We’ve known Seattle's (but soon to be LA-based) Reverend Dollars for many years. She booked SHYBOI a while back for her Seattle-based party Darqness, a collective focused on booking black & POC trans & queer artists. She's a producer and has a joint project JAZZ/REV which released music this year to much acclaim. I also had the privilege of listening to some of her unreleased tracks that were such a delight. And the delight continues with this mix, it is completely different from any of our others: a big breath of joyful, tough, confident, fresh air.
When did you start DJing?
Sometime around 2011-2012. I'd made hiphop beats for a long time before that and then stopped for a few years. When I started making music again, I was focused on dance music and DJing seemed like a good outlet for that.
First gig:
B2B at a house party with a shitty dude I don't associate with anymore. Gotta start somewhere I guess.
Favorite party ever played:
It was actually two parties in one night. The first was an all-ages party in a repair shop full of gay teens who were so live and I reacted to that, throwing tracks down fast and rough and pushing the tempo hard. Then I took that energy to an infamous gay secret party spot where I wasn't scheduled to play but one of the DJs didn't show and I had my gear with me so I got pressed into service. I ended up playing that whole second party with my tits out.
Fave DJ:
Juliana Huxtable gives me so much life every time I hear her. One time I opened for her but for some reason I was super shy about talking to her, which is not how I normally am.
Fave producer:
I have so many but Todd Terry really is a huge influence on me. I grew up as a hiphop head and only got into dance music as a young adult so the sampling aesthetic he introduced to house has always appealed heavily to me.
Pet peeve when DJing:
People trying to twerk on the DJ booth. This is especially bad at one club I regularly play where the booth is suspended from the ceiling and not attached to the floor at all.
What’s the best compliment you’ve ever gotten?
A friend said my DJ style is "every genre of ratchet".
Place you’d like to play:
I'd love to play in NYC again. The first (and most recent) time I played there was rather anti-climactic.
Something you want everyone to know about you:
Not about just me, but we need to dismantle the colonial systems of anti-Blackness and transmisogyny that are leading to the premature deaths of so many Black trans women.