Desta French

Growing up in Camden, north London, Desta has been ingrained in a more animated culture from a young age. As well as her Italian father, Desta’s mother is Colombian. Some of her earliest influences came from the music her mother would play around the house, groups like Grupo Niche and Cumbia, a kind of rhythm and dance genre which resembles the country’s own brand of folk music. And then there were the parties, which took place with a high frequency in Desta’s childhood and continued as she grew older. “There were communion parties,” she explains. “Til 5 or 6, Salsa all night long. At mine or my mum’s friends or auntie’s house.” From this young age Desta was always creating. At first, she would sing toplines into her phone while riding the London Underground around the city. But it was only later, after taking up a university course in Drama and Latin studies, that she was able to bring her work into the present.

“I became obsessed with the music and creating the sound. I believe it’s important to create a sound and an identity. That’s the whole point: to create a form of expression that’s distinct and different to everything else,” she says of the time. And so Desta French was born.