Nia Archives: The Artist Who Put Jungle Back at the Heart of British Music

Nia Archives took the fastest, most underground sound Britain ever made and turned it into chart-bothering, festival-headlining pop, without sanding off a single breakbeat. In a few years she went from self-releasing a track off her student loan to a debut album that fused jungle with Britpop and soul, a MOBO award she effectively campaigned into existence alongside the Club BEMA collective, and a 2026 follow-up stacked with guests like Jorja Smith and Sampha. She is the figure most responsible for jungle's return to the mainstream, and she did it on her own terms. This is a working DJ and producer's guide to who Nia Archives actually is, the story behind the sound, and why she matters more than almost anyone in UK dance right now. Her real name is Dehaney Hunt, and the facts below were checked against current sources in July 2026.

Nia Archives at a glance

• Real name: Dehaney Nia Lishahn Hunt, born September 1999 in Bradford, West Yorkshire.
• Roots: moved to Leeds aged seven; a third-generation Windrush family whose grandmother once ran a pirate radio station.
• Genre: jungle and drum and bass, fused with Britpop, soul and indie, a sound she has called "future classic".
• Labels: her own HiJinxx (releases via Island) and, since April 2025, Up Ya Archives — also a weekly NTS Radio show of the same name.
• Debut album: Silence Is Loud (April 2024), a genre-blending breakthrough.
• New album: Emotional Junglist, released 17 July 2026, with features from Jorja Smith and Sampha.
• Awards: won the MOBO for Best Electronic/Dance Act in 2022, a category she campaigned to create, plus a BRIT Rising Star nomination and NME and DJ Mag awards, plus a 2024 Mercury Prize shortlisting for Silence Is Loud — the first jungle album shortlisted since Roni Size's New Forms won in 1997.
• 2026 live: a debut live band show, sold-out dates in Leeds, London and New York, and a packed festival summer.

Who is Nia Archives?

Behind the name is Dehaney Hunt, born in Bradford in 1999 and raised in Leeds from the age of seven. Her story is woven right through her music. She is a third-generation Windrush family member, her grandmother having travelled from Jamaica to Bradford as a teenager, and family lore includes an aunt and grandmother who ran a pirate radio station, the kind of detail that explains a lot about where her instincts come from. Her early life was hard: she left the family home at sixteen, moved around the north, including a spell in Bury where she struggled financially, and only found her calling when she discovered jungle in 2017 while researching the roots of the music she was speeding up.

That discovery sent her south, onto a music production course and into a warehouse in Hackney Wick, where the Nia Archives project took shape. The crucial point is that she is not a tourist in this music. Jungle gave her a community and a language at a moment when she needed both, and she has called it "a real culture", which is why her version of it never feels like a costume.

The DIY rise: from "Sober Feels" to her own label

The breakthrough was pure do-it-yourself. In 2020 she sent her track "Sober Feels" to established jungle labels and got no takers, so she released it herself under the name Nia Archives on her own imprint, HiJinxx. Then she did the unglamorous, decisive thing: she spent around £500 of her student finance on digital advertising to push it. The gamble worked. The song found an audience, and by 2023 it had been streamed millions of times. That is the whole Nia Archives ethic in one move, control the music, back yourself, and treat marketing as part of the art rather than something done to you later. She built a fanbase before the industry came calling, which is exactly why she has been able to dictate terms ever since.

The sound: jungle meets Britpop and soul

Nia Archives makes jungle, the breakneck, breakbeat-driven sound that grew out of the UK rave scene, but she runs it through a songwriter's filter. Her records keep the frenetic, chopped Amen-break energy of classic jungle and lace it with the things jungle traditionally left out: Britpop's '60s-tinged melodies, Motown and soul warmth, indie-rock feeling and her own clear, vulnerable vocals. She has described jungle as "the bastard child of dance music", and she treats that outsider status as a licence rather than a limit.

