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LTE

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LTE

about

LTE is a Brooklyn-based DJ with Afro-Caribbean roots, sprawling their sonorous tendrils amidst NYC’s underground electronic scene. Informed by afrofuturism and post-humanism, LTE envelopes movers into the sonic embrace of liberated future realms through dismantling polyrhythms and sci-fi grooves. Their experimentation behind the decks electrifies dance floors and resists conformities through her ever-evolving selections.

spotlight

  1. What are your “tells” behind the decks — what makes a set feel like you?

    I’m most attracted to bass-heavy polyrhythms, posthumanist sound design, raunchy vocals, and danceability as a non-negotiable. I loveee a long blend also so ideally all of the tracks end up sounding like they’ve melted together in an enticing way. If I’ve disrupted, surprised, moved, and/or opened up at least one person on the dancefloor, I know that I put all of myself out on the decks and that it transmuted to the audience.

  2. What helps you get into a creative headspace?

    Listening to tracks and/or sets produced by my friends, a mindaltering night out, revisiting my past work, learning about songbirds, grounding my nervous system, and an overwhelming desire to evolve.

  3. What’s something you’ve learned about vulnerability — behind the decks and on the dance floor?

    I’ve learned that being my truest self behind the decks is taking risks. It looks like trying an underpracticed transition or improvising through trusting your music organization skills. Some of my best sets have been the least rehearsed and happy accidents have been some of my favorite memories behind the decks. I’ve learned to embrace spontaneity when performing and truly to trust myself in storytelling and world-building.

    On the dance floor, I’ve learned to be comfortable with being the only one dancing. As we live through a growing surveillance state and nonchalant social media culture, we have to embrace vulnerability through freeing ourselves on the dance floor. Audre Lorde said that self care isn’t self-indulgence but self-preservation which is political warfare soooo I will never not allow myself to take up space and release through movement at the function!!!

  4. How do you think about the role your work plays in the scene—socially, culturally, or politically?

    I believe that everything is political so there isn’t a single aspect of my work or anyone else’s work that doesn’t come with a weighty context. There’s only so much we can do in the scene if we’re not doing the work outside of the club!! I hope my work inspires people to question and challenge normative social conditions. I want to continue to release work that resists White supremacy, fascism, transphobia, homophobia, misogynoir and all other oppressive systems that many of us on the margins are heavily impacted by everyday. As we’ve seen in the Civil Rights Movement, music and art are powerful forces in revolutionary times so I don’t take my positioning in the scene lightly!!!