lIVI251

My style of selection and mixing hinges on creating a sonic environment to feel with your whole body, so I tend to focus on cohesiveness between tracks and finding the unexpected moments of synergy that continues all throughout our limited time together. I didn’t grow up going to parties until I was much older, so my exposure to DJs was channeled through artists and producers performing their own music, so my understanding of the DJ’s role settled in a beautiful transactional agreement of trusting and taste, and maintaining the trust throughout my mix is where I find the most satisfaction.

Music selection continues an intimidating journey that I love exploring. When I first started DJing, I was playing genres that were familiar to me – futurepop, techno, basically anything released on OMOIDE LABEL. This helped me to get my technical skill down, and then as my confidence built I started to infuse my father’s love of smooth jazz and electronica into my library.

My mom is also the muse I curate for, imagining her rush the dance floor with a whistle, two hands to heaven, cutting up to disco breakdowns. I’m obsessive over finding those moments of joyful clarity in my mixes and it keeps my drive consistently accelerated.

My motivation comes from reflecting where I am now as a DJ compared to where I was back when I started in 2022. Around that time I think there was one flagship Open Decks night with slots at, like, 3am. As a brand-spanking new bedroom DJ, that just wasn’t accessible to me. Now? Open decks are almost everywhere, but I don’t view that as a symptom of oversaturation. At the core of an open decks, it’s access to community, equipment, and experience. How you treat your time at my event is up to you, and I want to create as many opportunities for DJs early in their career crossing the threshold of their home to the gig to gain the confidence they deserve to grow into the artist they see in their head.

This is a responsibility not only to my audience, but also to myself. As my DJ career progresses, I realize I need to surround myself with more of my own peers. Some of the spaces I find myself in don’t always reflect who I am – a tall Black Trans Lesbian. I was blessed to be a featured artist at BOUNCY (hosted by she.they.dj) and that inspired me to continue advocating for queer spaces, no matter how new I am to the community.

Planning parties in the city is not for the faint of heart, but creating spaces for other people who look and sound like me is like tending a garden; every new bud in the soil is someone's validation preparing to bloom. Eventually with enough work, we will all flourish.

I’m treating tension/release as a first date with lIVI, and I’m hoping we hit it off.