'You are hardly judged for your talent'

The Aussie-bred DJs, Nina Shah and Malika Haydon always have their audiences grooving to the best music. Playing between tracks and also some of their own, it’s always a party when these two girls are around.

Recently, they released their track ‘Never Let You Go’ with Zaeden which has been doing the rounds on social media.  In a chat with Anila Kurian, the duo talks about the DJ scene for women in India.

Did DJing come naturally to you? 
Nina: It did, actually. We started off by just experimenting with things as we have other DJ friends. Soon enough, people started inviting us for gigs in the city and here we are now.
Malika: Nina and I have been childhood friends and our families know each other really well. So working together has always been fun.

And your parents accepted your career choice easily?
Nina: They were a little apprehensive at the beginning but they knew that this would make me happy. They’ve been supportive since.
Malika: Yes, mine have been supportive throughout.

Any major hiccups you have faced?
Nina: People generally tend to put you in a box and treat you differently just because you are a woman DJ. You are hardly judged for your talent.
Malika: But thankfully we haven’t had such a problem. In fact, being a woman DJ has opened a lot of doors for us. When we started, there weren’t many others. We’re happy that there’s a platform for other girls now.

Any secret tricks up your  sleeves that you follow?
Nina: (Laughs) If we give it away, it’s not a secret then!
Malika: Honestly, there’s no such ‘secret’ but just our unique style and interest in the music. Over the years, we’ve developed a taste that we like to mix and that’s what is keeping our work interesting.

If you could be stuck in one music year, which one would it be?
Nina and Malika: It would have to be early 2003. The music was very uplifting and the melodies were good too.

A subgenre of music that you think needs more attention.
Malika: It’s actually a person’s preference that comes into play here. Now, there’s a wide range of music that everyone can listen to and I think all of them are given fair attention by their listeners.
Nina: We don’t have one particular genre that we listen to. We are pretty versatile with our style of music too.

A track that you can’t stand? 
Nina: Oh, there are so many! But the noisy type of EDM music is very annoying. Even though they claim to have music in them, it just sounds like loud noise.

Tell us about your upcoming projects.
Malika: We are working on a few things but nothing
 that we can talk about yet. We will be able to reveal that very soon.