On creating success without comparing yourself to others

You’re a talented multi-hyphenate. Do you ever feel like the different parts of you are in conversation with each other, whether it’s the fashion side, or the acting side, or the modeling side, or the DJing side? How do you think those all inform each other?

I think in a human way, all these different components are always in conversation. Whether you’re going to the nightclub in New York and you see all of the cool people and their outfits and how much attention to detail that took and the celebration away from corporate spaces and having to look a particular way. It allows people to experience this freedom that they can also experience through music as well.

In a capitalist context, even when it’s time to sell a thing, brands need to do activations and they’re able to achieve this goal of creating a brand lifestyle or culture around a brand through the types of people that they work with. And usually those are the DJs, the fashion designers, the creatives, the counterculture people, taste-makers.

What makes a great show for you?

If I see that I got all of my stuff together in a technical way and all of my transitions were fire. If I took risks, stepped outside of my comfort zone, and still introduced the audience to new people while also playing things that they really want to hear. Tangible results: people dancing the entire time, having a good time, and not just on their phones the whole time. No one’s uncomfortable, no one feels judged. That’s ultimately my ideal party scenario.

How does a transition come to you? Is it something that you meditate on? Is it something that’s intuitive?

I think it’s a bit of both. Obviously there’s a formula to it, the BPMs have to match and the keys have to be harmonious together. Even if you’re not necessarily playing the songs long enough for the keys to matter…Those small details really do make the moment better for everyone. And then there’s the music nerd stuff. If you know a particular sample you can start off with the sample and then loop it or add an effect and then go into the top song sampling that song. I think it’s cool to use that to highlight old and new, but also tell a different story through songs that people already know. It keeps things exciting and familiar.

What’s your relationship to practicing before you perform? How many times do you practice?

Because I play so many times a week, I don’t have the chance to practice as much as I would like to, but I still do. I’ll go to a DJ homie’s house and mess around on their CDJs or XDJ. Or if I am just bored out and about and then I am going to one of my friend’s gigs, but it’s not one of those super crazy clubs, usually like some bar somewhere, I’ll B2B with them. Pirate Studios is still a useful tool. So I’ll go there sometimes to practice or give lessons to my friends who are interested in DJing. I think having to show people the ropes allows me to brush up on my own technique because it forces me to be able to redefine things in a concise way and reinforces the fundamentals, which I think everyone should know.

Whenever I’m teaching a lot of people, because it still happens to everyone, a lot of people get blown away when they get the super opener sets or the super closing sets when the room’s empty. But I use those as practice times as well because I think you’re able to test out stuff with a live audience that you couldn’t get away with at 1:00 AM when the room is completely packed. I think you have a bit more freedom.

I think that’s a smart reframing of what other people may perceive as failure. Does that sound right

Yeah, definitely. Failure or rejection, I think both can fit under that.

Speaking of, what’s your relationship with failure or rejection?

I have a fairly healthy relationship with it only because I’ve been doing this for such a long time. It’s part of the journey, especially in the earlier stages. And then still to this day, there’ll be a really cool brand or a really cool artist that I’m obsessed with that’ll reach out to me with a dream ray and possibly fly me out somewhere. And then when it’s time to sign the papers and be like, “actually the client decided to go in another direction,” that’s never fun to hear, especially when they still invite you to the event. They’re like, “Okay, but sorry about that, but if you want to come, you’re on the list.” That’s never fun to experience.

But I think I’ve accepted what’s meant for me is for me and whatever I do get, I earned it and whatever I do not get isn’t a missed opportunity for me as much as it is just an opportunity for someone else to show their stuff. They aligned more in that moment and I have to just take the L because comparison is obviously the thief of joy and I never want to live in a space where I never feel good enough or I’m constantly looking at the next person and creating a weird animosity over their success. I never want to be that person.