The result is music that works at 170 BPM in a dark room and also on daytime radio, which is an almost impossible balance to strike. Where a lot of modern drum and bass chases either nostalgia or pure aggression, Archives writes proper songs about loneliness, family, self-acceptance and love, then wraps them in breakbeats. It is jungle you can cry to, and that emotional core is what pulled the genre back into the centre of British pop culture.

Silence Is Loud: the album that rewrote the rulebook

The statement record was Silence Is Loud, released in April 2024 and co-produced with the rising talent Ethan P. Flynn. Rather than a club tool stretched to album length, it played like an organic, experimental pop record, full of Britpop, Motown and alt-rock colour, with the frenetic energy of jungle drum patterns underneath. It explored loneliness, self-acceptance, parental estrangement and love, both unconditional and unrequited, and it landed as one of the most acclaimed British debuts of its year.

Even the title carries weight. Archives has explained that silence can read as weakness, the things you were too afraid to say, but that holding your tongue can also be a form of power. That refusal to treat jungle as a purely physical, lyric-light genre is the whole point. She made a jungle album you listen to for the writing as much as the drums.

How she made the MOBOs change the rules

The clearest sign of her influence is institutional. Frustrated that the MOBO Awards, which celebrate Black British and global Black music, had no dedicated home for electronic and dance artists, Archives wrote an open letter calling for one. The MOBOs introduced a Best Electronic/Dance Act category, and she won the inaugural award in 2022. It is hard to think of a more direct example of an artist reshaping the system around her rather than waiting for it to notice her. She has since become the first jungle artist ever to earn three BRIT Award nominations, for the BRITs Rising Star award in 2023 and both Best Dance Act and Artist of the Year in 2025, a historic marker for the genre even though she did not win, alongside awards from NME and DJ Mag and the half-joking, half-serious nickname "Queen of the North".

Emotional Junglist: the 2026 album

In 2026 she goes further. Her second album, Emotional Junglist, is out today, 17 July 2026, a 15-track record written across 2025 and made with an A-list supporting cast: James Ford (Arctic Monkeys, Blur), her returning collaborator Ethan P. Flynn, and the pop songwriter Julia Michaels, with guest appearances from Jorja Smith and Sampha. The theme is love in all its forms, not the idealised version, reflecting a year in which she both fell into and out of it, with the flirtatious single "Danger", the defiant "Boys In Blue", firing back at an ex who called the police on her, and the euphoric, New York-shot "Vertical" trailing the album across 2026, and a 15-track listing that includes "Get Me Down" with Jorja Smith and "Tender" with Sampha.

The title doubles as a mission statement. "Emotional Junglist" is exactly what she has spent her career proving you can be: someone who lives in the hardest, fastest end of dance music and still leads with feeling. On the evidence of the singles and the calibre of collaborators, it is a bid to make jungle a fully mainstream album proposition without softening the breaks.

2026 live: a jungle live band and a packed festival run

The live leap is just as ambitious. In 2026 Archives took her debut live band show, "Out of Her Shell", on the road, a real reinvention for an artist who built her name DJing, with sold-out intimate dates in Leeds, London and New York in May, a full-band festival debut at Sónar in June, and Boardmasters on the Cornish coast still to come in August. The festival summer is enormous: Sónar in Barcelona and Parklife in Manchester in June, with a run still ahead across Europe and North America including All Points East, Sziget, Lowlands and ARC in Chicago. It follows her 2024 Glastonbury appearance on the West Holts Stage and one of her more characterful stunts that year, DJing the "Nia Archives Express", a train chartered to carry fans from London to the festival.

That instinct for spectacle with a human touch, a train rave, a live band, a festival headline that still feels like a community, ties her to the wider shift in club culture towards shared, in-person experience, and it sits alongside the broader UK breakbeat resurgence we have tracked through garage and drum and bass.

