Annie Mac

Whilst being a student, I would submerge myself in music when writing essays and the like of an evening. It was one of those evenings on which I stumbled across the Annie Mac show on Radio 1. Without being dramatic, my life was never the same since, or at least, my musical life. I had found a dj who would play as diverse a mix of music that I wanted to listen to. Soon I was hooked and started listening religiously.

Effortlessly managing to completely merge the mainstream and the underground, Annie Mac has become a pinnacle figure in dance music. Providing fans of her show with a straight up mix of anything and everything across the dance scale, she is one of few Radio 1 djs who seems to get to pretty much play what she wants, and it works.

Annie was born and bred in Dublin, left home in her early teens to study in Belfast, where she frequented Shine’s famous club nights and was inspired to get involved. Annie then moved to London and had various media/radio related jobs before landing a Broadcast Assistant post at Radio 1. Annie impressed and within a short period of time, she was offered her own show. In July 2004, Annie first went on air on her own show on Radio 1, she was aged just 26. Annie joins quite a list of females who work on air at Radio 1, but bar Annie Nightingale, none of them have made quite just as much impact on me as her.

Annie’s presenting style is relaxed, and she really pulls her listeners in; you just need to look on her blog or twitter page to understand how much her listeners really connect with her. Annie has also carved out an amazing career as a live dj and shared her experiences in the early days of learning to mix and playing out in new places. It was Annie who really inspired me to learn to mix, she is proof of how successful a female dj can be. Due to her diverse tastes and interest in a wide range of styles, she gets booked for all kinds of nights and has a large amount of friends in different scenes of music who respect and love her as much as her audience.

As a female, when you come across one of your own so inspirational in a field you are interested, particularly a historically male orientated field, then it makes it all the more special.