Sherelle on reaching her creative peak

The North Face’s latest capsule honours the great Kit DesLauriers, the first person to ski down the Seven Summits. That is, the seven highest mountains from each of the seven continents, or a whopping 40,657 metres (phwoar).

To celebrate the esteemed ski-mountaineer and The North Face’s accompanying F9 Seven Summits collection, The Face spoke to seven style leaders at the top of their game. Sharing stories of their own creative endeavours aboard a rooftop in Wapping – where a backdrop of the capital’s towering landmarks emulated pure mountain epicness – it’s a reminder of the relentless pursuit of challenge behind every creative peak. One that then takes you to even greater heights.

First up: Sherelle. DJ, digital producer and BBC Radio 1 host, the jungle disc jockey shares the biggest avalanches she’s had to overcome in pursuit of her creative peak.

AUDIO TRANSCRIPTION

“I would describe what I do as fun, energetic, fast paced and all round good energy.

“The biggest avalanche I’ve ever had to overcome is the fact that there was a lack of belief in what I did as a DJ, and a lack of belief in the musical choices that I was playing. I’m a footwork and jungle DJ, two genres that are relatively niche.

“I overcame the avalanche by sheer belief, sheer understanding that not everyone is always gonna like what you do. The moment you get over that, the easier it’ll be for you to go forth and do what you want, not taking no for an answer. Just doing what I need to do and staying in my own lane.

“I seek creative inspiration from people that I haven’t yet discovered. So for me, a lot of the music I was playing at the beginning came from places like Soundcloud or Bandcamp – finding smaller artists in smaller places to focus on is definitely the reason why I’m here.”