For Marla Kether, the dancefloor is a space for community-building and collective joy

The bassist, producer, DJ and Kilengi Dance Party founder reflects on reconnecting with her Congolese heritage through music, learning through collaboration, and how shared intention can turn a crowd into a community.

Marla Kether’s journey as a musician is one rooted in curiosity and collaboration. She discusses these values as if second nature, and it was precisely that sensibility that set her on the path leading to where she is today. 

As a second-year Chemistry student and Jazz, Funk and Soul Society committee member at the University of Bristol, Kether invited members of London jazz quintet Ezra Collective to join a jam after their Bristol show. A few days later, having flexed her talent to discerning ears, Kether received a text from singer-songwriter Yazmin Lacey’s manager, marking the beginning of a steady stream of session appearances for some of the UK’s most acclaimed artists.

As a bassist, Kether has toured internationally with the likes of Little Simz, Obongjayar, and Loyle Carner. Nowadays, though, it’s her own name on the bill. Recently announced tour dates advertise her very first headline shows, as well as a string of EU appearances in support of legendary funk outfit Cymande, where she will debut her seven-piece band. 

Having discovered her artistic voice through the bass guitar, she later expanded her repertoire into different mediums. Marla’s production credits date back to 2023 when she released her debut EP All That We Have on Saffron Records: her alma mater, having completed the Bristol organisation’s Artist Development course. Kether collaborated with five different artists on five tracks, each one taking inspiration from a genre native to a particular global diaspora. Afro house, batacuda and Congolese soukous are married together effortlessly, bound by their shared warm, soulful spirit.

Whilst demonstrating the ease with which Kether can locate her own musicality across a myriad of distinct styles, it also underscored her creative MO. Here, she reflects on how collaboration and community have shaped each stage of her career, and how she channels those principles today.

What are your early memories of experiencing community through music?

As a teenager, I went to The Centre for Young Musicians at Morley College, and later joined the Audrey Young Musicians – a programme based in Suffolk during school holidays. There, I took courses run by musicians who specialised in different styles: Indian classical, gospel, Latin, and musical theatre. I learned a lot from that experience, not just from the teaching itself, but also through the practice of collaborating. It really opened up my mind and made me a better musician.

A few years down the line, you joined the University of Bristol’s Jazz, Funk and Soul Society, which, in many ways, set you on the path leading to where you are today. In what ways did that experience influence your idea of community and music?

I guess it’s the very nature of jazz music in a sense. In classical music, improvisation isn’t necessarily a standard part of practice. Jazz, however, is a lot more free – jamming and collaboration are fundamental. I’ve learned so much from collaborating with people and seeing how they approach things. Some vocalists I’ve worked with, for example, get the melody down first and fit the lyrics with it afterwards. That taught me that, even though I’m not a lyricist myself, I could still write melodic parts for vocalists. Elsewhere, when I compose parts for other musicians, I learn a lot from the distinct ways they interpret and transform them into their own. I’ll take their version or approach and combine it with the original. That’s a really amazing part of jazz language. 

Why do you think some musicians shy away from collaboration?

There can be a high level of bureaucracy in collaborative projects, especially if managers are involved. I think that can scare some people away. It’s impossible to decipher exactly how the work has been divided, and you can get caught in a back-and-forth arguing over percentage splits. I would never say I wrote every part that my band plays. Objectively, that would be impossible because I don’t play all those instruments. It’s much easier to let go of your ego when you develop a genuine appreciation for musicianship. I actively want individuals’ musicianship on my tracks – it makes for much better music!

How did your sense of community develop when you began to experiment with DJing?

I joined the Saffron Music community in 2020 because I saw that Tash LC was doing a Mix Nights online workshop, and I just loved the mixture of music she played. Then, I started submitting my own tracks for feedback in [Saffron Music]’s Tech Dissect sessions. Even when I didn’t have anything new to submit, I continued going to the sessions just to meet like-minded people. After sessions, other participants and I would share notes and discuss certain points. That felt like a really concrete form of community-building.

 

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As well as being a DJ, you’re a promoter and keen club-goer. When have you witnessed music’s power to bring a dancefloor of people together?

Sharing in music is an important part of the human experience. If you think about work songs, love songs, protest songs, you can see that music has unified people for millennia. When people come together on a dancefloor, it’s to say, ‘I want to hear this particular type of music on a sound system with other people, and not just at a portable speaker at home’. It sounds cheesy, but music is so powerful in its potential to bring people of different backgrounds and cultures together. I went to a party called BaianaSystem at Outernet a few weeks ago. Even though the room was primarily Brazilian and I don’t share that heritage, we’d all been brought together by our shared intention.

How has music brought you closer to your heritage?

I’ve only been to Congo twice in my life, but I grew up on soukous music and Congolese food, so I managed to maintain quite an intimate connection to my heritage that way. Watching concert recordings or music videos by artists like Koffi Olomide, I got a sense of the people and the community out there. Even though I don’t have the same mother tongue as most Congolese people, I can discern the melodies of their music. That really helps me connect to the culture.