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The profile · researched 8 October 2026
Deported, Rebuilt, Running Toronto: The Long Second Act of Chippy Nonstop
A Dubai-born, Zambia-raised rapper who lost her American life in 2015 and rebuilt it behind a pair of CDJs in Canada, Chippy Nonstop now runs a party, a record label, a festival and a DJ school — and plays a Halloween takeover in Perth on 31 October 2026.
Dubai, Zambia, and the end of an American career
Chippy Nonstop is of Indian descent, was born in Dubai and spent her early childhood in Zambia before Canadian citizenship and a restless adolescence carried her through Oakland, New York and Los Angeles. She started making music at sixteen, and the first version of her public career was a rapper's: a run of self-released EPs — #MoneyDance101, #GLOBALSKOOLOFTWERK and #FinallyVerified — built on a bright, cheap, deliberately garish electro-trap, plus membership of the #YungKloutGang collective and collaborations with Metro Zu, Andy Milonakis and Kreayshawn. She also wrote for other people, Major Lazer among them.
That career ended abruptly. In 2015 she was deported from the United States, which meant restarting in Vancouver with no scene, no network and no income stream. She moved on to Toronto. The rapping stopped, not by choice.
Learning to DJ because the rent was due
DJing began as a way to make money and became the thing she is best known for. The style that emerged is not a tasteful one. She plays loud, high-pitched and very fast — regularly above 150bpm — and treats techno, house, UK funky, reggaeton, Bollywood and pop edits as a single continuous palette rather than separate rooms. DJ Mag, profiling her for its On Cue series, described her as a pivotal DJ and producer whose influence has shaped electronic music both locally and beyond. Rinse FM, which hosts her radio show, settles for calling her an audacious, all-caps party starter.
Her own writing came back slowly. The 2020 single "Straight To Hell" was her first original music in roughly seven years. In 2021 she followed it with a joint album made with dj genderfluid, including "No Sleep" and "Accelerate", written and produced in about a month — a club record rather than a rap one. Her music has also been licensed to Netflix, HBO and Comedy Central, and used in a Stella McCartney campaign.
Intersessions and Pep Rally: building the room first
The organising work runs parallel to the music and is arguably the larger body of it. Intersessions, co-founded in 2017, is a DJ and production workshop series for women, femme, non-binary and queer people, structured around technical self-reliance rather than mentorship, and it spread into chapters across North America.
Pep Rally came next, founded in Toronto with the DJ and multidisciplinary artist Karim Olen Ash. Her account of the brief is blunt: "We wanted a queer, black & brown rave where we could feel free." It started in basements and grew into one of the largest parties of its kind in the city, running monthly to bi-monthly at a production cost she has put at around $40,000 per event. A collaboration with Boiler Room, recorded in Toronto, took the party's name beyond Canada.
Sojourn: a festival built out of three collectives
Sojourn is the most ambitious piece. Chippy Nonstop co-founded it with the Toronto collectives FORMAT and Last Planet, aimed squarely at the city's BIPOC and LGBTQ+ dance community and pitched as underground programming on a European festival's terms. The 2025 edition ran from 25 to 27 July at the Black Creek Assembly Compound on McCormack Street, with Juan Atkins, BAMBII, Young Teesh and Nino Brown on the bill alongside her.
The third edition took place on 25 and 26 September 2026 at the same McCormack Street site, across multiple indoor and outdoor stages, with tickets between CA$65 and CA$150 and the Friday running from 7pm to 4am. Ellen Allien, Sir Spyro, Ignez, FJAAK, DJ SWISHA, Mac Declos, Ahadadream, TDJ, Neffa-T, Only Fire and Manuka Honey played, with Chippy Nonstop on the Saturday programme. Audiences at her own festival now hear her in context rather than as a novelty.
Records, radio and a label of her own
Recorded output since has been short and frequent rather than album-shaped. The two-tracker "Famous / Talk Shit" arrived in June 2025 on HARD Recs. In September 2025 she launched Pep Rally Records as label boss, deliberately narrow in remit: Toronto and Canadian artists making playful, sexy electronic music, effectively turning the party's booking policy into a release schedule.
Her Rinse FM show has episodes archived back to at least February 2023 and leans heavily on guests — 999ADJ, Vadim Khan and Prince Josh among recent ones — broadcasting in a 1am slot that matches the material. She also assembled Pride 2025, a 23-track, 63-minute DJ mix built around the Pep Rally night and weighted towards women and LGBTQ+ artists, many of them Black and brown producers. Her summary of it: "This mix is for the weirdos, the club kids, the children of the underground." The most recent release carrying her name is "SWITCH", a guest appearance issued as a single on 27 February 2026.
Touring in late 2026
Touring remains club-scale and scattered rather than routed as a conventional tour. Her recent listed appearances include Toronto, Strasbourg and Paris, against a gigography of some 117 past events and a little over 2,000 people tracking her for alerts on Songkick.
One date is currently on sale. On 31 October 2026 she plays The Rechabite at 224 William Street in Perth, Western Australia, as part of a multi-stage Halloween takeover presented by Garbage and NEST FM, with doors at 9pm.
The show, now
A Chippy Nonstop set in 2026 is a club DJ set, not a staged performance: no live band, no rap show, minimal production beyond the venue's own rig, and a reliance on pace rather than spectacle. She plays fast and loud — frequently above 150bpm — cutting between techno, house, UK funky, reggaeton, Bollywood and pop edits without treating them as separate sections, which is why promoters tend to place her in a peak or closing slot rather than warming up. Sets are the standard club length of roughly 60 to 90 minutes, extending when she plays her own Pep Rally nights in Toronto, where the party runs multi-room with local openers. The one date currently on sale is 31 October 2026 at The Rechabite, 224 William Street in Perth, a Halloween takeover presented by Garbage and NEST FM that spreads across the venue's main room, the Boomroom and the Hello Rooftop, with doors at 9pm; she shares the bill with C.FRIM from Australia and 1800 GIRLS from the UK, and costumes are encouraged. Festival bookings follow the same logic — at Sojourn's September 2026 edition in Toronto she played the Saturday programme on a bill that ran from 6pm to 4am alongside Ellen Allien, FJAAK, Sir Spyro and Manuka Honey. Rinse FM, which carries her radio show, describes the live register accurately enough as high-energy party-starting; Songkick lists a little over 2,000 people tracking her for tour alerts off the back of some 117 past shows.
Researched from nowtoronto.com · vmagazine.com · exclaim.ca · findmuse.app · songkick.com · songkick.com · moshtix.com.au · rinse.fm