Aida Talks Empowering Fellow Female DJs Ahead of May 19 Lantern Set

As the co-founder of techNOrules, Beijing based Russian DJ Aida Minibaeva has helped to build a unique platform for her fellow female record spinners. With the project, she puts together predominantly female DJ lineups at venues like Lantern and Zarah, to help showcase local talent and to attract visiting DJs from locales like Shanghai.

Ahead of the next techNOrules party on May 19 at Lantern, Aida tells us more about infusing Beijing's techno scene with some much-needed girl power. Aida is part of the lineup along with Shanghai DJ MIIIA as the headliner.

Usually, people say that my sets and my performances are very energetic. I’m trying to express my inner state through music, so my sound can vary from time to time. But in general the tracks I choose are groovy and a bit dark, with a strong beat.

I came to Beijing in 2009 and I was amazed by Beijing's underground music scene. It felt very true and raw, and my favorite collective back then was Acupuncture. I had a lot of friends who were DJs and producers, so it was only natural that I would eventually start playing myself.

After gaining some experience and skills, I decided to leave Beijing in search for inspiration and met a lot of cool people in the music industry all around Asia – Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, and China, also in Russia, that influenced and inspired me.

I think the most common challenge we all face is to be recognized and to be taken seriously, especially as female DJ's. The only way to overcome this is to believe in what you do and keep doing it no matter what.

Beijing is a unique city and I fell in love with it once again when I discovered the hutongs. They have the energy of a huge metropolis combined with the homelike feeling of a historical city. There is nothing like it. You can often find me on a cozy rooftop of a hutong café getting ready for an upcoming party.

We often get together with our friends from different local crews to do 10-hour-long sessions just for the fun of it and love for music. Everyone in the scene is putting in a lot of hard work to make it happen here and I’m glad to see that the underground music scene thrives in Beijing.

techNOrules project was created when I returned to Beijing last year. Me and my best friend Xenia, who is a DJ as well, noticed the difference between female and male names in the lineups at different clubs, and we realized sometimes we would be the only girls on the list out of eight DJs. So we decided to start the [Girls can’t what?] party series that promotes exclusively female talents.

I was pleasantly surprised by the reception that the techNOrules project and the [Girls can’t what?] party series got. I was also surprised by how much support we were getting from the entire underground community and fellow female DJs, as well as the venues who welcomed us warmly.

I think it’s very important to provide an opportunity for female DJs and producers to be heard and noticed, so we work both with experienced DJs and promote those who are only starting their career.

Right now, all my energy and time are given to techNOrules, and we have a lot of plans for the project. Recently we organized a [techNOrules] + friends event that brought together like-minded people and it was a great success. This project will remain our main focus but we have a few surprises up our sleeves and many exciting projects and new collaborations are planned, so stay tuned and see you at Lantern on Saturday!

MIIIA, Aida, and other female DJs will perform at Lantern on Saturday, May 19, as part of the techNOrules party series. For more information, click here.

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Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
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Photos courtesy of Wasabi Sound, Aida, Lantern