**Is there a habit or ritual that helps you move through a creative block when you’re feeling stuck or uninspired? **

The way I get through feeling uninspired is being patient with myself and forgiving myself. You are going to experience moments where you quite literally just can’t. You have to find small ways to mentally get closer to your goals whether on a macro or micro level. It could be like, “okay I don’t got it in me today, but you know what I could do? Send invoices and respond to emails and do returns.” I don’t necessarily have to go to a bunch of events and show face or sit on my computer and make a mix or practice beats. As long as I’m getting something done to the best of my ability and still handling business, it’s perfectly okay to just be a person and have an off day and start over again tomorrow with a fresh head.

DJing can be very solitary, you’re in a booth working on a thing. Do you agree with that? How do you handle it?

I think it really can be, depending on the job. Obviously if it’s a more corporate or exclusive event, I’m probably not going to be able to bring my homegirls–and I like partying with my homegirls. I think being able to look over my shoulder and see them having a good time, seeing the crowds engage with them, that’s a fun experience. But there are jobs I quite literally can’t do that for. Especially if I have to go play abroad, they’re usually just getting the room for me by myself and not all of my homies can take off work and buy a flight to Berlin last minute. So that gets isolating.

But I don’t hate that about the job. When your job is to be at the epicenter of the nonsense 24/7, it gets really overstimulating. I’m also not in my early 20s anymore and I don’t mind it feeling like a job. I don’t need it to feel like a party 24/7. I think that helps me keep a healthy relationship with nightlife too, having that balance, so that when I am in these super crazy rager clubs and all of my friends are with me, I can actually savor the moment and not feel like, “Ugh, another day.”

How do you decide what to take on when it comes to gigs?

Now I’ve been trying to be a bit more selective with the jobs that I accept that don’t necessarily make sense for me in the states that I’m in. If I am doing something a bit more DIY, I usually make sure, okay, it is for a queer party collective or it’s for a young upcoming group of Black DJs who are really progressive and play really cool stuff and they’re really talented. I want it to be meaningful for everyone and I don’t think it makes sense for me, currently, to do every dingy skater dive bar, even though those are my favorite types of parties. If I’m going to go and put myself in spaces that aren’t necessarily safe for everyone, then I think that’s how I determine whether it’s worth it, especially if it’s not paying me my rate.

What is your relationship with social media?

I use it as a tool like everyone else. Every platform has a different purpose. Everyone’s always like “You need to be able to show your personality on Instagram,” but it’s just turned into a portfolio for everyone. I want people to know that I do have a functioning brain on Twitter, but I’ve been trying to regulate the lengths that I go with my silly jokes. Sometimes I forget there are thousands of strangers watching me and I don’t want millions of people to get the wrong impression off of me making a dumb joke.

I do think it’s cool that I can use my platform to inform my generation and younger people on what’s going on and to keep us questioning things, making sure that we’re prioritizing progress and ethics over individualism and capitalism. I think those two things are what’s driven society into the space that it’s in now.

It feels like things are becoming homogenized and algorithmic, especially music discovery. What’s your relationship with creative discovery online? Do you take it offline? How do you find inspiration?

Ooh, big question. As far as music consumption goes for the masses and how algorithmic everything is, I do think that there is a desire for newness and I think the kids are always going to chase that. I can speak from being a teen during the blog and SoundCloud eras, there was this overall desire for what’s next. We didn’t completely divest from radio.

There will always be digital spaces, accounts, and indie platforms who specialize in spreading underground music. That’s also what all the A&Rs are using nowadays to sign people because everyone’s lazy. So I think the streets and the kids determining who’s hot, that’s never going to stop.

I feel like I have curated my surroundings in a way where I know who in my life I can look to for new music in different avenues of music. If I want to figure out who’s hot in the diaspora space, particularly in the Caribbean, I got my homies who work on the Caribbean side of music who are always looking for who’s up next and if I need recs I can hit them. Same with the underground hip-hop circuit, techno circuit, and EDM, house, you name it. I have a homie who probably makes music in that space and if I want to deepen my repertoire in that particular genre, I’ll go through their community or start googling all of their homies and create a decent playlist of that. I’m always looking people up.

