House Music All Life Long: Smokin Jo.

In 1992 Smokin Jo was the first woman to win DJ Magazine’s DJ of the Year Award. Shockingly, she remains the sole female recipient in 2026. I’m not one for awards and the top down competitive environment it fosters, not to mention the cultivation for external validation that it would be beneficial for us to counter in ourselves and others, but if we are going to have awards let’s try and say something important with them. 

In a sense Jo’s autobiography, You Don’t Need A Dick To DJ, to be released in paperback on the 11th this month, is a visceral rebuttal to the underrepresentation exemplified by DJ mag. A successful, Black, bisexual artist who earned kudos the hard way. Both speaking to her for this interview and much of her book lay out racist and misogynistic tropes that her existence as a headline DJ challenges. 

The book, both humorous and searingly candid, follows her life from tough formative years to her rise as one of house music’s most prominent DJs. It takes in a vibrant seventies West London, to the city’s fertile underground subcultures of the eighties, the nineties queer scene, Ibiza, an international DJing career and an industrial capacity for emptying the drugs jar that would lead to rehab aged forty where the book opens, to the present. 

If you’ve not read it (and I urge you to do so), there are many wonderful anecdotes of a life lived fast, but there is a more important story, almost picaresque, of growing up under exceptionally challenging circumstances and still making it to the top of the line-up. “I was quite a vivacious kid, I think I was fun, but they tore that out of me and I just ended up being super shy, very reserved, and absolutely hating myself. I didn't want to be Black. I didn't want to be a girl. I was depressed, sometimes suicidal,” she says over Zoom. “I was self-harming and using brillo pads to scrub my skin clean because I felt I was dirty. The man who ran the orphanage was a paedophile and he was abusing all the kids. I probably was abused but I can’t remember anything. I honestly don’t have any memories.” 

Growing up in institutional care from seven months till nine years old, the first couple of chapters read like a modern Dickensian tale with the added trauma of systemic racism. 

“The home was in Roehampton where I lived with my sister,” she says. “At school I was surrounded by all these blonde, blue-eyed kids who came from very wealthy families and lived in big houses. I can’t speak for everyone but my experience growing up Black was generally feeling like a second-class citizen, of never being good enough,” she says. “Things are changing for many, but back then being Black was never a positive for me. There was no encouragement, no one saying we were loved, or pretty, or wanted. It was all negative: you’re ugly, you’re nothing, even your mother didn’t want you.”

Her mother did eventually come for her and her sister, Dee, when she was nine, taking them to live with her on Portobello Road. No questions were asked, she was too grateful to be away from the orphanage. Hanging out in seventies Notting Hill with friends, by eleven she was taking speed, poppers, and the occasional puff of weed. “It was to mask my sadness and depression. I just didn’t want to be me.” 

By fourteen the city’s burgeoning illegal rave scene beckoned. “London was vibrant. There were so many scenes you could be part of and being Black sometimes was positive in some of those places. You could be a new romantic, you could be a punk, and I was going to all the rare groove nights,” she says. “Then later on it was more places like Taboo, and all the gay clubs because I felt safe, everyone loved me. I’ve got this deep voice, a lot of guys just thought, “Oh, she's a guy.” I was ambiguous, androgynous, and I loved it. The best music was on the gay scene back then. I loved disco and whatever else they were playing.”

The sense of belonging that had long eluded her was lessened by the new chosen families she found. “It felt energetic and free, and I was able to be myself. I didn't have to conform, so I’d wear crazy shit and dye my hair pink. Soho was amazing, it had this energy that made me feel part of it. I felt like a Londoner more than ever around there, especially in the gay clubs.” 

Clocking up the hours on countless dance floors as a clubber, she had noticed the dearth of women DJs. “There were a few women like DJ Rap, Nancy (Noise), Lisa Loud, and Princess Julia, but I can’t remember any Black female DJs back then.” Deciding to remedy the situation, she bought herself some decks for home and quickly developed a heavy vinyl habit, hanging around Black Market Records for the latest releases and US imports. The sets she recorded on to cassette she sold from under the counter at her job at Junior Gaultier on Foubert’s Place, and gradually small bookings started to come in. 

