Queen of the DJs

LOOKING AT Daisy Rinaldi, one would have a hard time guessing what she does for a living.

Wearing smart leather boots, a cashmere jumper with pearl buttons, and glittering earrings, she hardly seems the kind of girl who could reign over semi-legal, underground raves populated by hooded youths and throbbing with in-your-face techno.

But Daisy is the queen of French hardcore techno DJs, and the only woman in this testosterone-driven milieu to specialise in this toughest and darkest form of electronic music. She has made dozens of records, and has spun the turntables here for more than a decade.

She has also published a half-dozen scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals on the genetic origins of epilepsy.

Daisy’s double life lasted for six years. In 1996 she co-founded Insomniacs, a group of DJs and hard-partying music lovers that organised so-called “free parties” in and around Paris. She was also a doctoral student in neurogenetics, but after she earned her PhD in 2002, it was all music all the time.

As the first woman to break into the top ranks of French DJs during the late 1990s, Daisy needed guts as well as brains.

“Basically, the hardcore milieu is a boy’s club. So it was difficult for women to impose themselves,” says Emmanuel Gauthier, alias DJ Paco.

Cecile Delacoudre, who heads the Epileptik record label, agrees. “The competence of women is put to the test more than for men,” she said in an interview.

But even if the spin-meisters of danceable electronic music are almost all male, the milieu is not necessarily macho, say its denizens. Indeed, its roots go back to the 1970s, and are closely linked to the establishment of France’s openly gay male sub-culture.

Coming into the late 1990s, it was above all the hard-driving music that many women found unpalatable — exactly the kind that Daisy has excelled in.

Too dark for women?

“A lot of women turned away from the ‘free-party’, or rave, scene. It was getting too dark for them,” says Jean-Christophe Sevin, a sociologist who has written on the techno movement.

Paradoxically, being a woman DJ may even have some advantages, says Elisa Do Brasil, another XX pioneer in a field dominated by XY chromosomes.

“The fact that women who mix are a rarity has a certain appeal,” adds the drum’n bass specialist, who now enjoys a reputation of her own. “As our public is for the most part made up of men, we, as girls, hold a fascination for them.”

For Daisy, it was a mixed bag. “Sometimes being a girl has helped, and sometimes it has been a drawback. Getting your first gig is probably easier. But after that, you really have to prove yourself.”

While there are still very few women DJ’s in France, those who have carved out a place for themselves are among the most successful. Chloe, Missil, Jennifer Cardini, and Maud of ‘Scratch Massive’ are all in demand and appear frequently in the playlists of France’s top two techno magazines, Trax and Tsugi.

One reason there are so few women at the top of this highly competitive profession is that not many try to break in.

“I almost never receive a demo of a woman,” explains Cecile. “So when I do receive one, I pay a little bit more attention.”

Even if the ranks of aspiring female DJs suddenly swell, however, it will be a long time before the milieu attains gender parity.

Of the top 100 French DJ’s listed in the influential London magazine DJ Mag, only two are women, the same number found in Lemonsound’s listing of the country’s 68 most talented party maestros.

Some of the barriers are simply physical. “Vinyl records are really heavy for a woman!” complains Elisa.

For Daisy, it’s the constant travel and flights that grind her down, though she acknowledges that this is no less true for men.

When it comes to having and raising children, however, she says women DJs are still at a disadvantage. “For the time being, my family life concentrates on my boyfriend. I don’t want children. But if I did, I would have to stop this job,” she says.

Elisa has a young daughter, and insists it is not incompatible with being a professional DJ. “It’s no more difficult than, for example, being a post-woman. We usually play music during the weekend, so you are free for your children during the week.”

In the last year or two, women bands and DJs have become quite trendy, and have spawned at least one female performers’ festival, ‘Les femmes s’en melent’ (The Women Mix It Up), as well as an annual rave called ‘Chiennes hi-fi’.

But Elisa and Daisy are not interested in such events. “If someone books me because I’m Elisa, then that’s fine. But if someone does it because I’m a girl, then I’d say “no’.”

There is something of a debate in DJ circles these days as to whether there is a specific “woman sound.”

Nobody has done a double-blind experiment to find out, but some aficionados insist they can tell the difference. For Cecile, there is a “softer” and “most fluid” style that is fresher than the usual fare.

Whether or not, it is certain that France’s handful of women DJs have changed the club music scene here, and there is no turning back.\