Interview with DJ Luane de Lima

10/17/2018

When you were just getting started out, how did you go about building credibility and getting those important initial gigs?
Well I started DJing about four years ago. Early on, I had some very good DJ instructors who helped me learn the more technical aspects of it and they also helped me land some of my first gigs. After those, I didn't have any manager or anything, so I had to go about finding and reaching out to promoters myself. My goal was to just play at any gig that I could get to prove to everyone that I wasn't just a pretty face. Within the first year, I was already getting booked to play in other countries in Asia. It was all moving really fast, but I was putting in the hard work to make sure people knew that I was as good and as capable of performing as any male DJ.

Could you walk us through an average day in the life?
I spend a lot of time searching for tracks and organizing them into folders on rekordbox to export to my flash drive for gigs. There's a lot of traveling and flying about to various gigs around Asia; sometimes I'll be playing every day from Tuesday to Saturday. I try to get in enough sleep to offset the late nights, but it can be a bit of a challenge to fit everything that needs to be done into the day. Due to all of the travel, I haven't been in the studio as much as I would like, but I am working on a song with an Indonesian producer which is in the style of some of Khalid's stuff. I'm very excited to get to work on finishing that and sharing it with you all!

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A post shared by DJ Luane (@luanedelima) on Feb 14, 2018 at 1:23am PST

What have been some of the challenges that you've faced on your journey to where you are today?
One of the biggest problems I've had is with bad booking agents. For example, a promoter from the US tried to book me but something just seemed kind of off about it. So I asked some of my other DJ friends and they told me that he wasn't a real agent at all and that he was just trying to pick up girls. There's also the issue of agents booking you and then cancelling at the last minute. It's just so frustrating because now I have this blank timeslot in my night where I could have been playing somewhere else. Then of course there are the agents who refuse to pay you. It can be really rough out there, so you've always got to find people with good reputations to work with. Those bad apples exist, but they're far from the majority. Most of the time I get along just fine with the agent and the venue.

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A post shared by DJ Luane (@luanedelima) on Apr 7, 2018 at 12:29am PDT

What sort of music works best for the crowds you play and how does factor into your own tracks?
I been producing for just over a year now and so far, I've released eight tracks that you can find on Spotify. Since I start out as a house DJ, I tend to gravitate towards that genre and some of the more tropical sounds. Lately I've been working on some hip hop and trap music for my fans in the Philippines because they really enjoy those types of songs in my sets. All it takes for me to be happy on stage is to see that people are dancing and having a good time. I play all types of music for all types of crowds, so I try and take what I've learned from my performances with me into the studio to create the best tracks that I can.

And lastly, what's your favorite part of your career in music?
It's absolutely got to be the festivals. It's such an amazing feeling to see thousands of people jumping around to the music with me. Honestly, I'm always super nervous before getting in the booth, but when I put on the first song, everything just falls into the place. The energy at festivals is unparalleled to anything else in the world. I can't even begin to explain the feelings rushing through my head when I got on stage at my first festival performance. It was the happiest I've ever been because I just knew I had achieved the first big goal in seeing my passion become my profession.

A big thank you to Luane de Lima for taking the time to answer our questions! To see where she's playing next and when her new songs drop, be sure to follow her on social media using the links below!