Artist Profile: DJ Myshell
A powerhouse producer, DJ and sound healer, DJ Myshell is immersed in the world of sound waves. She believes strongly that dance has a freeing effect on individuals and builds community when people of all ages join together to be free in music and dance. Electric Love's team has had the privilege of learning from her wisdom, and she shares some of it in our latest artist profile.
Electric Love: How would you describe yourself as an artist, first and foremost?
Myshell: I'm always nervous. When I play I've prepared music that I've remixed - originals - so it's not as much of a DJ as it is a producer and I've done that all along. That's always more nerve-racking from the artist side. A social experiment because you put yourself out there. If I get them in it then it's amazing and you're one with them. And I'm just the conduit and it just goes through and it becomes whatever they want it to be. So it doesn't matter what I made because the audience are going to make the magic themselves.
Electric Love: Would you say you have a signature style?
Myshell: Fusion, different. I would like to say innovative. Using different basslines. I see music evolving from rudimentary electronic loop-based music and I love to think of my signature as something that's looking from the past to the future to fuse them. You'll see things like a lot of different drum rhythms or a lot of analog sounds, the warm, real recordings. Guitar players, horn players, hand drums put into it, trying to bring a fusion of the live into the electronic. I try not to be cookie cutter, I take what I love about all types of music and bring them together and see if we can't make a new kind.
Electric Love: What has been your most intense experience as an artist?
Myshell: Well, billboards across India of me were awesome when I did a tour there. I was the first Budweiser girl there. India taught me so much about the cultural difference between North America and India. They all dance. We travelled 8 hours into the jungle, the whole town was coming to the show from little children to grandparents. They all know their Bollywood music and its a very modern day sound. So what I was seeing was community dancing. In my generation we watched boys not having to ask girls to dance anymore, and now we can all just dance. This is huge. So to be a part of that, and to see it and to bring it back here - like this is how the old country does it, they all dance. They don't say you can't dance until you're 19 and you can drink. The tour was great, to be out there like that.
Electric Love: What is your greatest hope for your work as an artist?
Myshell: It happens all the time - when it's received. You've communicated on a whole other level.
Electric Love: What message would you say your music communicates?
Myshell: Unity. Acceptance. Non-judgment, we just are. There's so much acceptance on the dance floor, and I want to orchestrate that in any way that brings people together. It's an incredible privilege.