By Noh Hyun-gi
DJing is not as glorious as it looks; one has to work on weekends and holidays and have a day job to make ends meet.
The male dominated field is even tougher for women but two sought after females in Seoul, DJs Jazemina and Maxqueen, driven by their love for electronic music, are continuing their efforts to play the perfect set.
People often stereotype them as party girls. “Sometimes, men come up to the booth offering drinks ― they don’t realize that we are professionals at work,” Maxqueen said.
Both artists are passionate about sharing electronic music with the crowd. They describe DJing as being like conducting an orchestra ― one has to plan out a set with an introduction, buildup, climax and come down.
“I love the moment when I can feel that I am breathing with the crowd,” said Jazemina.
She made her debut in Australia where she mixed at large scale parties with mainly hard trance. Trance is a repetitive and hypnotic type of electronic dance music characterized by sounds of synthesizers and breakdowns or decays within tracks. Hard trance can be as intensive as 150 beats per minute. When she moved to Seoul, she started mixing house, another up-tempo genre of electronic music.
“In Sydney, people go to parties to see the DJ but here in Seoul, less people care about the music itself and focus on meeting people.” Jazemina thinks that DJs are less recognized in Korea for their role. “I do miss the time where people line up to hear good DJs, but I think the fast paced life in Seoul fits me better.”
During the week, she is an English instructor who teaches board members of companies and children at elementary schools.
Jazemina is toying with ideas to make electronic music more accessible to people. “K-pop is on the rise these days and people don’t realize that many hit songs are based on the same structure and beat as the music we do. The only difference is that they have Korean lyrics but they mimic the base and ambience of house and techno,” she explained. “So I hope people can approach electronic music as the origins of the familiar songs and we, DJs, can also incorporate the popular songs to our set.”
Maxqueen is a homegrown musician whose main beat is techno, another genre of electronic music. She studied at Korea University where she was a member of the school’s orchestra. “When I encountered electronic music, I started throwing parties with a couple of friends. I didn’t dream of becoming a professional DJ then; I just wanted to entertain people with my music,” she recalled.
Maxqueen has a positive outlook on Korean music scene. “Electronic music was introduced not so long ago, so the fan base is relatively shallow. But I think it is the DJs responsibility and an exciting challenge to introduce more songs to our audiences.”
Playing a hard techno track on her cell phone she recalled a time when she felt she connected with her audience. “I was mixing techno at an event after multiple DJs who played mainstream songs. When I stepped down from the booth five Germans followed me into the bathroom to tell me that they loved my set.”
Most genres of music played at clubs have origins overseas in Western Europe but there is a boom in incorporating electronic music with the sound of Korean instruments like “gayageum.” “Not only Korean musicians but also artists overseas are borrowing sounds of traditional instruments to spice up their sets,” Maxqueen explained.
She is hoping for a resurrection of underground music venues. “Ten years ago there were more underground clubs but with the advance of technology and media, people no longer had to visit underground clubs to learn about what is happening in the musical scene here and overseas. So now we are left with really commercial venues,” said Maxqueen.
Both DJs will perform at a large-scale indoor festival, Greenplugged Red 2012, in Ilsan on Jan. 27 and 28. The all-night event will present Korean and international artists including UV, Verbal Jint, Fanfarlo and Ursula 1000.