Munchy – Bio
Known as Munchy, the journalist, media designer, and sound engineer was born Ursula Elisabeth Münch on January 12, 1984 in Bavaria, South Germany. Always carrying unrestrained love for music she started writing for fan club magazines and visited concerts and festivals from an early age.
While her two professional trainings as both sound engineer and audio-visual media designer, that were followed by employments at several national TV and radio stations, she started writing for the German e-zine Reggae Bash, that had her covering many events such as the revival of the Jamaica Sunsplash in 2006. With her reputation she eventually joined Reggaeville four years later as both a writer and a presenter, being well-known especially for her video interviews and the monthly web show ‘Wha’ Gwaan Munchy?!?’. In 2012 she also became part of the team at Riddim, the biggest print magazine on reggae music and culture in Germany.
In the meantime she still carried out her love for sound engineering not only with her professional career but also her Rosenheim based sound system Righteous Riddims, that made a mark by promoting partys and shows in their home town as well as with their various mixtape series and a mobile dubplate studio, that had Munchy recording with artists such as Gentleman, Capleton, Julian Marley and Konshens. She is specialized in vocal recording, dubplate mixing and mastering as well as remixing and even jingle production.
With a little studio at her apartment Munchy decided to cover another field of journalism and started producing her own radio shows for Raggakings in 2008. Her annual two-hour retrospective on reggae and dancehall, completely written, recorded and mixed by herself rapidly evolved into one of the most popular shows, combining well-researched presentation and professionally mixed music. Her comprehensive knowledge of music had her also parting with Kingston Hot radio in 2011. The most popular German reggae radio show on the internet, presented weekly by the Jugglerz Shotta Paul and DJ Meska, broadcasted her column ‘Wha Gwaan Munchy?!?’ once a month, having the journalist comment on the latest news from the scene. Experiencing great popularity the show was two years later turned into a video format for Reggaeville featuring clips, music, and artists as guest hosts. With her unique voice Munchy also recorded jingles, spots and skits for various sound systems and mixtape series.
In the little free time left the professional, who still refers to herself as ‘just a huge reggae fan’, never missed out on her love from early: dancing. After winning Nuremberg Dancehall Queen in 2006 she teamed up with her former opponents to form Badda Gyalore, a dance group specialized in both routines and acrobatic, performing shows throughout Germany and supporting artists such as TOK, Maximus Dan and Million Stylez on stage. With her reputation as journalist and presenter she hosted the annual German Dancehall Queen Contest for four years, after still competing in 2007 and placing fourth.
Although Munchy is involved in many different projects, she considers the volunteer work dearest to her heart. Moving to Kingston in 2012 she started to support HELP Jamaica!, a German-Jamaican non-profit organization, that establishes library and educational projects in Jamaican inner-city communities. As part of the NGO’s team Munchy helps with PR, media design, and consulting, after volunteering on the ground in the Education Center in Cassava Piece for a year working in the office, teaching computer and geography classes, and assisting the team.
Hard working and dedicated are two of the most important characteristics Munchy considers herself, that enabled her to ‘live the life I love’ and will surely have her reach even further in future, as there are still fields, she hasn’t covered yet.