Unsplash.
