When we last caught up with Mexico City-based DJ Jessica Audiffred in 2016, she was putting out high-energy, catchy tracks like the future bass masterpiece “Higher,” the trappy “K.O.,” the intense “GTFB,” and her infectious remix of Marshmello’s “Alone.” Since then, she’s played at some huge festivals including EDC Vegas and Tomorrowland Mexico and released the EP Nice to Meet You, along with a number of singles like “This Ends Now,” a collaboration with Austin-based DJ Crizzly, and the fast-paced, chaotic, bass-boosted “Like What the F.”
Audiffred paid a visit to Los Angeles for a show alongside Riot Ten, Cookie Monsta, G-Rex, and Sharps on Saturday, February 29 at the Hollywood Palladium, and her set demonstrated not only the colorful range of music she’s been putting out as a DJ and producer but also how well she’s mastered the art of getting a crowd riled up.
Even though it was just a one-night event, people showed up decked out in festival gear, from face glitter to colorful bras, and the line stretched through the block outside the Palladium. The night started off with Seattle-based DJ Sharps, whose bass-heavy set got people jumping and bouncing as the background screen displayed knives (ostensibly a play on his name). People head-banged to the music and even formed a mosh pit in the center of the dance floor and threw themselves at one another. Just when it seemed like the energy couldn’t get higher, Sharps announced, “Make some noise for Jessica Audiffred.”
Female DJs are still unfortunately and unreasonably among the minority in festival and show lineups, but Audiffred proved that audience members, male and female alike, will support women on stage just as much as men, if not more. People shouted “Jessica!” and “We love you!” from the crowd and sang along to any and all vocals she sampled.
Part of Audiffred’s success is stems from her ability to put on a great live show. She throws her head back and forth and dances with her fists in the air while performing in front of delightfully quirky imagery, from Beavis and Butt-Head cartoons to dogs in sunglasses and images of her own face breathing fire. She also made the show interactive, prompting people to put on their cell phone lights and wave them in the air at one point, then turning around and having someone on stage take a photo of her with all her fans in the background later on.
Throughout Audiffred’s set, which embodied the interesting mix of upbeat and dark vibes that characterizes her music, she sampled “Sicko Mode,” elicited head-bangs with the Latin-inspired beats in “K.O.,” and produced some epic drops in “This Ends Now.”
G-Rex followed her with music reminiscent of what you hear in a haunted house and corresponding imagery of skulls, creepy baby faces, and ghost-like hands that appeared to be crawling out of the screen. His set featured voices warped both low and high, scratchy beats, and high-pitched clicks and clacks. While his music was similarly intense, G-Rex lacked the stage presence that Audiffred exudes, but he did create a mood that was spooky and thrilling.
I left before Cookie Monsta and Riot Ten came on; I couldn’t rally up the energy to stay out long past 11. But in my mind, I’d already seen the main act, which was Audiffred. Hopefully, more venues will soon be smart enough to make her the headliner.
It’s June 2016 and I’m testing how low I can get before breaking down. I’ve worked until midnight and gotten up at four to churn out more writing assignments. Seeking comfort from the stress, I reach for the chips in my cupboard, eat more than I intended, panic, and make myself throw up. Unable to focus on an empty stomach, I do it all over again. I move my laptop to Starbucks and order iced cold brew after iced cold brew, telling myself to focus until I’ve finished my 18th article of the day. My stomach feels like negative space.
I write a resignation email for my most stressful job and fantasize about sending it, knowing I’ll never have the courage. I don’t need the money, but the thought of turning down work makes me recoil. I must be successful and success means more bylines and more money.
This is a pattern I’ve become all too familiar with. But at least this time, I have something to look forward to. After another four hours of sleep and 15 articles, I’m headed to Vegas for Electronic Daisy Carnival, an electronic music festival I’d never heard of until the press trip invitation arrived in my inbox.
To accommodate my crazy work hours, I fly in the night before and pull an all-nighter. I sign in for my shift at 3 a.m. from a casino cafe and churn out 7 articles until it ends at 11. Just when I think I’m done, my editor keeps me late to post an update on the Orlando alligator attack.
Meanwhile, a college friend’s blowing up my Facebook chat, begging me to join her in Ibiza in two weeks. I can’t because of this goddamn job. Getting time off is impossible.
Skrillex and Diplo’s “Where Are U Now” wakes me up from a three-second, sitting-up nap. Emboldened by the catchy riff punctuating Justin Bieber’s refrain and fantasies of Ibiza opening parties, I write another resignation email. This time, I type my supervisor’s email address in the “recipients” box.
I still can’t hit “send,” but getting close makes me feel wild. I pack up, put on a tiny $3 romper, and walk along Las Vegas strip. As I pass Serendipity and hum along to Calvin Harris’s “This Is What You Came for,” I visualize myself lounging by the fountain, eating over-priced, calorie-packed ice cream. That would be self-indulgent. Unproductive. Bad. Glorious. Free. How freeing it would be to be bad. I don’t dare enter, but the thought alone loosens my mental shackles.
