Marissa Malik—otherwise known as Manuka Honey—released her debut EP, Industrial Princess, in 2021. It's directly tied to her love of astrology and her own birth chart: a Pisces sun, an Aries moon and a Gemini rising. The EP channels the planet Mars in the sign of Pisces, which presents a paradox, she explains over Zoom, wearing an oversized Blade tee. The contradiction—Mars is associated with aggression, and Pisces with fragility–can be heard on her record. Over the course of four tracks, released via NAAFI, this juxtaposition manifests in dark, deconstructed baile funk and reggaeton that seduces and provokes despite its sinister sound. When preparing mixes or hosting her Astro Hours show on London's female-led online radio station Foundation FM, she builds each set around celestial movements. "If it's a retrograde season, I'll play more throwbacks and try not to introduce too many new things and just give people the nostalgia they're craving," she explains. "I'll also think about the star sign of whoever made a track."

Like the planet Mars, Malik herself is on the offence. Focused on body-moving grooves, she describes her style of DJing as sexy, unpredictable and hard. There's usually a lot of reggaeton, shatta (a dancehall subgenre from Martinique) and experimental dembow from the likes of NAAFI and Argentina's HiedraH Club de Baile, which reimagines sounds of the Latinx diaspora. Her sets are unapologetically assertive, encouraging intimacy and freedom of expression. "I want people to perreo, I want people to have a fun and sexy time, I want one person to walk away pregnant," she says, alluding to a style of grinding that's associated with reggaeton. Describing her sound as unhinged hostile girl energy" with a hint of demonic, succubus-like flair, Malik has become known for her vivacity and commitment to expressing herself without censorship. "When you come to my sets, often, my tit will accidentally fall out or I'll step on the decks. There was one time someone tried to wheel up my track and I grabbed their hand and just licked it."

When she's not examining the planets, Malik engages in a practice that she describes as "witchcraft." Before DJ sets, she gives offerings to her ancestors at one of the many altars around her house in London and ensures she's wearing one, or many, protection amulets. Post-gig, she makes it a point to wash her hair because that's where she stores other peoples' energies over the course of the night. "The way that my career unfurled as this bifurcation of witchcraft and music, it feels very natural to me. But I realise from an outside perspective it's kind of a weird combination of things," she describes. "I think the idea that we have to do one thing is so limiting." At Tufts University in Boston, where she earned degrees in studio art and sociology, she connected with local witches in Salem, Massachusetts–an experience that reinforced her proclivity for mysticism.

Mailk grew up in Connecticut to a Pakistani father and a "very exuberant" Mexican mother. Her spirituality comes from her family. Her grandmother was a Reiki healer who would frequently remove people's evil eyes. The practise prompted a young Malik to reel in disgust. "I'd be like, 'Oh my God, are you going to crack an egg on my head right now? Eewww stop!'" she exclaims. "Obviously you reject things as a child not knowing your ancestral connection to them. And then you come back to them and you're like, 'Oh my God, this is so important to me.'" As a teen, she eventually discovered astrology through courses and workshops following an isolated childhood.

Living in a small town with few people of colour and a society shaken up by New York's 2001 terrorist attacks, Malik used to believe there was something wrong with her. At that time, widespread xenophobia made her feel alienated from her peers. "I was just very to myself, which helped me have a strong grasp on knowing what I liked regardless if it meant anything to anyone else." As a result, she spent a lot of time indoors, drawing and practising cello in a household with Bollywood movies in the living room and Daddy Yankee tracks playing in the kitchen. "I always had an easy time accepting multiple realities because I think that's part of being a mixed race, multiethnic person." When discussing how she was once included on a listicle about South Asian producers, she half-jokingly proclaims that the world "should know me because I'm unhinged, not because I’m South Asian."

Aside from filmi music (a term for India's mainstream cinema scores) and reggaeton, Malik was also captivated by the UK's bass-heavy sounds. "I was a massive dubstep geek in my teen years," she recalls. "I would go to the UK, rave, go to FWD>>, Sureskank, all these big dubstep parties, and then go back to the states." She supplemented her music education with dubstep and grime Reddit forums, attempting to share its vernacular with her not-so-receptive peers. But it wasn't until landing in London to study at the Royal College of Art that her sonic world began to boldly define itself. "I actually learned how to DJ because I had a lot of time to experiment artistically and I wanted to start authoring my own sound. That's something I did as one of my final projects for my master's thesis: I built soundscapes."

While she was naturally drawn to experimental sounds, the flourishing DJ found herself craving the music of the Latin diaspora within which she had grown up. "I felt very disconnected from my Mexican-ness. I took for granted that that was a very common diaspora of people I would meet. It wasn't something I felt the need to be in solidarity with until I didn't have it anymore. As a DJ, you want to play what you want to hear. I wanted to hear reggaeton, so I was like, 'Damn, I've gotta start playing it.'" She soon found herself in the thick of an experimental dance music community forming in London's East End, attending DJ workshops hosted at Boiler Room's headquarters in 2018. "I would also go practise at Hub16 in Dalston. When I was living in Dalston, I'd go to Boiler Room every Tuesday. I would be spending all week on rekordbox collecting tracks and listening to them. My first ever guest mix was on my friend Yewande’s NTS show."

Other radio opportunities soon followed. The medium offered a space for experimentation, to nerd out on blends and to incorporate her more esoteric interests. "One of my favourite radio blends I've ever done is "When I Grow Up" by the Pussycat Dolls mixed with an instrumental of "Freakytona." The BPM shift is so insane it's really hard to do in the club, but I could do that really nicely on radio, using Ableton." A mix for local label Tobago Tracks caught the attention of a Rinse FM manager, and she was subsequently invited on for a residency. Her sound gained more traction, and in 2019, she began gigging throughout the UK, Turkey and beyond, including at a Boiler Room Festival and Lobster Theremin's Lobsterfest.

In between writing horoscopes for UK magazine Gal Dem and astrology app Sanctuary, DJing and producing, she connected with her now-fiancé Sueuga over Instagram in late 2021. The two are now creatively collaborating and have launched a co-residency on Rinse FM. Going forward, she wants to keep pushing herself. "I want to work with vocalists, I want to play to thousands of people, I want to play in Latin America, I want to be touring, I want to tour with my fucking fiancé."

Another objective of hers is to "break down gatekeeping barriers that stop other women of colour and queer people of colour from getting into the positions that they should be in as creators and artists." A lack of opportunities has always been a big issue for artists of marginalised backgrounds and that's exactly what SUZIO, a collective and club night that Malik founded this year alongside Venezuelan singer-songwriter Baby Cocada, hopes to resolve. Through shows and other events, it provides a platform for Latinx artists to showcase and hone their talents. SUZIO's first event was a sellout success that took place in London on May 28th in collaboration with Middle of Nowhere; it will be followed by a second edition on June 18th featuring Florentino, Sueuga, Toccororo, Florentino and Nyksan.

New Manuka Honey music is also due out in September on DJ Florentino's label Club Romantico. Shifting gears from the desolate, sometimes angry atmosphere of Industrial Princess—half of which was written in lockdown—her next EP is more buoyant but still rooted in Malik's cheeky nature. "I want to say it's mischievous," she describes. "Still dark and sexy, but more mischievous. I'm hoping that it's going to be something that people can listen to in the club and either get pregnant or get someone else pregnant."