London, UK · uk-garage · bassline

Sammy Virji

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The producer most responsible for UK garage's current mainstream moment — bouncy, gleeful, impossible to stand still to, flip after flip after flip.

Sammy Virji was born Samuel Bashir Virji in London on 30 September 1996 and grew up in Witney, Oxfordshire. His father played trombone on Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, and the family record collection ran to Latin, African and jazz music; his own early interests ran from Michael Jackson to Motown, and he began writing music on piano and guitar before moving to GarageBand and then Logic Pro.

He discovered dubstep at sixteen through Rinse FM mix CDs by Plastician and Skream, and later got into bassline after seeing Flava D play a club show while studying biology at Newcastle University. He dropped out in his third year once he judged he could support himself through music, and began releasing bassline tracks in 2015, many built around images of the chef Ainsley Harriott, while posting regularly on the bass-music forum Lengoland.

He shifted from bassline toward UK garage in the late 2010s; the producer Conducta picked up his early garage tracks "Shapes" and "Whippet" for his Kiwi Rekords label, a turning point that fed into wider attention as garage-derived sounds returned to British dance floors and radio.

His productions lean on two-step and four-to-the-floor rhythms, sub-heavy basslines and chopped vocal samples, often reworking familiar pop and R&B hooks. He has collaborated with rappers and singers from outside dance music, including a 2024 single with Skepta, and his sets tend to move quickly between his own material and rapid-fire edits.

His debut album, Spice Up My Life, released in 2020 and reached No. 7 on the UK Dance Albums Chart, preceded by the single "Until Tomorrow". Later collaborations include "Santorini" with Smokey Bubblin' B, "Peach" with Salute, and "Shella Verse" with Flowdan, while a remix of Piri & Tommy's "On & On" led into the single "If U Need It", which reached No. 85 on the UK singles chart. His headline tour, Like a Virjin, sold out across the UK.

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