{"id":75949,"date":"2016-05-15T11:40:04","date_gmt":"2016-05-15T15:40:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=75949"},"modified":"2016-05-15T11:40:04","modified_gmt":"2016-05-15T15:40:04","slug":"comes-electronic-dance-music-girls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/05\/15\/comes-electronic-dance-music-girls\/","title":{"rendered":"When it comes to electronic dance music, where my girls at?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"But<\/a>
But the lack of women DJs has been a part of the EDM conversation for the last year.
(Photo: David French<\/a>\/Flickr)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

NEW YORK \u2013 David Guetta, Diplo, Avicii and Calvin Harris are holding fast as the kings of the clubs, with women still a rarity among popular electronic dance DJ-producers.<\/p>\n

This weekend\u2019s Electric Daisy Carnival in New York City \u2013 the annual ultra-popular electronic dance music extravaganza \u2013 features six women among the 80-plus performers.<\/p>\n

And lest you think that number seems low: \u201cI think that sounds like a higher than normal number,\u201d said Miriam Nervo, one-half of the Australian EDM duo NERVO, which includes her sister Olivia.<\/p>\n

Other festivals have featured one or two women, while some don\u2019t have any at all.<\/p>\n

But outside of DJ\u2019ing, women make up other parts of the dance music world. They appear as vocalists on most of the thumping tracks that have been spun over and over for decades and they also work as songwriters as well as managers of top talent, such as Caroline Prothero (Guetta), Amy Thomson (Swedish House Mafia) or Stephanie LaFera (Kaskade).<\/p>\n

Nervo, who also has had success as a songwriter with her sister for acts like Kesha, Kylie Minogue and even co-penned Guetta\u2019s breakout pop anthem, 2009\u2019s \u201cWhen Love Takes Over,\u201d said though on paper the EDM world looks like a boys\u2019 club, that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur experience has really been so positive from the boys,\u201d Nervo said.<\/p>\n

Other women have echoed her statement, including Nicole Moudaber, who is performing and hosting her own stage dubbed \u201cMoodZONE\u201d at Citi Field for EDC New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never even thought about it; it never really crossed my mind. I do what I do and I live in my own club in my own world, and I never had obstacles as such \u2013 never,\u201d said the performer, who was born in Nigeria to Lebanese parents. \u201cIt\u2019s really something that I haven\u2019t experienced to be honest. At the end of the day the music that you make has no gender, no color.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nervo and Moudaber said they haven\u2019t faced uphill battles in EDM because they are women, unlike in other fields.<\/p>\n

But the lack of women DJs has been a part of the EDM conversation for the last year. It reached a new height when DJ Magazine \u2013 the definitive source for news and info on DJs, dance music and its culture \u2013 released its 25th anniversary issue last month, featuring 25 male DJs on its cover and zero women. The British-based magazine\u2019s 2015 Top 100 list of DJs only included three female acts, with NERVO in the highest position at No. 24 (the female duo Krewella was at 81 and Miss K8 at 94).<\/p>\n

\u201cMy guess is maybe there\u2019s the thought that it\u2019s more challenging for women so less women go for it because maybe they\u2019re intimidated by it,\u201d said Pasquale Rotella, the CEO of Insomniac, which produces EDC festivals around the world. \u201cAnd I would hate for that to be the case. If that is, I\u2019d love to help change that.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2007, Tatiana Alvarez was so over being ignored that she transformed and became DJ Musikillz, a male performer. She wore facial hair and loose clothing, hid her breasts and booked more gigs as a man. Warner Bros. is turning her story into a movie.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere were prejudices toward women, definitely back then. It was a different industry, it was a different time,\u201d said the Los Angeles-performer, who disguised herself as a man for a year. \u201cIt was definitely \u2018cause I was a girl, \u2018cause I was a sexy girl.\u201d<\/p>\n

Writer and former Beatport editor Katie Bain said there may be a lack of female DJs because \u201cwomen historically have not been as involved in STEM and computer engineering and all of that stuff that one needs to know how to do in order to make electronic music. Women haven\u2019t been as prevalent in those areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bain, who will moderate a panel at the EDMbiz Conference & Expo next month called \u201cBeyond the Boys\u2019 Club: What\u2019s Next for Women in Dance Music,\u201d said that as the topic of female DJs \u201chas gotten more attention, I feel that women are getting booked more.\u201d<\/p>\n

Moudaber encourages other women to grab the bulls by the horns \u2013 like she\u2019s done in her six-year career as a DJ and producer.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf women want to take to that path, it\u2019s out there and it\u2019s available. It\u2019s down to the women to choose if they want to or not. It\u2019s not easy job and it\u2019s not cut out for everybody,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW YORK \u2013 David Guetta, Diplo, Avicii and Calvin Harris are holding fast as the kings of the clubs, with …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":75960,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[10736,10737],"class_list":["post-75949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-art-and-culture","tag-edm","tag-electronic-dance-music","mauthors-mesfin-fekadu","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=75949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/75949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/75960"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=75949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=75949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=75949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}