BAMBII

Jamaica’s immigrant pipeline to one of the coldest cities in North America might be the best opposites-attract alchemy in modern music. A result of labor shortages and programs like the West Indian Domestic Scheme of the 1950s and -60s, the soul of the island nation inextricably burns through Toronto. It’s this tangled dichotomy where BAMBII finds her flow. 

As a Caribbean-Canadian, Kirsten Azan’s existence is a result of all the sacrifice, promise and cultural transfusion that comes from migration. It’s the stories of this movement that inform her instincts as a wave-making DJ and producer and what always compels her to remind listeners, in words and in bashment, that electronic music is and has always been Black music. 

Whether she’s hosting her now-famous JERK rave series or encouraging house heads to dabble with dancehall riddims, BAMBII leans into the mix of all her influences instead of trying to categorize them into neat little niches based on genre, region or race: “I really want to prime myself to be able to do different things later, and for everyone to subscribe to that idea.”

BAMBII has primed her palette with plenty of experience. In between co-producing on Kelela’s Raven album, touring with Jamie XX, ripping through festivals like Best Kept Secret, Lowlands and Pukklepop and earning a JUNO Award for Best Electronic Album for her 2023 debut EP, Infinity Club, the artist has absorbed lessons from every crowd and collaborator. BAMBII’s latest EP, Infinity Club II, is “a staircase” that builds on the ideas of the award-winning debut, showing off new levels of technical mastery and sonic ascension. Inspiration for the EP started to find BAMBII when she went on a two-week trip to Jamaica at the end of 2023. Returning to Toronto in January 2024, she was ready to build her next steps.