One of the youngest music producers to ever have a song played on BBC Radio 2 has revealed disturbing stories of verbal and physical abuse endured on the streets of London.
Speaking openly in new three-part series ONE SHOT, Charlie Deakin Davies, 27, shares stories of teenage boys throwing stones and a white van driver shouting “horrific” discriminatory remarks..
“That kind of stuff happens all the time,” Deakin Davies tells ONE SHOT presenter CK Goldiing. “I’ve had multiple times where I’m walking down the street and people are saying stuff to me.
“It’s not a unique experience — a lot of people end up in this scenario which is horrific and it shouldn’t be normalised.”
Originally from Herts, now living in North East London, Deakin Davies is a multi award-winning songwriter and producer who, from the age of 17, was producing music in a self-built studio at the bottom of their parents’ garden.
Identifying as non-binary, they have since produced and written over 100 commercially released tracks and served as in-house writer/producer for Gary Barlow.
Playing in pop bands from an early age, Deakin Davies is now the owner of Ten87 studios in Tottenham Hale.
Reflecting on their earliest memories of music production, they say: “I was in an acoustic pop band working with major record labels [and] I was that annoying kid over the shoulder of the engineer asking ‘what does that button do?’”
Captivated by the workings of a music studio, Deakin Davies quickly grew comfortable behind the mixing desk, and their appetite for production began.
On those early years, Deakin Davies says: “I didn’t realise the quantity of music I was producing was abnormal for someone my age because I was seventeen and producing multiple EPs and albums for other people.”
Their first high-profile session was with Brit award winner Laura Marling, after which, they went on to work with a string of household names including James Bay, MNEK and RAYE.
Assigned female at birth, it was during the pandemic that Deakin Davies fully embraced their true identity.
“The pandemic completely changed so many people’s perspective on life and their own interpretation of themselves, and I really related to that.
“My whole life, I’ve always felt that I didn’t feel quite female but didn’t know how to verbalise it, until one of my really close friends, Max, showed me his journey and I was like ‘Oh right, this is the language.’
“Being non-binary is the language that I want to use to describe myself because that is how I feel.”
During the intimate 45-minute conversation with Goldiing, Deakin Davies shares troubling stories of transphobic attacks in public.
“A group of boys threw stones at me while I was holding hands with my partner because we looked like a queer couple,” they reveal. “One of the stones hit me on the back of my head. I ended up getting really angry, so I just turned around and said: ‘Do you think that what you’ve done is appropriate? You honestly think when you see a human being a bit different, throwing stones [at them] is a good thing to do?’
Deakin Davies’ experiences of verbal and physical abuse are not unique. In a recent study by the Home Office, it was found that reported transgender identity-motivated hate crimes in England and Wales had risen by 56% (from 2,799 to 4,355) between March 2021 and March 2022.
During the revealing conversation with Goldiing, Deakin Davies also recounts an unsettling incident in the affluent district of Notting Hill.
“I was walking down the street and this white van man just drove past and just shouted fa**** at me.”
Discussing their personal conflicts, identity and the privilege of being white in the music industry, watch Charlie’s full interview here
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