Get to know Tygapaw, Brooklyn's finest r'n'b vibesmith

Dion Mckenzie wants to tell you about her accent. “When I came to New York I felt there was a lot of stereotyping,” she explains in a voice that flits between generic American and lilting Jamaican. “People made the assumption that you can’t be Jamaican unless you’re speaking patois, and I found that very frustrating.” Then again, fitting in with people’s expectations has never been Tygapaw’s thing. Growing up in Jamaica in the culturally mixed town of Mandeville (“It’s where a lot of British colonialists originally settled” she explains, “so I was around a lot of American and British kids”) it was the alternative US rock MTV played that she initially fell for, rather than the island’s own musical exports. “Reggae and dancehall is second nature to me,” she tells us. “You hear that coming out of the womb, but I got consumed by grunge music and the rock they’d play on MTV2. I’d never heard music like that, being Jamaican!”

By the time Tygapaw reached her late teens, her sexuality had her feeling ostracised and even in danger in her native country, so she set off to study at New York’s Parsons School of Design. “It was exciting when I first got there,” she tells us. “Seeing all these queer kids completely open. But it was also kind of scary because so many things were alien to me.”

It was while studying in New York that she threw herself into music, first teaching herself guitar, then forming a band called My M.O., and at last launching herself as Tygapaw.

“Tygapaw’s the identity that I’ve always wanted to have,” she tells us. “I’m quite introverted really, but Tygapaw is the side of me that’s confident on stage and has attitude, but is warm too.”

Since settling on the name nearly a decade ago, Tygapaw has built a solid reputation in New York and beyond as a DJ, for hosting her genre-hopping parties Fake Accent, and as a producer of deeply emotive and elegant r’n’b inspired electronica in the mould of FKA Twigs or Kelela.

With a new EP dropping in the next few months expect more ethereal delights very soon. “Music’s an emotional experience for me, imbued with all the things I’ve gone through in my life,” she explains. “I’m going to call it ‘sad girl music for the club’.”

Tygapaw is in the Smirnoff Sound Collective. Find out more: Mixmag.net/soundcollective