Something has to change this weekend. Either life as I know it will be destroyed, or I will. Either the part of me that forbids eating ice cream and dropping work will die, or the part of me that wants it will. I secretly root for the former.
As I enter the Las Vegas Motor Speedway that night with a parade of EDM heads in wings, animal faces, and bathing suits, that little voice in me that wants to fuck work and go be an ice cream eating fairy kitten princess says, “Hey, there. I missed you.” I pass giant glowing flowers, foreboding owl statues, and a tiny schoolhouse where people are coloring. This is the closest thing adults have to Disney World.
My pace picks up. I don’t know where I’m running, only what I’m running from: everything outside this land over the rainbow the Nevada dust had dropped me in.
In a pavilion where Russian DJ Julia Govor is playing, I make timid, barely detectable movements, flashing back to middle school dances. Then, I see a dude doing a little catwalk in a floor-length fur coat and bull horns.
Oh, OK, so nobody gives a fuck. This is not middle school. This is not a networking event. Toto, we’re not in New York City anymore. No matter what I do, someone next to me will be crazier.
But nobody’s judging the crazy person either. I want to be the crazy person. The one people compare themselves to so they can shed their misdirected shame. I run from stage to stage doing exaggerated moves I learned in zumba class or ballet or wherever the hell I picked them up. I smile at everyone, not caring if they smile back, but they do.
A cute guy intercepts me to ask where the bathrooms are. I tell him I don’t know, and his glance lingers on me. “Can I kiss you?” he asks.
“Sure,” I shrug, because why not, and we make out amid the blending cacophony of DJ sets. He gives me his number and tells me to let him know if I come to LA.
I can’t believe this is actually a way to live, I think. This is a world where I don’t have to prove anything to be accepted. Where I don’t need a pretentious OKCupid profile to get a kiss. Where don’t need a job to feel good about myself. Where my only job is to have fun.
The next morning, I hit “send.” Three minutes later, my boss asks if she can change my schedule to keep me. Maybe, I think, but not if that rules out Ibiza. “I’ll come,” I Facebook chat my friend.
On the bus to the next day’s festival, I spot a woman with rainbow hair. I see something in her I want to bring out in myself, so I sit beside her and recount my spontaneous makeout sesh.
After flirting with a new guy in line, I see her again at Anna Lunoe’s show. Then, as the neon lights glow against the blackening sky, she gives me molly on a rooftop overlooking the ferris wheel.
On my way back to the stage, the guy from the line asks why I didn’t answer his text. I hug him and walk on, throwing off my shirt. I can do better.
I meet the LA guy by the bathrooms, and we make out again. After chugging his water bottle, I say with honesty I didn’t know was in me that I’d like to go off by myself again. Stupid boys. I’ll have more fun alone because I’m fun. I’m a fairy kitten princess, dammit.
I merge with a crowd jumping and shouting through JAUZ’s mix of System of a Down’s “BYOB.” This is the best moment of my year, I think, and then I think about how contrary that is to everything I believed. The thing that made me happiest was not when my income hit six figures or when I published 20 articles in a day or when I lost five pounds or even when Whoopi Goldberg discussed my writing on The View. It was when I was was doing something so incredibly unimpressive (unless screaming “why do they always send the poor?!” louder than anyone else is impressive). Maybe you don’t have to suffer for the best things in life.
The next day, I realize that in an attempt to film the festival, I accidentally recorded my trip. “The themes in my life,” I listen to myself telling my rainbow-haired friend, “are discipline and deprivation. Whether it’s food or work, it’s all the same.”
When I hear that, I know hanging onto that job would be just as destructive as hanging onto my disordered eating. As Anna Lunoe and Chris Lake’s “Stomper” fills my hotel room, I tell my boss that if she wants me to stay, she has to pay me more. As I anticipated, she can’t.
I panic with the urge to go work on other jobs to make up for that one’s loss. Instead, I return to Serendipity, get an ice cream sundae, and don’t throw it up or keep eating after I’m full. I chuck the half-empty cup in the trash and call up a guy I’ve been crushing on as I walk along the strip. Then, I stop inside Sephora and buy makeup, something I’d always considered too indulgent. On the way, a guy sees my arm band, says “EDC fam!”, and hugs me like we’re long-lost relatives.
Over the next two weeks, I jog around my neighborhood listening to Elliphant’s “Not Ready”:
“I guess I’m not ready for reality / A young woman in a new world / I have a big responsibility / to live life wild and free like a bird / Now is the time to be dancing.”
My first night in Ibiza, as Chris Liebing fills the Amnesia opening party, I ask a German guy I would’ve deemed too hot for me before if I can bite him. We fall in love in just two days, and I leave in tears. But on the plane home, I realize New York and I are over anyway. I’m going to travel the world like I’ve always told myself I couldn’t, and Germany’s my first stop. I spend my flight to Dusseldorf transcribing an interview with Mexican DJ Jessica Audiffred, who told me,
“People want to experience a festival. People want to get crazy. They just want a place where they can let their emotions go. They just want to have fun. They just want to get wild and electronic music can give that and a lot of other things. Just to be in the festival scene, you realize why people go. You realize why people are interested. I think electronic music is a way for people just to be free and just to be themselves and have fun and let everything go.”
