When Elaina ‘Len’ Ioanou was a 10-year-old, she spent hours watching English MC and rapper Skepta on TV.

In December, the 36-year-old will be DJing at Australia’s Beyond the Valley, where he is also performing.

“I actually cannot believe I’m saying it,” Len says.

“That line-up is crazy.”

Alongside Skepta, other artists include Black Eyed Peas, The Veronicas, Armand Van Helden and a couple more of Len’s personal favourites, John Summit and KI/KI.

Considering she only bought her first set of decks when Covid hit, and learnt how to use them by watching YouTube videos, it is almost the definition of a ‘pinch me’ moment.

Born in London, in the UK, to her Greek Cypriot dad and Jamaican mum, Leni spent most of her life in Essex, though did spend some time in her mum’s home country.

Unsurprisingly, she grew up with lots of reggae, thanks to her mum, who is also musical, and dub, which led into UK garage with her dad, a huge music fan who also plays the base and sax.

While other girls her age were listening to “silly girl band stuff”, 9-year-old Len’s first CD was Wamdue Project’s King of My Castle, “a really big house track”.

Her passion was further encouraged when she was given a “massive, old school sound system, like a subwoofer, for my room”.

“I just to just take to it when I got home — I’d just put my CDs on, and I’d have them blaring in my bedroom.”

But it took about 20 years before Len decided to turn her passion into a profession.

She worked as a chef for 15 years, including after landing in Queenstown about eight years ago, before she properly started chasing her dream, as a DJ and producer, five years ago.

While Len freely admits it has not been easy to break into the music scene — nothing has been handed to her, and most of her early gigs were freebies — she was grateful some doors opened early on, such as Surreal’s ‘Sunday Sesh’, “one of the biggest nights in Queenstown”.

“It was insane.

“People hanging off the roof, like a proper Project X party every single Sunday.”

She has continued to build her reputation and career, believing once given an opportunity, her music “just speaks for itself”.

Len is not really sure what it is that separates her from the herd, but suggests there is a “bounce” in her music, which subconsciously provides permission to party.

As to her inspirations, one of the biggest is British DJ and producer Sam Divine, who also started “from nothing”.

Divine has been sober about 18 months, while Len was sober for almost a year, and now limits herself to one drink, on occasion.

She made the decision to gain control back.

“Stopping the drinking changed my life,” she says.

While Len has been quietly building her DJ Lenni Vibe brand on social media, she has also accidentally gone viral with her partner of seven years, Georgia Holmes, through their Instagram account, @lenandgeediaries.

What started as a bit of fun has snowballed — the account now has 22,500 followers and last month their reels had 10 million views.

The hope, Len says, is to eventually monetise it so Georgia, who is autoimmune, can take a step back from their cleaning business, Clean Queen.

While the couple do have plans to get married and start a family, Len says her focus right now is on building her career, to ensure they are in a financial position to provide for their children.

To do that, inevitably, they will have to leave the Wakatipu, she says.

“I’m doing really well from here, but it’s so capped at what I can do.

“I want an agent, eventually, someone who can book me shows overseas, across Australia and stuff, just to bigger audiences, really.

“It’s been a journey, it’s been a grind, but we are getting there, slowly — the doors are starting to open.”

tracey.roxburgh@scene.co.nz

  • DJ Lenni Vibe’s performing during next week’s Snow Machine — her gigs include a Container Rave next Thursday, followed by an all-female line-up at Bungalow. She’ll be on the Diamond Deck at The Remarks from 1pm next Thursday then later that night at World Bar with her 4G brand — which only involves female creatives — featuring Mixed Methods, and back at the same venue from 1am next Sunday