DJ Lady Essence held regular weekly shows on London's Mission FM, Chicago FM, and guested on various other pirate radio stations that were around in those days such as Freek FM, Passion FM, London Underground and De Ja Vu Fm. She played vinyl on London's Underground House and Garage scene (1995-2002). Never a headline act, more commonly found in Room 2's or more edgy underground after parties.

Essence (as mostly known then) left London in 2002 and returned home to Scotland where a new chapter began. She decided to further her education and progressed through an HND Multimedia with Web Design (Merited) and continued to a BSc in Audio Technology with Multimedia bringing her skills into the digital domain. Lastly in 2011 she studied a Masters in Music Innovation & Entrepreneurship.

During this formal education path she began experimenting and self learning digital music production. This was her creative outlet and healing space. A deep emotional inner cathartic journey ensued, music was the place she could express and process her feelings. It was always that friend she found some comfort in, it understood, it gave her an escape and some strength as it always had going right back to childhood bullying experiences at school.

Following a short business start up course in 2009, Essence began to build her vision for the Vital Grooves brand initially as a platform for her own music and multimedia creativity. Towards the end of 2011 she worked hard to polish up her back catalog and uploaded them to Bandcamp.

2012 she set up Vital Grooves Label for distribution to online stores and churned out a stream of tracks. The Label was her baby, a dream fuelled by passion and determination, utilising learnt skills, her creativity and whatever she had to hand.

Only Essence's music productions are a fusion of all sorts of influences and tangents from the roots of house music with glimmers of 80's electronic sounds, dub, UKG, broken beats, deep, soulful, acid, jazz, funk, rave etc. She expressed herself with the instruments she had available to her, the computer, along with a bunch of samples, music software packages, VST's, plugins, a midi keyboard and a mic.

She has collaborated and remixed projects with UNITY GAIN RECORDINGS, Doug Gray (New York, USA), COCOARED (Philidelphia) and REBEL (London Producer/MC).

During her artistic and holistic periods of growth, Essence fought hard to challenge her mind, body and soul to feel better and pursue happiness she struggled to find. She began running with Race for Life 5K in 2008 and continued every year with longer 10K's, then half marathon distances until in 2012 she ran her first full marathon in Edinburgh. 2013 she hit The Great Scottish Run Half Marathon in under 2 hours for the first time.  In 2014 due to ill health she couldn't do much running, even walking was painful but thankfully in 2015 after a battle things began to improve enough to get moving again. She managed to get back in the game for annual GSR Half Marathons, her 2nd full Marathon challenge in Edinburgh May 2017 and again in 2022. She continues to find running a great source of balance and strength. In 2016 she began hillwalking with groups venturing out of the hermit studio life existence she had been living. It wasn't long before she was roped into her first Munro "bagging" expedition and has gone on to reach many summits since.

She also enjoys hiking, cycling, swimming, rollerskating, SUP paddle boarding and sea fishing.

2018/19 brought a change of focus with a pause on music to take on full time work in Social Regeneration projects as a community Health and Wellbeing Coordinator. 2020 the pandemic hit and she found a new creative outlet in painting whilst furloughed from her job for 3 months, this has since been her "go to". A new phase of digital music output may come along one day.

Over the years. as a completely self producing artist, Essence had to wear many hats to publish, promote and maintain the progression of Vital Grooves brand. There is no machine working behind her, she is a Gill of many trades and always open to learning new skills....her journey continues...somewhere on this matrix...