Why I Stopped Caring About What Other DJs Think

For the first few years, I played with one eye on the room and one eye on what any DJ watching might think of my choices. Not consciously — I didn't stand there thinking "what would a critic say." But the awareness was there. A low hum of self-consciousness that shaped what I was willing to risk.

If another DJ was at the event, I'd avoid the obvious tracks. I'd reach for something deeper, more obscure, something that said "I know more than this." I'd get technically correct and emotionally remote. I was performing for the wrong audience.

The DJ Who Told Me I Played It Safe

About five years in, I played a wedding where the best man was a DJ. He was good — actually good, not just someone who'd bought a controller — and he came up to the booth during the reception with feedback nobody asked for.

"Safe set," he said. "Good reads on the room, but safe."

I thanked him and spent the drive home deciding whether he was right.

He wasn't wrong, exactly. I had played some obvious tracks. I'd taken paths I knew rather than ones that might have been more interesting. But here's what he missed: it was a wedding. Ninety guests, average age 52, no interest in anything that challenged them. They wanted to feel something familiar. I gave them that. They danced for three hours.

His metric — interesting versus safe — was the wrong metric for that room.

What DJ Culture Gets Wrong

There's a culture in DJ circles where credibility comes from music knowledge, from playing rare records, from refusing to pander. And that culture produces excellent DJs who work in clubs where the audience has opted into that experience.

But most of my work isn't clubs. It's corporate events for Volkswagen, galas for Deloitte, product launches for Philips. The audience at a Deloitte gala did not come to be educated about music. They came to celebrate something with their colleagues. My job is to make that celebration feel right, not to demonstrate what I know.

When I started letting go of what other DJs might think, I started making better decisions. I played the obvious track when the obvious track was correct. I played Whitney Houston at a retirement party without apologising. I played ABBA at a wedding without irony. People danced. People cried in the good way. That is the work.

The Specific Moment It Clicked

About three years ago, I played a fortieth birthday party for someone who'd requested, upfront, that I avoid anything too experimental. Her words: "I want everyone to feel included, not just the people with good taste."

That line hit me. She wasn't insulting anyone. She was describing exactly what a good host does. She wanted a floor where her aunt and her college friends and her work colleagues could all find something. That's not a low bar. That's actually quite difficult.

I played that set with complete commitment. No hedging, no winking at the few people who I suspected might share my taste in music. Full presence, full service.

It was one of the best nights I've ever had behind a table.

What I Think About Now Instead

I think about the room. Specifically. Who is in it, what they need, what they came here to feel.

I think about whether the transition I'm planning is serving the energy or serving my ego.

I think about the host, and whether I'm delivering what they hired me to deliver.

I do not think about how my choices would land with another DJ watching. That audience doesn't exist at my events. The only audience that exists is the one in front of me.

Other DJs have their own work to do. Mine is here.