Tina Edwards is a music multi-hyphenate, recognised as an international DJ, broadcaster, curator and music journalist.
Spotlighting new music is what makes Tina’s heart race, and 170k+ followers on Instagram appreciate her for it. On the radio, she’s premiered tracks and interviewed both huge names and rising artists on Worldwide FM, BBC Radio 3, Soho Radio, Tokyo’s J-Wave, Bandcamp Weekly and much more. In 2024, she’ll be fronting a brand new podcast series.
With her degree in Music Journalism, she expresses her love for music with the pen, too. She’s Editor for Listen Zine, which she works on with the creative team at high-end speaker brand KEF. Each issue is genre-less and focused on a different global scene, enabling Tina to take readers on a journey through her eclectic recommendations. She’s also written for The Guardian, The Telegraph, Monocle, Composer, Mixmag and many more music and culture publications.
Learning to DJ just before the pandemic landed, Tina’s name has been rising steadily on International line-ups, now sitting alongside some of the artists that she’s been supporting. Her penchant for eclectism, with jazz and club culture at the core, have seen her share line-ups with fellow DJs including Coco Maria, Colleen ‘Cosmo’ Murphy, Toy Tonics, LeftO, Gilles Peterson, and many more. She’s performed at festivals such as North Sea Jazz, Lost Village, XJazz Berlin, Wilderness and many more.
Come to her bi-annual Jazz dancefloor parties Love Is Everywhere at GROW Hackney, and you’ll find a following of dedicated dancers that come to hear Tina play jazz, samba, latin, house and more from her rotating selection of records.
Tina’s been curating both live and DJ line-ups for several years, and has been of the most vocal cheerleaders for UK Jazz that you could find; she booked the likes of Sons of Kemet, Yussef Kamaal, KOKOROKO, Nubya Garcia all early on in their journeys, for shows as varied as SXSW, The Great Escape and various UK residencies. Not to mention CHICAGOxLONDON; an ambitious project that she curated with her successful multimedia blog EZH (2014-2018) with label International Anthem. It brought together the biggest names in UK and Chicago Jazz, forging music relationships which are strong today.
It’s all of this that led her to presenting BBC One TV documentary Jazz UK: Spitting Fire. Check out the accompanying playlist with thousands of followers.
Today, Tina is curating events and making playlists alongside Tim Garcia under re:sonate, and co-running Queer Jazz, a platform that spotlights LGBTQIA+ jazz artists. She’s a DJ in demand Internationally, with a busy Summer of festivals ahead. She broadcasts monthly on Soho Radio and is in production for the sixth series of her British Airways new music series, Next Big Thing; it’s listened to my millions of passengers every year. Check out the adjoining playlist on Spotify.
Tina is also a vocal cheerleader for neurodiverse people in the music industry, and has written a book proposal about the relationship between Jazz and ADHD which she’s yet to pitch.
Tina is interested in opportunities to spotlight music across TV, radio, playlisting, curation, written word and more.
“Essential jazz into dance selections every time - Gilles Peterson
“Expert crate-digging and impeccable mixing intuition… a style defined by a bridging of jazz and club culture” She Said So
“YOU ABSOLUTELY SMASHED IT… THE GEM OF THE FESTIVAL FOR US” LOST VILLAGE DANCER
SPRING/SUMMER 24
3 May - Love is Everywhere, The Yard, Manchester with warm-up from NikNak
4 May - Djoon, Paris
11 May - Detour Discoteque, Switzerland
18 May - Love is Everwhere, GROW Hackney, London, with Patrick Forge
23 May - Clerkenwell Design Week closing party, London
25 May - Leeds Jazz Festival, UK
26 May - Cobalt, Newcastle
27 June - BLOODY GLASTONBURY!!!
27 July - Camp Bestival, UK
8 August - We Out Here, UK
Lots more TBA including Australia dates
BROADCAST
MUSIC JOURNALISM
I’m a Music Journalist specialing in Jazz, club culture and underground music. I’ve written for Composer, Monocle, WeJazz, The Telegraph, The Guardian, Mixmag, Downbeat, Selamta (Ethiopian Airlines), Carlyle and Co (Hong Kong) and more.
I’m Editor of Listen Zine presented by high audio speaker brand KEF. It’s a printed zine that zooms into the underground music scene of a particular city, with Issue 1 focusing on Amsterdam, and Issue 2 on Tokyo. Issue 3 on London comes later in 2024, The zines are distributed across the world with an adjoining event in the featured city. I’m incredibly proud of it.
You can read my monthly column Slow Listening on KEF’s sister website, Sound of Life.
Contact me with commissions.
Leon Vynehall on finding creative liberation through composing for the screen
COMPOSER MAGAZINE
“This reads like a war story”, says Leon Vynehall, recounting the first time he went through the script for ITV’s harrowing three-part drama, Breathtaking.
Slow Listening: What Goes Into a Great DJ Mix – And How It Can Make Me Cry
monthly column for SOUND OF LIFE, KEF
An acapella vocal from Stevie Wonder’s “I Wish” launches the set, his voice spaciously placing the anticipation high. The high hat teases its way in, with the kick landing sooner than expected. The addition of the bass sends ripples through the crowd…
MEET RUSH HOUR’S ANTAL
TAKEN FROM ISSUE 1 OF LISTEN ZINE, KEF
You have DJs—and then you have DJs who bring together worldwide communities. For Antal Heitlager, the medium and symbol for communion is Rush Hour.
Celebrating the life of Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou
selamta magazine, ethiopian arlines
In March 2023, we lost an exceptional woman: musician and nun, Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou, who would have turned 100 years old in December 2023. Her life tells a story that is as moving and as eventful as any film.
Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross on emotively scoring 'Bones and All'
COMPOSER MAGAZINE
When Composer asked if I would interview living legends Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, I had to exercise restraint, not to WhatsApp the school friends that I’m no longer in touch with - the ones that I listened to Nine Inch Nails with as a teenager, whilst we drank on the beach and watched the sun reach towards the sand.