Meet Bambii, the genre-blending producer who just won her 1st Juno

Welcome to Meet the Producers, a CBC Music series that highlights Canadian producers making waves in their respective genres. Producers are integral to building the backbone of the songs we love: they turn ideas into fully fleshed creations, and because so much of what they do happens behind the scenes, we wanted to shed a light on them. 

What happens when jungle, dancehall, breakbeat and house music come together? The answer is Toronto DJ and producer Bambii's debut 2023 EP, Infinity Club. 

A stalwart of her city's dance music scene for over a decade, Bambii is known for DJ sets with unexpected blends: merging fast-paced dance music with global sounds from Brazil to the U.K., and genres from her homeland of Jamaica. Those influences made their way onto the high-octane, innovative and irresistibly sensuous Infinity Club, which won Bambii her first Juno for electronic album of the year. 

During Bambii's acceptance speech at the 2024 Juno Opening Night Awards, she spoke about how much her city inspires her, and how its underground artists are moving the needle forward. "I've been all around the world and there's nothing that compares to my city, the real city," she said. "Queer, Caribbean immigrants, there's so many women making music that you don't know about, you need to know about them … the Canadian music industry needs the future, you need to do your research."

She's been outspoken over the years about the barriers to entry that women face getting into production and the technical side of musing-making, and told CBC Music in November 2023 that the movement toward affordable, at-home studio setups has been a boon.

"Only two per cent of producers are women, and it's been democratizing to be able to control the [music-making] context," she said. "Sometimes in the studio with men, they can be a bit condescending, and as soon as you feel like you're in front of people that think you're incapable or think that you are not their peer in the medium, all the freedom to experiment falls away." 

Bambii released her first song, "Nitevision" featuring Pamputtae, in 2019. After dropping a slew of singles over the years — while simultaneously touring around the world, DJing at storied venues including Berghain in Berlin and Printworks in London — she hunkered down and worked on Infinity Club, which came out in August 2023. "One Touch," the standout single, was named best new track by Pitchfork, and Infinity Club as a whole was reviewed favourably by the Guardian and NME. 

The Bambii sound, dissected 

Bambii got her start as a DJ in the early 2010s and eventually tried her hand at production because she was craving a new way to communicate artistically.

"You start DJing, then you start making your own [song] edits and then you begin to forge an identity [as a DJ] and then the natural thing obviously is just wanting to make your own music."

The limitlessness of electronic music is at the forefront of Bambii's production style: she merges what otherwise might be discordant sounds with ease, creating a borderless and new musical language. Always rooted in the sounds of the Caribbean and the global south, her productions are inventively surprising sonic journeys, aptly on display on her recently released "1000" genre mix. 

In 2022, Bambii was tapped by Kelela to help produce eight of the tracks on the American singer's long-awaited new album, Raven, released in February 2023. The album deftly toys with the line between dance and R&B music, and Bambii's imprint is all over it. Her bass-heavy production and propensity for bold drums crop up on album tracks "Contact" and "On the Run" (she also makes an appearance in the music video for the latter). But when the critically acclaimed singer and producer first approached her, Bambii declined because she had such little music out. 

"I was feeling very intimidated by that task and being asked by someone who I'm a huge fan of. We had become friends throughout the pandemic, talking on the phone and swapping demos."

Kelela was persistent, though, and once Bambii accepted the offer, she flew to New York and immediately started working on the album. Other producers involved in bringing the songs to life included Kaytranada, LSDXOXO and Asmara, artists whose music Bambii was familiar with from playing it often in her DJ sets. The producers were rarely in the same room together because of the pandemic, but Bambii said she learned a lot from watching other people's works in progress, seeing songs go from drafts and sketches to fully fleshed out tracks.  

There were lessons she learned from Kelela that she applied directly to her own music, telling the Fader that "working with [Kelela] gave me a sense of building narratives in songs, which definitely carried over into 'Ride With Me' and 'Hooked.' I'm much more verse-hook-bridge focused than when I first started making music." 

After hearing the payoff from those sessions on Infinity Club, it's clear Bambii's music has reached a whole new echelon. Her next project, coming later in 2024, is sure to take listeners on an even wilder ride. 

Stay tuned every month for new instalments of Meet the Producers to discover more Canadian producers who are making hits and pushing boundaries.