ALT BLK ERA
DOING IT FOR THEMSELVES
Sisters Nyrobi and Chaya started Alt Blk Era as a lockdown project – now they’re the alt scene’s fastest-rising band
WORDS: ZOYA RAZA-SHEIKH • PICTURES: DEAN CHALKLEY
PRESS/DEAN CHALKLEY
It’s 6pm on a Tuesday, and Alt Blk Era are snowed in. Yet the sisters – 20-year-old Nyrobi and 17-year-old Chaya Beckett-Messam – are unfazed by the inches stacking up outside their home in West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire.
“We don’t really have a typical life outside of music. We’re not at the clubs or hanging out,” Nyrobi explains via Zoom, of why they’re so at ease tonight. “We’re very much inside working nonstop.”
For such young musicians, their attitude is switched on and ambitious, and it’s paid off. What began as a playful lockdown project has snowballed into a career, with the nu gen duo signed to prestigious label Earache Records. Combining metal, drum’n’bass and dance with a playful monochrome gothic Harajuku aesthetic, they’ve become the most exciting new band on the alternative scene.
In 2023, Alt Blk Era were nominated for Best Alternative Act at the MOBO Awards, and they’re now in the running again. They also bagged a Best UK Breakthrough Artist nomination at 2024’s Heavy Music Awards. Over the past two years, they’ve played Download, 2000trees, Reading & Leeds and Glastonbury. Now poised to release their debut album, Rave Immortal, Alt Blk Era are on the cusp of their biggest year yet. Its lead-off single, My Drummer’s Girlfriend, has amassed 1.2 million streams on Spotify, and they recently released a version with Wheatus – just one of many artists who have expressed support for the band.