Sammy Virji

Samuel Bashir Virji is an English DJ and record producer. Born in London, he grew up in Witney, and attended Newcastle University before dropping out to pursue his music career. His 2020 album, Spice Up My Life, charted at No. 7 on the UK Dance Albums Chart; after releasing a remix of Piri & Tommy's "On & On", he released "If U Need It", which charted at No. 94 on the UK singles chart. His earlier works comprised bassline, while his later works comprised UK garage.

Early life and bassline
Samuel Bashir Virji was born in London, and moved to Oxfordshire when he was slightly older, settling in Witney. His father played trombone on The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill, an album described by DJ Mag in June 2024 as "one of the most critically and commercially successful albums in both neo soul and popular music", and his record collection included Latin music, African music, and jazz. Sammy's first major musical interest was in Michael Jackson, followed by Motown. He started writing on piano and guitar, before making his own music on GarageBand, switching to Logic Pro when he had access to the computer at his father's house. He later received said computer as a birthday present. He began listening to dubstep aged sixteen after a friend gave him "Rinse: 06", a Rinse FM CD mixed by Plastician, followed by a CD mixed by Skream.

He studied biology at Newcastle University. While there, he got into bassline after seeing Flava D perform at a club and deciding that he wanted to follow suit. He dropped out during the third year after calculating that he was able to make a living from music. He began releasing music in 2015, with his early works comprising bassline. Many of his works until 2019 made use of images of television chef Ainsley Harriott. Around this time, he was a regular poster on the Facebook group Lengoland, a bass music forum open between 2017 and 2021.

Garage and touring
He pivoted to making UK garage in the late 2010s. Around this time, Conducta sent him a Facebook message asking if he could release one of his tracks on his Kiwi Rekords label, which he had set up in 2019. The label released several of his works including "Shapes" and "Whippet". In 2020, he released his debut album, Spice Up My Life, having previously released the single "Until Tomorrow" from it; it charted at No. 7 on the UK Dance Albums Chart. Later that year, he released "Santorini", a collaboration with house musician Smokey Bubblin' B, which appeared on the 1Forty compilation EP 1FFNG005: Funky & Garage. In 2022, his track "Daga Da" was used in an out-of-home advertising campaign for a low calorie derivative of Strongbow, a brand of cider. He then released a remix of Piri & Tommy's "On & On".

In December 2022, Salute premiered his Sammy Virji collaboration "Peach" at a Boiler Room set in Melbourne. The track had been written with Salute at a writing session and had been produced by trial and error, after which he stayed overnight at Salute's studio. In an interview with DJ Mag, Virji stated that he had pranked Salute "by making another version with the same build-up" shortly after waking up, which he had then made "as bad as possible". Released in March 2023, the track appeared on Salute's EP Shield, which was released that May. The month after that, he released "Shella Verse" with Flowdan. Around this time, he undertook a headline tour, "Like a Virjin", which sold out across the UK.

In August 2023, he performed a set for DJ Mag, which went viral on TikTok. For this, he created a remix of "Counting" by Hamdi, which sampled Mason and Princess Superstar's "Perfect (Exceeder)", and a remix of "Goodums" by Unknown T. In May 2024, Felicity Martin of Planet Woo wrote that across his set, Virji "dips between bassline and UKG, reggae and old school house, with a megawatt smile across his face", and observed that Virji had "scored a bit of a reputation as ‘that DJ who’s always smiling’". The following November, he released "If U Need It", which charted at No. 94 on the UK singles chart. He then released the singles "Hot in Here", "Moonlight", and "Summertime Blues", the last of which featured Chris Lake and Nathan Nicholson.