Her trajectory began on September 2014, when a Christmas gift from her parents arrived a few months too early. “My dad was the one who realized that I was really involved in electronic music and I had told him, ‘maybe I can buy something small and cheap, just so I can play around.’” But Julianna Lozada’s father went ahead and bought a big and expensive set-up for her. Everything was new: the laptop, the speakers, and the headphones. She recalls being “so shocked” and crying the entire day. That day Julianne Kay, the DJ, was born.
Even before her father’s generous gifts, music was already part of this young DJ’s life. Her father was a musician and he would take her to his gigs at hotels or private parties. She used to fiddle around his iTunes library and there, she discovered Tiësto’s “Elements of Life.” “That was the first electronic music song I heard in my life, ever,” Kay commented. The discovery was highly influential: “Tiësto is a pioneer in electronic music; he’s been playing for so long. Thanks to him and that 7 to 8 minute-long song, I became interested in looking for other DJs.”
And so, she began listening and looking at videos to observe how these popular DJs played and to learn about all the different styles and sub-styles. During this period of awakening, Kay discovered the DJs who have influenced and inspired her. Apart from Tiësto, Knife Party was the first one she saw live, back in 2013. Porter Robinson is another music producer that Kay has a lot of respect and love for because his is the “type of music that, every time you listen to it, you get chills and goosebumps, and truly, I never get tired of it.” The same happens with Zedd. In Kay’s eyes, he’s a musical genius who has found the balance between traditional music (piano, guitar, drums) and electronic musical.
Despite her love of music, Kay wouldn’t have taken the leap if it hadn’t been for her dad. She admits that he was the one that pushed her to take the leap and pursue music. He saw that she loved music, even when she didn’t dare admit or accept that it was what she wanted.
Later on, Kay was called for her first ever public presentation. Circa 2015, a friend that was already an established DJ, invited her to a low-key event so she could play for a little while. “Obviously, I went crazy and culeca because I had just been called up to play. In public. I’d never done that before,” she admits, The event was in Guaynabo, in an Irish Pub called Shannon’s. Kay recalls how she didn’t even have a case for her controller, she just had the box it came in. Additionally, her friend asked her to play low-key, ambiance music.” “I didn’t know what that meant, so I went with what I liked and knew how to play,” she says. “That was like an Electric Holiday in a bar, but I had a crowd. The people were surprised to see a female DJ on that year. Because during that year, the hype for EDM was beginning to grow.”
A couple of months later, Kay won a DJ competition by Dano, a local DJ. As the winner, chosen by Dano himself, she went on to play in San Juan at another bar. Both of these were her first outings as a DJ, but the second one was bigger than the first.
The weekend of August 16 to 19, Julianne was one of the DJ’s invited to play at Epic Con in Mayaguez Mall; this was the second year she’s participated as she also played her music last year at the event. This year, she explained that it was quite spontaneous. First, she was supposed to play on Friday and Saturday. A friend of hers that’s starting out in the scene, Sound Killer, called asking for help, and so Juli agreed to play together on Friday. However, the intense rain and traffic made Kay arrive a bit late. Amidst many technical difficulties, Kay and Sound Killer weren’t able to play that day. She decided to stop pushing it; “Life was giving me too many negative signs.”
Kay’s feeling must have been true, because the next day everything ran smoothly. The audience responded well to the music, and they had all the necessary equipment, partly due to how Juli “triple-checked” her bag. However, upon arriving, they both noticed that the other DJ’s were playing dubstep, bass, and drumstep. Confused, Julianne turned to his friend and asked, “‘What’s this? Wasn’t this supposed to be something more family-friendly and commercial?’ We came prepared to play house music, but, tocamos pesaera. ” Luckily, Sound Killer came with some of his dubstep and bass music. “We threw away the house set and we totally improvised. We opened with the Superman theme, to give it a touch of comics and superheroes. After, it was totally another element. . . it had been some time since I played [dubstep and bass].”
Gigs like these are what Julianne’s focusing on right now. She explains that she’s doing more low-key events because she’s also juggling college life and her studies, considering how when she started out, she was still in high school and without the pressures of college.
She expresses a desire to remain in the scene, however: “You’ll see me doing small stuff. So every time that you see I’m going to play, expect a show of quality and fun and kindness. You can always go up to me and ask for a song. . . I always love to play music for the people and see them dance. For now, I’m staying low-key. But who knows if an event comes up and… We’ll see where it goes for now, but [music and DJ-ing] is definitely a huge part of me.”
Further into the future, Julianne dreams about playing music and having fun for a living. “What every DJ dreams about: getting paid for laughing, for jumping around, and for making people happy with your music.” Her goals include playing at the EDC, Tomorrowland, Ultra Music Festival, and Coachella.
Kay continued describing how she wants to get to the point where she “can make people feel what Zedd makes me feel, or Porter Robinson or Knife Party, or Tiesto made me feel: those goosebumps and that burst of happiness inside you when you listen to music…that’s what I want to do one day.”
Another part of what she aspires to do as a DJ is to break barriers in regards to gender, which she has already begun to do In the beginning, it felt “intimidating and frustrating” because she saw how she was given more opportunities just by being a woman and not for her work. She would notice the sexualized image society has of women and because of this, she would get more chances to play and perform. But, while this counted as opportunity in the sense of getting more experience and having her brand out there, it had negative repercussions as well. She wants to overcome the image most people have of women as a “sex symbol,” especially in the DJ scene, and most importantly, she wants honesty and constructive criticism with zero bias for her gender. “Not everyone is like that, though. I have friends that support me and tell me the truth about my work. . . I appreciate that so much. It gives me hope how everyone can open up their minds and stop seeing DJ-ing as only a man’s domain, because it’s not!”
Be sure to listen to Julianne Kay’s music and follow her on Twitter, SoundCloud, and Facebook.