Born to a musical family in Philadelphia, DJ3A (known to us as Adaria) was able to develop and cultivate her deep love and abiding respect for music at an early age. Her mother said she used to dance in time to any bouncy kind of music (especially rock and roll) from eight months old. Her favorite uncle played guitar and sang to her his favorite songs. Her Italian grandfather used to sing and dance with her to Louis Prima and Frank Sinatra. Moving to Queens, NY at age 6, she grew up at WPLJ 95.5 fm, a rock-n-roll station in Manhattan at the ABC building on Avenue of the Americas in the 1970's, where her step-father worked as head of promotion and advertising. The station's DJ's would frequently let a young DJ3A say the call letters and station id's on the air, helping to formulate her love of radio, and DJing. At 7, DJ3A moved just across the George Washington Bridge, the Hudson River's span, from Manhattan and Queens to a small NJ town called Leonia, which she considers her 'hometown'.
DJ3A has exercised her three & 1/2 octave vocal range singing with numerous bands since she was 14 including punk, ska, jazz, funk, rock, and reggae. While maintaining a 3.7 gpa in two majors at undergrad school in southern New Jersey, she sung with three bands, acted in plays and musicals and had a radio show for four years ('91-'95) called Alphabet City, named for the neighborhood on the lower east side of Manhattan where she hung as a young punk. During the past thirteen years she's been living in the San Francisco and the wider Bay Area she's toured the country and world as a vocalist with Groundation, Warrior King, Reggae Angels, and Ian Paul, among others.
Graduating with class honors in 2000, she earned her masters degree in anthropology from CIIS in San Francisco, where she lived, worked, attended grad school, sung and played for four years before relocating to the amazing and lovely Russian River. She is a published author as well, her master's thesis Chant Down Babylon, all about the reggae scene in the Bay Area. She loves a wide variety of music from Chopin to The Clash. She has been to at least a thousand live performances in her life and has most of the ticket stubs to prove it! DJ3A will be celebrating her 8th year working as vendor coordinator for the 15th annual Sierra Nevada World Music Festival in Booneville this June.
Her show, DubFunkShun can be heard every Friday night from 10 pm-Midnight and is a mix of Roots Reggae, Rocksteady, Dub Reggae, Ska, Funk and Punk. "All these genres of music are near and dear to me and I want to share them, their origins and influences with the listeners and our fellow DJ's.", says the DubFunkstriss of Reggae herself.
She'd also like to say, "I'm so truly grateful for KGGV and the hard work that the community has done to make it a reality. I hope folks enjoy the funky reggae and other music and edutainment I bring to them. I am proud and honored to be a part of the diverse musical and informational programs we offer. KGGV is an invaluable asset to our river community!"