Essential Nia Archives tracks

If you are new to her, start with "Baianá", her 2022 single and one of the tracks that broke her, a euphoric, sample-flipped jungle anthem. "Forbidden Feelingz" is the title track of her breakthrough EP and a definitive early statement. "Sober Feels" is where it all began. From Silence Is Loud, "Crowded Roomz" and "Cards on the Table" show the songwriting-plus-breakbeats formula at its best, and "F.A.M.I.L.Y" is the emotional core. The 2026 singles "Danger" and "Boys In Blue" point to where she is heading next. Together they explain why jungle, a sound many had written off as a nineties relic, is back in the charts.

Why Nia Archives matters

Nia Archives matters because she did three difficult things at once. She made jungle, a genre long treated as underground heritage, feel completely current and emotionally direct. She did it as a self-made, self-releasing artist who built her audience before the industry arrived, which gave her the power to keep control. And she changed an institution, the MOBOs, to make room for the music she loves. Add a band, a major second album and a sold-out global tour, and you have the most important figure in the British jungle revival, and one of the clearest proofs that the most underground sounds can reach the mainstream without selling out their roots.

FAQ

What is Nia Archives' real name?

Dehaney Nia Lishahn Hunt. She was born in September 1999 in Bradford, West Yorkshire, and performs as Nia Archives.

Where is Nia Archives from, and how old is she?

She was born in Bradford in September 1999 and moved to Leeds aged seven, making her 26 at the time of writing (she turns 27 in September 2026). She is from a third-generation Windrush family.

What kind of music does Nia Archives make?

Jungle and drum and bass fused with Britpop, soul and indie influences and her own vocals, a melodic, emotional take on breakbeat music she has called "future classic".

What is Silence Is Loud?

Her debut album, released in April 2024 and co-produced with Ethan P. Flynn. It blends jungle breakbeats with Britpop, Motown and alt-rock, and explores loneliness, family and love. It was one of the most acclaimed UK debuts of its year.

What is Emotional Junglist?

Nia Archives' second album, released 17 July 2026. The 15-track record features Jorja Smith and Sampha and contributions from James Ford and Julia Michaels, with singles "Danger" and "Boys In Blue", and explores love in all its forms.

Did Nia Archives win a MOBO Award?

Yes. After writing an open letter urging the MOBO Awards to create a dedicated electronic and dance category, she won the inaugural Best Electronic/Dance Act award in 2022. She is also the first jungle artist to earn three BRIT Award nominations, for the BRITs Rising Star award in 2023 and both Best Dance Act and Artist of the Year in 2025, plus NME and DJ Mag awards.

What are Nia Archives' best songs?

Key tracks include "Baianá", "Forbidden Feelingz", "Sober Feels", "Crowded Roomz", "Cards on the Table" and "F.A.M.I.L.Y", plus her 2026 singles "Danger" and "Boys In Blue".

Sources

• Wikipedia and Grokipedia on Dehaney Hunt's biography, Bradford and Leeds upbringing, Windrush family and early career
• The Face, Loud And Quiet, Clash and GRAMMY.com interviews on her sound, jungle culture and Silence Is Loud
• DIY and Dork on the 2026 album Emotional Junglist (24 July 2026, tracklist, collaborators, singles "Danger" and "Boys In Blue")
• MOBO Awards coverage of the Best Electronic/Dance Act category and her 2022 win; Beatportal and Resident Advisor on her record three BRIT nominations as a jungle artist; NME and DJ Mag award records
• 2026 single coverage of "Boys In Blue", "Danger" and "Vertical" and the Emotional Junglist tracklist (GRM Daily, NME, DJ Mag, The Line of Best Fit); Boardmasters 2026 live-show announcement
• Official tour pages, MusicRadar on the Glastonbury train, and 2026 festival listings (Sónar, Parklife, Sziget, Lowlands, ARC)

This guide is part of House of MNEEMO's ongoing coverage of the electronic and club music scene, written by London-based DJ and producer MNEEMO, with millions of streams to his name and a party series running through some of London's best clubs.