There’s also the way that the algorithm is set up on Apple Music. If you go to one artist, there’s a bunch of similar artists. I’m still a little bit old school, so I still go through my SoundCloud and YouTube wormholes and click on different artists through a genre and end up in three, four different genres. That’s pretty fun to do.

I also listen outside. I’ll be walking down the street and if I hear the kebab guy playing a really cool Egyptian song, I’ll Shazam that. If I’m walking through Ridgewood and there’s some Puerto Rican or Dominican guys playing dominoes andthey’re playing some Héctor Lavoe deep cut, I’m Shazaming that. If I’m driving and a car is blasting the loudest dembow or dancehall record that I’ve never heard, I’m Shazaming both of those records. So I’m quite literally listening to music passively as I’m walking down the street with no headphones. Because there’s always music around us and sometimes that shit be hot if you’re really listening.

Do you ever incorporate those things that you Shazam into your sets?

All the time to a point where people are like, “Dylan, what do you even know about this?” And I’m like, “Exactly. This is part of just being in New York.”

You’re so effortlessly cool. How do you define cool?

I think my personal definition of cool is living your fullest, purest, most authentic self, loving others and not being afraid of existing outside of conformity. I think it’s okay to not follow the crowd, and it is okay to follow the crowd, but making it a conscientious choice because you enjoyed it and not because you want to blindly follow a crowd.

I think especially in my earlier days, I used to just be so anti-everything to a point where it teetered into haterdom, even though it was justified. It was a bit pretentious. So now I’m older and it’s cool to embrace the cringe if it’s actually good and if it actually means something to people. There’s ways to recontextualize listening to music if you’re in the right space for it. And I think that’s one thing that’s helped get through playing on a lot of spaces that aren’t necessarily my target audience.

Do you have any early North Star DJs or radio shows that you were like, “This makes me want to get behind the decks”?

K-Swift 2006. She was one of the biggest Baltimore club DJs and producers. My parents were in the process of separating, and I had gone to middle school right outside of Baltimore and spent my entire life in the D.C. area, so I had no clue what the hell Baltimore club was, but I remember her 92Q one night driving down whatever highway with my family, and I remember my mind being blown away. And the fact that she was a girl too was even crazier. Her Blaqstarr, that whole era was just insane to a point where even M.I.A. and Diplo were running around with them. Seeing different artists who I also was into back then engaging with the regional sound was like, “Oh, okay. This is really cool.”

Also Black dance music, because growing up all the dance music I was listening to on my trips to France to visit my family, was very much the Tiesto and David Guette economy. It was Afrojacks, it was Armand Van Helden, it was that whole era. Even into the indies era it was cool to know there was a Black conversation happening in America. Finding that felt like I struck a goldmine. I started looking into all of the Black dance music genres, finding the European conversations and responses to what was going on in the States, and then seeing the Caribbean influence. It got really nerdy once I started getting into it and I loved it.

Is there anything I didn’t ask you that you’re like, “I want to get this out there?”

Controversial. Everyone’s always complaining about the amount of DJs and the saturation of the job. They were also saying this 12 years ago when I started. Now that I’ve seen people come and go, I personally think everyone should just learn how to DJ the same way everyone randomly tries out ballet, soccer, or knitting. We should all be trying as many things as possible. Even if we don’t want to monetize them. It keeps us connected and creative as people, and looking for a deeper meaning in how we listen to things.

Even if you’re not getting booked at the crazy venues or festivals, there are DJs in random parts of New York. Like old Caribbean uncles who’ve been playing their family kickbacks in local bars for 50 years and they’re completely fine and able to sustain some sort of creative fulfillment, connect with others, and create memories with their community. That’s ultimately what it’s always been about. So in short, I think everyone should learn how to DJ.