These gigs became more frequent as she steadily built a reputation and following. A last minute cancellation by DJ Martin Confusion from his weekly residency resulted in her being asked to stand in. Deciding to give a new, untested DJ the dec

ks seems quite bonkers today, it’s even more startling when that club was the legendary after hours pill-fest Trade. The gig was a success, she was asked back and quickly became a resident. Martin Confusion lost his gig, but I guess that’s showbiz. 

For those of us of a certain age and disposition, you’ll likely remember first hearing about Smokin Jo from here, a pit of sweat-coated, chemically charged queers stomping to the beat of a drum you couldn’t hear anywhere else except Turnmills after 3am on a Sunday morning. It was a truly wild place, bopping your way through muscle mary alley to one of the liveliest dance floors I’ve been on. Everyone was muntered, talking shit in the cafe that no one ate in or not-so-discreetly buying pills from under the stairs. There’s not been a gay club like it in London before or since.  Trade in its time was an institution, laying down a pioneering sound and hardcore hedonism that had an influence far beyond London's queer underground. To bag a residency there as a Black woman was both groundbreaking and a great move into a fully fledged international DJ career. 

I didn’t know Jo back then, I barely knew myself in that place, but I was aware of her looking fierce in the booth and turning out on-point house that created a vibe. “Those guys lifted me and that propelled me into getting more gigs. For whatever reason, gay men love Black women. I’ve got a lot of gratitude for the gay scene,” she says. 

The music in many gay clubs shifted from the straight up US house played at parties like Queer Nation to a harder sound. Trade followed this pattern, shifting away from its house roots to a more hard house and techno policy that wasn’t Jo’s thing. DJs like Malcolm Duffy and Alan Thompson kept the house going for the early part of the night, but it increasingly became known for harder sounds that weren't to her taste. It was poignant to move on from a night she felt so attached to, but the opportunities it gave opened up a whole new world. Today, in the building that replaced Turnmills, the meeting rooms have been named after Trade residents. The Smokin Jo room is there hosting far less raucous get togethers than that cafe did in the nineties.

You’ll need to read the book to get the real scoop on a career that blew up internationally. While her career took her to places reserved for a very select few, the legacy of her earlier life experiences keeps a humble tone towards her own achievements. It has many funny and dramatic moments, as well as disturbing and depressingly regular incidents of racism and misogyny, some vile enough to end in physical threat and even violence. 

There is a chaotic nature to much of what she writes of her years as a touring DJ: peak Keith Richard level of drug consumption (one disclosure because it’s so good: she went up to a police van at an 80s illegal rave so nutted she asked for a 99 Flake), the cost of low self-worth and the ensuing dysfunctional relationships, the craziness of being part of the hardcore party crowd year in, year out. The later parts of the book portray her personal growth and commitment to self-development, getting into therapy and self-admitting to rehab.  

“Drugs weren’t the problem for me, despite all the partying I did I don’t have an addictive personality. What they were great at was covering my sadness and depression. I didn’t want to be me and they were effective at allowing me to feel different. And I absolutely loved much of it,” she says. “Being with friends, partying, house music. Sure, we were all escaping, but a lot of it was bloody great. It just became too much. When you’re still going on Wednesday, that little voice starts telling you maybe this isn’t so healthy.” 

She continues that part of the attraction of alcohol and drugs was recognising that she was a shy person and that it was her relationship with herself that was causing the behaviour.

“I was so happy when I came out of rehab, because I felt whole. My body was warm inside whereas before I felt empty and cold.” I heard a wonderful quote by Durand Bernard at his gig recently: “The trauma isn’t our fault, but the healing is our responsibility.” She took ownership of that responsibility. 

