Uncle Waffles, Nia Archives & More on Black Women’s Dance Music Takeover

Jaelani Turner-Williams
·8 min read

DJ Miss Milan Credit: Stephon Williams. Sky Jetta Credit: Ashley Chappell. Uncle Waffles, Nia Archives courtesy of the artist.

Step into almost any day party, house party, or nightclub and you’re sure to hear dance music made by Black women and femmes. Amapiano, house, Jersey club, and jungle: the sounds that make up a rich sonic dance landscape. Maybe you’ll hear Beyoncé’s groundbreaking 2022 album Renaissance or Tinashe’s hit “Nasty,” or PinkPantheress and Shygirl or Kelela, Nia Archives, or Kitty Ca$h — the list goes on.

Black women aren’t new to the dance music space, but in 2024, they’re the changemakers that are broadening the scene. It should come as no surprise that Black women are amplifying the expansive genre — they’ve done so for decades, from house music titan Crystal Waters to late drum ‘n’ bass powerhouse DJ Kemistry. Now, behind both the microphone and as turntablists, they are staking claim at the forefront of dance music, all while keeping it chic.

In the last six months alone, Black femme artists have broken new ground across the sounds of electronic, ambient, hyperpop, and jungle, perhaps ushered in or amplified by the success of Renaissance, itself an homage to influences like “Queen of Disco” Donna Summer and drag performer Moi Renee.

In May, Kitty Ca$h, a DJ and producer hailing from Brooklyn, released her long-awaited debut EP Handle With Care, a primer on curating a fresh and experimental summertime vibe. Tinashe’s buzzy new electro trap single “Nasty” has reignited her presence in commercial pop, while she’s also been heard on recent dance worthy tracks by Machinedrum (“Zoom”) and Kaytranada (“More Than a Little Bit”). While PinkPantheress was also a featured artist on Kaytranada’s latest project, Timeless, her loosie single “Turn It Up” is a cutesy, mid tempo ride into dream pop. UK artists Shygirl and Nia Archives continue to bring zhuzh to international dance parties following the releases of their respective projects, Club Shy and Silence Is Loud.

Serving an inventive take of her sophomore album Raven, in February Kelela dropped her third remix album, Rave:n, the Remixes, which she teased to Teen Vogue last year. “Black people can create from scratch, but then there's also a deep-rooted tradition of repurposing and recreating new sh*t out of the tools that are available to us,” Kelela shared at the time.

That sentiment is true, especially as Black women have transformed the dance floor into an oasis for their progressive dance soundtracks. Detroit-bred selector and producer, Sky Jetta — who often performs sets for rapper-singer Baby Tate — was raised on the techno subgenre of “booty music” or Ghettotech, bass-heavy hard dance tracks set to intensified speeds. But although Jetta, an on-off Chicago resident, has adopted juke music in her live performances and acknowledges Ghettotech as an enriching part of her musical origins, she nods to two global genres as current dance sensations.

“I feel like every DJ has a bit of amapiano in their sets currently. Just from the log drums and the feeling of that sound, it just resonates with most Black Americans,” Jetta tells Teen Vogue. “Another sound that's been making its way over here that's slowly growing is jungle, which is something that I've been getting more into.” The latter genre riffs on drum ‘n’ bass, with sharp breakbeats and cutting-edge syncopation; Jetta played it during the weekend of Detroit’s Movement Electronic Music Festival in May to check the crowd’s temperature on whether they had interest in jungle.

“I was a little scared to try jungle in Detroit [because] Chicago's a different wave when it comes to experimental sounds, but Detroit was really into it. And I'm like, ‘Okay, this is gonna be a sound I continue to put in my sets from now on,’” she says. She’ll also include the genre on her upcoming EP. “With so many different subgenres nowadays, it's easy for us to move into these spaces and also to put our own flair on them by doing mashups.”

A self-professed “gateway” into the genre is Nia Archives, who’s been making waves in her nearly five years of releasing music.

