Starting Somewhere: How To Start DJing
"That kind of generosity and resource sharing is so abundant in my life and I'm so grateful."
Starting Somewhere is our new series that highlights practical advice from our guests in their areas of expertise. Whether you’re a creative who’s interested in starting a similar venture or already have an existing project you want to improve upon, we hope this series can inspire you to take the next steps. If you know someone who could use a nudge to start their own project, send this to them!
While attending an acting conservatory school, Lovie’s friends brought her to a local bar to show off some of their work. In the bar, she saw people DJing and VJing (a live performance of visuals) which led to a realization that her hobby of collecting and discovering music could expand to take a new form.
Over time, exploring this passion has led Lovie to host her own radio show, a party series, and cement herself as a regular DJ at many intentional listening spaces around New York City. Regardless of where you are in your music journey, Lovie brings the transparent advice that every creative needs to dive deeper and get started. Listen to our interview with Lovie on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
Here are 5 Steps to Start Your Journey as a DJ
1. A Love of Music Discovery
Playlisting! That's how I started. Like a genuine love of deeper music discovery and researching, finding that context, and knowing who connects to what and how. If you find yourself intuitively gravitating and loving and enjoying that and sharing it with people, I think that's enough. You'll learn how much more goes into it. But bringing that joy to it first and foremost is so important.
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2. Go Where it’s Already Happening
I really encourage people to listen to a plethora of mixes online and to go to a plethora of places where DJing is happening. My first experience was in that tiny little art gallery bar, and that immediately resonated with me and I was like “This looks like so much fun.”
Knowing the different genres of music that happen in your city, the different places where it happens, and popping around to these different spaces where DJs are. Are they at a sit-down listening bar? Are they at a bar where it's their laptop and their controller? Are they in a club setting? Who was in this space with them? What is resonating with them? What are they enjoying? And just kind of doing that groundwork of collecting as much as you can, resources and mixes, to find what resonates with you.
3. Follow the Joy
From that initial spark of “I love finding music and I love playlisting,” when you kind of shift that into the long term, what's going to make that joy consistent? For me, I love being on the dance floors where house music is being played and where there are older Black folks on the dance floor too, who are like, throwing baby powder on the floor so that they can get a grip on the dance floor more easily. Where there's house music and disco happening, that is going to constantly bring me joy. Knowing what kind of space that looks like for you as an individual is gonna be important to know what's gonna continue to energize you when you get into the deeper logistics and you need something to keep you going.
4. Make Time
It really wasn't until I had kind of taken some time off from theater and wasn't auditioning as much, that I could finally look at this library of music that I had from watching Boiler Room mixes while I sat at the computer and did work-study jobs or listened to NTS and The Lot Radio all day that I was finally able to start to ideate “Okay, what can this look like?" And then it was another year where I was teaching myself on my laptop and sitting with my music and we collectively got that space and time in the pandemic to consider “Okay, how do we live digitally now?” that I had the time to sit down with a controller and a laptop and just start putting stuff out on a weekly basis.
5. Reach out to DJ Platforms
For me, DJing looked different than most because The Lot Radio was my first time playing out and about. I learned that people around the city will watch the Lot Radio to find people to book, and so my first club gig was at Elsewhere in New York.
The booker had been listening to The Lot Radio and sent me an email because he had tuned into my show and asked if I wanted to be the first opener on this particular club night. I did some kind of reaching out to people beyond that but having a platform like The Lot Radio backing you is super helpful. And so I did not get my first gigs until I was DJing on the Lot and people took me a bit more seriously because of that.
So first there was a community person who I reached out to and asked “Hey, I have this show that I've been working on that I've been uploading to SoundCloud, can I come and share it on The Lot?” and they gave me a chance that gave me this broader platform.
Have you ever considered becoming a DJ? What more do you want to know about getting started?
🎧 Listen to Lovie’s interview on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.
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