Entertainment
It’s difficult not to admire Julie Adenuga, Beats 1 anchor and all-round excellent woman. Whether she’s broadcasting grime to the globe, or mentoring aspiring music industry moguls, the 30-year-old North Londoner is constantly effecting change in her industry.
Raised in Tottenham — alongside older brothers and grime titans Skepta and JME — Adenuga broke into the industry by talking her way into a slot on Rinse FM, where she co-hosted a show with her best friend and current Radio 1Xtra DJ Sian Anderson. From there, her career accelerated: as reported by the Guardian, she gave up her retail job at an Apple store, took over the drive time slot on Rinse FM, then went global in 2015 with the launch of Apple’s radio station Beats 1. Whether she’s interviewing the likes of Cardi B, Pharrell Williams, or Stormzy, championing upcoming female artists like IAMDDB and Ms Banks, or memorising an entire verse of Quavo ad-libs, Adenuga is indisputably making radio magic. Oh, and NBD or anything, but she also made Forbes’ 30 Under 30 European Entertainment list last year.
Want to know how to be more like Adenuga? I've got you. Behold, a convenient list of some of her best quotes and moments. You’re welcome.
1
She's Self-Taught
When Adenuga and Sian Anderson started their Rinse FM show Mewzik Box, they weren’t exactly technically adept. “We’d just stop and start tunes,” Adenuga told The Fader. “We had no DJ experience, but we just played the music and were talking rubbish. It worked. Luckily.”
2
She Knows Who She Is
“[I went] through these phases of like, doing girly things, and thinking, I don’t like this,” Adenuga told The Fader. “Finding myself was basically going back to the original tomboy that I was, and remembering that I was cool.”
3
She Didn't Always Have It All Figured Out
“Growing up, I never knew what I wanted to do,” Adenuga admitted in Huck Magazine. “I didn’t have any aspiration to be anything.” But brothers Junior and Jamie – aka Skepta and JME – opened her eyes. “More than anything, Junior and Jamie didn’t make me feel like I wanted to be a creative person, they just made me realise that it was possible to be one. A lot of my life was spent understanding what was possible and then realising and acting upon that.”
4
She Pulls Others Up The Ladder With Her
In 2016, Adenuga and Sian Anderson launched One True Calling, a series of workshops to prepare 16 to 24-year-old Brits for a media career. She’s also a mentor to students at East London Arts & Music. And she’s even happy to help out music industry hopefuls who slide into her DMs – mentorship, she told Billboard, is “sometimes literally someone just sending a private message on one of my social media accounts”.
5
She's Multitalented
In 2016, Adenuga wrote and presented Skepta: Greatness Only, an Apple Music documentary on her older brother. In 2014, she hosted PLAYit, a TV show focusing on rising independent artists. She’s a music video star, one of a band of female brilliance in Stormzy’s "Big For Your Boots" video. And she sings too, popping up as a vocalist on several of JME’s tracks as well as sticking a tune or two on Instagram.
6
She's A Champion Of Inclusivity In Music
“There are places that some artists will never be, because they are a person that isn’t normally accepted in that world,” Adenuga told The Fader. “There are some artists that will never be on a late-night TV show, because they don’t fit into a certain box, because they don’t adhere to certain rules. I would change that. All platforms should be accessible to all artists.” She added, “I need to make a late-night TV show!” Julie, I couldn’t agree more.
7
She's Taking UK Genres Global
Adenuga’s committed to securing grime, only officially recognised as a genre on Spotify this year, the respect it deserves. “I just want to make sure people understand it,” she told Notion Magazine. Her influence doesn’t stop with grime – as she said in The Guardian, “Every time I play [UK genres] drum’n’bass or jungle, I’ll get a lot of people who are just hearing the genres for the first time, and who are like mesmerised by it. So that’s a great feeling.”