“I've been really enjoying 4/4 [BPM], 160-170 stuff. Obviously, jungle, a lot of happy hardcore vibes and also Ghettotech,” says Archives. “A lot of my friends are really into chopping up Ghettotech vocals and putting it on jungle beats. There's more space for Black women to feel comfortable, and not just as DJs and producers, [but] also as ravers and people that are attending those parties.”

Wanting more room for Black women as musicians and ravers, Archives has also had gripes with institutions and franchises that don’t respect Black artists in dance music; she penned a letter to the MOBO Awards in 2022 calling attention to the lack of dance music categories and the severe underrepresentation of Black dance culture. Best Electronic/Dance Act would later be re-implemented in the presentation, but Archives still notices modern dance music being widely devoid of Black virtuosos being acknowledged as such, including many who are descendents of house and techno originators.

“I think sometimes people kind of forget the origins of dance music and that it was pioneered by gay Black [men] in Chicago and Detroit. Some of those pioneers are forgotten, sadly,” Archives adds, referring to Chicago’s Ron Hardy, Frankie Knuckles, and Detroit’s Belleville Three. “That separation between the kind of people who pioneered the sound and maybe the people that are most commercially viable in the scene, currently, there's a bit of a disconnect there.”

Also giving context to why Black women are overlooked in dance is Swazi DJ and producer Uncle Waffles, whose signature amapiano sound came from being raised on house and South African kwaito. Although she notes that amapiano tunes like Tyla’s breakout single “Water” are “showing that you don't necessarily [need to] understand the language to feel the song,” she admits that being a Black woman in dance music can still be an uphill battle of its own.

“Being a female that does something that they don't consider ordinary — because people expect DJs to just DJ,” says Waffles, who references her energetic DJ style. “You go on social media and other people react to females who dance [and DJ] as, ‘Nah, she's not even really playing,’ because they don't understand that you can perform and play. So I think it’s still quite niche and emerging. People are still adapting to it quite well, because here I am, but people are not allowing [artists] to experiment within our spaces.”

Waffles embarked on her first headlining tour, Less Talk, More Piano, earlier this month, but she doesn’t want to be one of the few Black women seeing worldwide visibility. Instead, she seeks more live platforms curated by and catered to them.

“We need more space for women [as] headliners because they've proven that they bring something special,” Waffles urges. “In 2024, we shouldn't be having any ‘Oh, first Black female to headline something.’ That doesn't make sense anymore, so I'm hoping that we see a lot more people get the recognition they deserve.”

Also attesting to Black women being “the heartbeats to music culture” is DJ Miss Milan, the official DJ for Doechii, who’s recently been exploring hardcore and techno rave on singles “MPH” and the JT-featured “Alter Ego.” Of Bajan descent, the Queens-raised Milan credits amapiano and Afrobeats as her current DJ set repeats; she grew up on soca, calypso, dancehall, reggae, and kompa. “I have a very diverse palette of music, just being Carribean. Anytime I play any parties, I like to infuse all of those cultural vibes to it, to give people the essence of who I am,” she says.

With eight years of DJing under her belt — including a dream slot with Doechii as openers for Beyoncé on the LA stop of the Renaissance World Tour — DJ Miss Milan now looks to launch her own dance party series with women DJs on the lineup.

“The range of people, especially us women and DJs, producers that are doing this, not only DJing but making the music, is definitely outside,” says Milan. “We did create it, and it's time that we get our credit for it in its fullness and have everyone see who really is behind the amazing vibes that you all love to dance to and embody.”

Surely, the expertise of Black women is sweeping as they continue to bring impetus to dance music. It’s about time that we take notice, extend long-overdue flowers, and make their influence heard. It’s time we dance along.

Originally Appeared on Teen Vogue

Want more great Culture stories from Teen Vogue? Check these out:

  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next
  • Up next

Latest Stories