Slowly, my inner fairy kitten princess takes power back from the workaholic, money-driven person I never wanted to be. Now, nine months since EDC, I’m partying in a new country practically every month, I haven’t made myself throw up since last summer, and am still with the guy from Amnesia. And I’ve got rainbow hair.
[fusion_builder_container hundred_percent=”yes” overflow=”visible”][fusion_builder_row][fusion_builder_column type=”1_1″ background_position=”left top” background_color=”” border_size=”” border_color=”” border_style=”solid” spacing=”yes” background_image=”” background_repeat=”no-repeat” padding=”” margin_top=”0px” margin_bottom=”0px” class=”” id=”” animation_type=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_direction=”left” hide_on_mobile=”no” center_content=”no” min_height=”none”]The right photo was taken the week before EDC; the left was taken the week I arrived in Germany.
My world used to extend from the Kips Bay studio apartment where I worked myself to the bone and stuffed my face to the 28th Street Starbucks where I filled my empty stomach and heart with cold brews. Now, it’s expanded through the beaches of Ibiza, the nightclubs of Berlin, the casinos of Vegas, and the Brooklyn clubs I used to pass by because I was “too busy.”
But there’s much more fairy kitten princess left in me, telling me to chuck it all and be a DJ, and she grows louder every time I hear “Stomper.”
As EDM has gained mainstream popularity, more female DJs have become recognized in a field stereotypically reserved for men. Among them is Jessica Audiffred, a Mexico City-based DJ who also has her own label, A-Records, and hosts Lunchbox, the first bass music radio show in Mexico.
Her story provides an inspiring example of an artist who got excited about her genre and just threw herself into it head-first. AudioFemme talked to Audiffred about the EDM scene and how she got where she is.
Suzannah Weiss for AudioFemme: How did you first get into DJing?
Jessica Audiffred: That was about five or six years ago, when I finished my psychology degree and I started to hang out with a lot of cool DJ friends. I’ve always liked electronic music ever since I was a little girl, so it was a really organic step to me, just to ask them, “please give me some DJ classes.” So I went to their houses, and I was there for about six to eight hours every day for about five months, and they started to put me in their parties, and I haven’t stopped.
What do you love about it?
It’s just a different feeling. Other than just making music in your house, you’re sharing that with the public, and just watching the reaction of every tune you have — you can control their feelings and their emotions. You’re just there throwing a good (or bad) time for them.
How is the EDM scene different in the US and Mexico?
In Mexico, we’re not at that point where you just can throw bass parties. You have to go there to play big commercial stuff and artists like me or like many DJs I know who play bass music or dubstep or whatever, we have a hard time playing there because people are not ready yet. There’s not much of a problem in the festival scene because you can play whatever you want, but in the club scene, it’s difficult for us who don’t play commercial big-room stuff.
Why is it harder to play less mainstream stuff in Mexico?
There’s not much of a culture around electronic music in general. They just want to go see the main big EDM acts. They just go to be like “I know him and that’s what I want to see. I don’t want to see anyone else. I don’t care about anyone else. I just want to take a video and a picture of me singing that famous song and that’s it.” It’s really sad for us because there’s not much of a scene there. But it doesn’t matter. I think that all of the people who are playing bass music and something different, we’re managing to get into a really cool group where we’re opening the doors in Mexico for that genre.
What DJs do you think people need to pay more attention to right now?
There’s a lot of OWSLA guys. They should have more spotlight on them, like Vindata. I love them so much.There’s this Jersey girl Uniiqu3 who makes really awesome Jersey club.
It seems like there’s a scarcity of female DJs at clubs and festivals. Are there fewer of you, or does it just seem that way?
That’s definitely the case because female artists don’t produce that much. They don’t get to sit down and make their own tunes. That’s what we’re lacking: female production in general, not DJs. There are really cool female DJs out there. Producers — that’s the missing point.
What festival do you think EDM fans must go to?
I think Coachella for sure. It’s a different vibe. There are a lot of genres the EDM world wouldn’t listen to if it wasn’t in a festival, so I think it’s a really cool vibe and there are a lot of great musicians there, not just DJs.
What genre do you think is the most underrated right now?
There’s a hype right now for future bass, which is really cool because back then, you wouldn’t have known anything about future bass unless you’re really into it. Footwork, Jersey club, and Mambathon are really cool too.
It seems like EDM in general has gained a lot more mainstream popularity over the past few years. Why do you think that is?
Because people want to experience a festival. People want to get crazy. They just want a place where they can let their emotions go. They just want to have fun. They just want to get wild and electronic music can give that and a lot of other things. Just to be in the festival scene, you realize why people go. You realize why people are interested. I think electronic music is a way for people just to be free and just to be themselves and have fun and let everything go.
It’s awesome that you’ve had so much success in a field you’re so passionate about. What advice would you give others looking to do the same thing?
Make music — like, learn how to play piano. Learn how to play any instrument. Go to a production class or sound engineer class. You have to be real. You have to be yourself. You have to have something different from anyone else. That’s mainly it — you just have to do music.
