A DJ who was a pioneer in Hull’s music scene will have her life celebrated with a free night at The Adelphi on Saturday.
Sonya Mana sadly passed away in February, aged 57. She was born in Weymouth and began to work as a DJ in Hull in 1989, holding regular nights such as Helter Skelter, Shiver – The 80s night.
She was a DJ at Spiders, Silhouette, Room, Pozition, and The Welly, to name a few. As well as her work in music, Sonya had shops in Newland Avenue, a natural health clinic called The Mana Tree, and later a gift shop called The Moon on a Stick which sold items crafted by local creatives.
Sonya’s friend Mandy Cecchinato, who organised the event, first met her at the University of Hull. “She was lovely, kind, interested in people,” she said. “She used to be really shy when she was younger and a bit withdrawn, but gradually over the years she came out of herself and was just really interested in talking to people and finding out about them.
“She was really into music and into books… She really enjoyed doing all the DJing. I left Hull in the 1990s, but she carried on.
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“We used to play at the old Silhouette and then the New Silhouette on Park Street. Me, Sonya and Ruth Drake were three women DJing at the same time at Spiders, which was really unheard of. That was quite fun, and she was really at the cutting edge of opening up the world for women DJs in Hull.”
In tribute to Sonya, her partner Matt Hopper said: “To me, she was my salvation in some ways. I went to the Rudston Monolith a couple of weeks after she died and I met a woman there – she was kind of a wacky New Age type – and she said ‘Sonya was probably a guardian angel sent to help you grown and learn’, and I think she was.
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“Sonya was really wise and she knew lots about life and how to help people get back to themselves from bad places. She had a natural health clinic and helped lots of people there, physically and spiritually. I was one of them, really.
“I was in a bad place, I had been unemployed and kind of lost, and she helped me get back together and build strength and confidence in myself and get to college and art school and develop my talents.
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“She was selfless, she had a lot of time for people. She was really intuitive and could see what people needed and knew how to make them comfortable. She was really talented and clever – she definitely never fulfilled her full potential, and she knew that as well.”
Sonya’s friend Steve Clark, who is DJing on the night, said he first met her through her night at Silhouette on Tuesday, which he regularly attended. “We became really close friends and I had always wanted to be a DJ.
“Basically, through her I got the motivation to actually start doing it as an actual career. Long story short, I ended up in a club in Sheffield called Corporation for 10 years.”
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Mandy said The Adelphi was “a really special place” for Sonya and she and her friends used to meet up there regularly to see bands, which is why it has been chosen as the tribute night. Tickets are free and the doors open a 7pm on June 28.
Nine people are DJing and all of them either worked with Sonya as DJs, were good friends with her or were influenced or mentored by her.
Sonya’s partner Matt and her family and friends would love to plant a tree in her memory in a place she loved to visit. If you would like to contribute to the tree, there is a Just Giving page.