MEET NANCYBOY
Jess Darnell (aka NANCYBOY) hails from Nashville, Tennessee and has called London home since 2016. His father served as the Death Row chaplain in Tennessee, and his mother, a nurse of 30+ years, helped deliver Miley Cyrus.
After an older mentor recommended Donna Summer's
On The Radio, Jess fell hard and fast for the classic disco sound. Most of his adult life has been measured in beats-per-minute ever since.
After taking some training sessions with London Sound Academy, Jess began DJ’ing for private weddings and events at a cocktail bar in London before eventually moving on to play clubs, pubs, and music festivals in the United Kingdom.
“You must understand — it’s more than just disco balls to me.”
“Despite growing up in Nashville, I was never a big country music fan, but I loved musical theatre and jazz music. I was a pretty campy, limp-wristed kid and occasionally got bullied, so the name nancyboy is a sort of reclaiming of the old playground insult.
I used to do a lot of lip-syncing in front of my bedroom mirror, make-believing I was onstage singing various power ballads or pop songs, or I’d take the family car for a spin so I could sing out loud in private.
Disco, for me, creates a space in which we can access and evoke liberation, growth, humour, love, and strength, and whenever I hear my favourite tunes get played at a club or a festival, I’m finally able to engage openly with that special joy that this music continues to give me.
I’m no longer dancing alone in my bedroom or singing by myself in the car. All these years later, I’m finally letting myself be as loud and as campy as I’d like to be, playing the music I’ve always loved. You must understand — it’s more than just disco balls to me.”