Get to know Mollie Collins, the breakthrough drum 'n' bass sensation

From the £1-a-pint student mash-up at the Tap ’n’ Tin in Chatham to the international festival circuit in less than 18 months: Mollie Collins’ volcanic rise is as unprecedented as it is thrilling. So fast, in fact, has her ascent to the upper echelons of the d’n’b world been that despite lining up alongside Andy C, Roni Size and 50 Cent this summer, she still holds down a weekly residency at the pub in Kent where it all began.

“I still play every Monday,” she laughs. “It was my training ground. There’s only room for about 100 people on the dancefloor and it’s absolutely rammed every week.” No danger of getting carried away, then – although the magnetic 20-year-old could be forgiven. With a name that rolls off the tongue, a skate-punk aesthetic and a lightning-fast three-deck mixing style that saw her crowned Best Breakthrough DJ at the National Drum ’n’ Bass Awards in March, Collins appears so ready-made for the big time she could have been created by a marketing agency. “Seeing fans wearing T-shirts with my name on is mad,” she says almost apologetically – as if she’s somehow undeserving of the hype that has enveloped her ever since she won a mixtape competition, earned the reward of a gig in Belgium, and promptly got snapped up by Mampi Swift’s Charge Recordings stable without having produced a single track.