I’ve always loved music and played instruments growing up. In high school, I took music production classes, which really opened my eyes and inspired me to try DJing. I didn’t really know where to start, so I just downloaded FL Studio and about 100 tracks and somehow made it work. But after that, I downloaded actual DJ software, bought a controller, and I’ve just been experimenting ever since!
I’m really influenced by my parents’ discography growing up and the church I was raised in too. I always felt like the music was a living presence in the room. When it’s good, I can always feel it, and it feels so good to create sonic journeys for people that can potentially lead them through my history and my story. It’s so much fun. I’m deeply influenced by the playfulness and freedom of it all.
LISTEN TO DAISY ON SOUNDCLOUD ✧༺♥༻∞
BASTA: I love your mixes, and I was really dancing while listening to them! When did you start mixing and DJing? When did you begin engaging with music in this way?
DAISY: I taught myself how to DJ during my junior year of high school using FL Studio, hahaha. I had to figure it out on my own—I was starving for something! I think I decided I wanted to learn after listening to mixes on SoundCloud for years and just feeling like I could do that. At first, I never thought of being a DJ. It was more about putting the songs I liked together and making a cute cover to go with it. But then people started telling me I should DJ at parties, and they kept giving me the aux whenever there were speakers and no DJ. So I thought, "Fuck it, somebody has to be the DJ in the family!" and bought a controller.
BASTA: How would you describe your mixes to someone who has never heard them?
DAISY: The music I play and DJ, in my head, are the tracks that would be playing in Zion City (from The Matrix Reloaded) as they dance to prepare for war.
BASTA: What's a track you love but are secretly afraid to play?
DAISY: I don’t have a track I’m afraid to play, to be honest. I feel like when I DJ, it’s my responsibility to hold everyone in the room hostage and show them all my cool stuff because that’s what they paid for. If I hold back out of fear, that’s my own fault for feeling shame about the things I think are cool and not being honest about it. But I do look forward to squeezing "Wish I Didn’t Miss You" by Angie Stone into a set soon.
BASTA: Do you have a favorite place to DJ? Do you have a dream place to play?
DAISY: My favorite place (aesthetically) I’ve DJed so far is the Eris Basement Room. But my dream place to play would definitely be in a cave, a big field of dirt, or a jungle.
BASTA: Can you talk about your SoundCloud name, I love it, but also, is that your DJ name? How did you come up with it?
DAISY: Yes, my DJ name is inspired by the song "Unifying Thought" by Chanel Beads. I played the song over and over between 2022/2023 and always found myself singing the "unifying thot" bar, and I’d laugh a little because it kind of felt like the secret non-binary third child option to the "gay son or thought daughter" prompt.
"Unifying Thot" is also my DJ name, yes! I decided to switch over from Drum-and-Face last year because I started incorporating a lot of Southern gospel elements into my work along with the heavy bass and electronic sounds, and I wanted a name that felt like it was in conversation with my religious background but also left room for the parts of me that could never fit in the Southern gospel environment I knew growing up.
I’m from the South, and I’ve always loved gospel music. I’ve always loved bounce music, etc., but I never felt like there was a place where I could hear Baptist drums or vocals and bounce music in the same space. And I feel like that’s so silly! The drums from both of these spaces originated from the same continent (Africa), but they can never exist under the same roof? I’ve felt things at church that moved me the same way some good bass at the club will, because if the drums hit, they HIT. It’s the same thing.
The drums are what connect us back to the Earth, and when we are connected with the Earth, we are close to God, close to mother, close to self, closer to spirit! Black people have always known the drum was the Unifying Thought. That the drum was spirit. That the drum is alive. I am the drum! Like James Brown said, "Every man is a drum." Praise dancing, two-stepping, twerking, catching the holy ghost—that’s all the same shit. It’s release. It’s a battle cry. It’s a return to home. That’s all Black people shit, and it’s all unified under one nation, one sound, one drum. One unifying thought. My goal is to be the thread that weaves sounds of Blackness that have been displaced from one another back where they belong. I refuse to compartmentalize my sound because I refuse to compartmentalize my Blackness. I’ll twerk at church and praise dance at the club because if the drums hit, they hit. Period!
BASTA: If three songs had the essence of breakfast, lunch, and dinner, what would they be and what meal would each be?
DAISY:
Breakfast- “The Sweetest Thing” by the Refugee Camp All-Stars + Lauryn Hill
Lunch- “Empty” by Janet Jackson
Dinner- “All Matter” by Bilal
BASTA: Which song completely changed how you think about music?
DAISY: “candy grapes” by Fousheé + Steve Lacy
LISTEN TO DAISY’S PLAYLIST FOR BASTA: DITL PLAYLIST
The first two songs are what it feels like most days when i first wake up and linger in bed. then im rushing to get ready in time to take the bus so i don’t have to walk all the way to the train. most days i miss it and end up walking 12 minutes to the train anyway. bruiser feels like that walk to the train to me. then when yup starts that’s when i get to work and i pop my shit for a bit. then i leave and hang with my friends when im not too tired, that’s when 454 comes in. after that i either go home or my partner comes to pick me up and thats what arrow through me is about. when i get home i immediately have to decompress and sometimes ill vent about my day and reflect with my partner. then i smoke, eat, shower, do yoga, journal, dj—whatever it takes to get the day off my chest. then i rest and think about the things going on in my life. what i have to do tomorrow, next week, next month— sometimes i feel like i don’t have enough time to rest and i fall into a thought hole about what i could be doing. that thought process feels a lot like the song meaning. i let myself sit with these feelings and they usually pass, like all things. that’s when we get into the song busin, and i remember i don’t need anything! i have everything i need, ive done everything i need to do, and everything i have yet to do will get done. i remember im blessed and thats because i get to do it all again tomorrow. then i go to sleep.
by Katie kern
@daisyacollins