Drum & Bass in Focus: Vispera
The MC has been part of jungle and Drum & Bass culture since its inception. Their role is to keep the energy through the roof, to connect the DJ with the crowd and to guide the audience through the night. They’re known and respected within the community, they’re loud, they’re charismatic, and they have a whole lot to say. And – more often than not – they’re male.
But with the recent resurgence of D&B, more and more women have started making the move towards MCing, and many of them are delivering messages that the D&B crowd might not have heard before.
Vispera is one of them.
From Poet to MC
Eve Piper was a shy kid. She preferred to sit back and observe what was going on around her than steal the show. But that all changed when she went to her first slam poetry workshop as a teen. Suddenly, all those observations bubbled up to the surface and came out in the form of astute, quick-fire bars.
Born and raised in Manchester, Eve immersed herself in the poetry scene at university in Bristol, and received mentorship at the Roundhouse in a Radio 1-sponsored programme called Words First. “At the same time, I was a full-on raver,” she says. “I was going to illegal raves and free parties. I loved the way it pushed boundaries. It was illicit, subversive, and I was writing about these themes in my poetry.”
It wasn’t long before those two passions combined. “I never really saw myself as a MC because I’m a white girl from Chorlton who was quite nerdy in school,” she laughs. “But I started making more friends and gradually built the confidence to put my spoken word stuff over the Drum & Bass beat and try to MC.”
That’s when Vispera was born.
Something to Say
Over lockdown, Eve teamed up with a DJ friend to secure a streaming residency at Goat Shed in Bristol, and then joined forces with diverse D&B collectives including Full Spectrum Bristol and Sisterhood Birmingham. “I got more confident, I learnt to host, and learnt how to influence the energy in the room,” she says. “You’re the bridge between the music and the ravers.”
Because she’s naturally quiet, it took time and practice to learn the skills it took to influence a crowd, but she was motivated by the fact that she had so much to say.
“There is a culture of misogyny within Drum & Bass, especially with some ends of the MC spectrum, and some of the messages put across in the raves angered me and gave me the fire to share a different narrative,” she says.
The Power of Community
Joining like-minded collectives helped strengthen Vispera’s purpose. She’s now flying the flag for female MCs in the UK, and she’s a resident artist for Phase Records, Sisterhood Birmingham and Off the Record 0161. She’s released four collaboration tracks since 2023 with the likes of Ominous, Gifta and Xyde, and she's about to drop her debut EP on September 12th via Dropjaw Audio.
As a concept, the Eden EP has been two years in the making, with four tracks created with producers based in the four cities she feels most connected to – Birmingham, London, Bristol and Manchester. “I wanted to honour my real name, which is Eve,” she says. “I wanted to re-think the story of the fall of man, and create an empowering feminist message. It’s an allegory of what it feels to be a female in a male-dominated scene.
The project spans the full-spectrum of the Drum & Bass sphere, from the dark, rolling rhythms of “COTR (Creatures of the Rave)” to the ethereal breaks of “Garden Path.” Vispera’s vocals glide from Biblical references to rave-lore, all of it underpinned by personal narratives that shine a feminist lens on the scene that she loves.
“The rave space is so important, sacred and meaningful, there’s moments of euphoria, real life memories and connections made, and the person who’s narrating that space has a responsibility to fill it with the right words,” she says. “I want my words to empower people – especially women.”
This sentiment is a breath of fresh air, and a true testament to the corner D&B has turned in recent years. Now, thanks to artists like Vispera, doors aren’t just opening for women. Women are the ones opening the doors.
