Mantra — Indra “Indi” Khera — came into rave from North-West London rather than through a ready-made music-industry route. Her older brother took her to Exposure’s 2nd Birthday at Bagleys in 1998 when she was fourteen; a later trip to Innovation at Stratford Rex shifted her attention fully toward drum & bass. She wanted to be involved from behind the decks, and a spare pair of Technics owned by her dad gave her the practical way in.

After meeting Double O in 2004, the pair raved together, played pirate radio and became increasingly frustrated that the deeper, more adventurous edges of jungle and drum & bass were not being given enough club space. In 2006 they answered that problem by founding Rupture in London — not to recreate one golden era, but to keep the roots and the next mutation in the same room.

Rupture grew from a night into a radio platform, community and, from 2012, a record label. Its line-ups deliberately placed foundational selectors and producers alongside emerging artists, allowing hardcore, oldskool jungle, drumfunk, breakbeat experimentation and contemporary 170 music to coexist without treating any one period as the “correct” version of the genre. The label extended that same curatorial idea onto vinyl and digital releases rather than separating the club from the records it was championing.

Mantra’s own DJing follows the same logic. Her sets are known for deep, emotive programming and an ability to move between eras while keeping the rhythmic thread intact. As her profile grew she became a regular at major clubs and festivals and expanded into production, with releases appearing through Rupture and other respected underground labels.

Her influence also extends into practical community work. In 2018, Mantra helped launch EQ50 with DJ Flight and a wider collective including Sweetpea, MC Chickaboo and Alley Cat, challenging the gender imbalance across drum & bass line-ups and industry structures. In 2020 that campaigning became a formal mentorship programme pairing emerging women and non-binary producers with established labels. The work sits naturally beside Rupture’s wider ethos: build the spaces you want to exist, protect musical depth and make room for the next generation.

In 2026 Rupture reached twenty years as an active club and community rather than a retrospective brand. The anniversary is being marked through current events, including the 20 Years of Rupture club night at Open Ground on 10 October, while Mantra continues touring, producing, broadcasting and curating. Her historical place is therefore still being written: she is both a student of jungle’s first generation and one of the people shaping how that history is carried forward.