Music and DJing remains central to her life, complemented by her other career as a yoga instructor. As well as teaching formal classes, her Smokin Joga classes set to deep house sets she has pre-mixed create the yin to nightlife’s yang. She’s also founded a scholarship in her name that covers the tuition fees for a three year BA in DJ and Electronic Music Production with ICMP (Institue of Contemporary Music Performance). 

“I never had a leg up and this will mean that someone who is underrepresented, who doesn’t have the resources to go to college, has a chance to go. You have to upload some of your music and a mix and then I will judge it with someone from the college.” (Link below.) 

The nightlife industry has changed enormously since her first gigs. As money has poured in it has had to professionalise to manage the scale of the electronic music worlds. What were niche productions of the early 80s, mostly by Black and often gay producers for likeminded audiences, have mutated into protean musical forms and gone on to take over the world. But the representation of those pioneering people is woefully lacking. 

A glance over DJ Magazine’s current top 100 DJs is overwhelmingly white men. Carl Cox, Gordo, Black Coffee, Honey Dijon, Jamie Jones are the only people of colour. White women are marginally better represented, but not by much. Back when she won the editors chose the winner, which perhaps explains why what diversity there was in the selection was lost when the vote was put to the readers. Although even then, unlike nearly all the other winners, they put her image a few pages in rather than the cover. To add insult to injury, the added a horrible filter that discoloured her beautiful natural colour.

It's nothing against David Guetta, I've never met him but he’s a lovely man by all accounts, but do his and peers like Martin Garrix and Dimitri Vega & Like Mike's multiple wins reflect the depth and range of today’s electronic music, let alone its Black and often queer roots? It’s something that Jo is frustrated by. 

“Look at Black music in general. Look at Elvis. They take from the culture and because they’ve got more money they’re able to go further. All the really big earning DJs are white men save a couple of women. Unfortunately, and I’m certainly not referring to all white people here, but most venue festival owners and people with real power in the industry are still straight white men and they book other white men. Black and gay people generally don’t have that power. Things are changing, but it’s still a glaring difference. There are amazing Black and women DJs but they don’t get booked for the bigger clubs and gigs as much.” 

She also recognises that the scale of some gigs has changed their nature, differentiating between ‘the show’ of Vegas-type events and the underground grass roots of club culture. “The true essence of the scene was not playing to a million people at once. That underground music probably doesn't translate to over a million people where you have these enormous light shows. So the Black DJs, the gay DJs are generally playing a little bit more niche music and it’s not going to be seen in the same way.” 

The impact of phones and social media on younger audiences she also says plays a part in what club culture looks and feels like. “I think the underground, the cheeky little clubs, that’s what’s being lost. Kids don't feel like they're able to be naughty anymore. We could get up to all sorts and have illegal parties, but those spaces don’t exist any more and even if they did everyone’s got their phones out and no one wants to be uploaded to Instagram off their tits. But also, times have changed, I think many of them that go to those enormous events are having the time of their life. It’s something different to underground clubbing that we grew up with.” 

She sees flickers of the old spirit reigniting. “I recently played at Univers [Ibiza] actually, which is that massive club that used to be Privilege, which I would never have gone to, but they said, you know, we're booking you to play in the apartment, and it has a no-phones policy. They said I could play whatever I wanted, and that there's only a hundred people in there,” she says. “Oh my god, it was so fucking cool. The sound system was amazing, and it actually looks like an apartment, so it's all black with sofas, and they've got big windows so you can look out as the sun's coming up.”

The spirit of house lives on. And while you won’t be seeing the sun coming up from Eagle, we will be playing on-point house from her and Mark Westhenry on June 13th all night long. 

Words: Martyn Fitzgerald

Smokin Jo will be playing her favourite house tracks past and present at Handsome, Eagle London, on Saturday June 13th. Tickets available here.

Details for the Smokin Jo DJ bursary BA (Hons) DJ and Electronic Music Production can be found here. 

You can pre-order the paperback of You Don’t Need A Dick To DJ from any of these stores.