The Mix 069: DJ Fuckoff

With a trademark air of confidence, Berlin's DJ Fuckoff has long been helping to reclaim feminine energy on the dancefloor with her sultry, sexually-charged blend of bass and club music. “I think it's cool that you now hear [sexy vocals] more and more in dance music,” she smiles when we catch up over a video call, dressed loudly in a slogan tee, long, blinged out nails, and pigtails. “When you hear that on the dancefloor, it's just fucking sick. People have smiles on their faces, and you have all the girlies at the front. Bringing that energy into more male-dominated spaces has been super important for the scene.”

Before making her name as a DJ and producer – and now self-described ‘MC’ – DJ Fuckoff originally found success as a vocalist back in her native New Zealand. Turning down a record deal that would have forced her to move in an unwanted direction for the sake of musical freedom, she pivoted into dance music, releasing dozens of tracks in her signature fusion of high-energy breaks and hard dance with soft and sexy vocals on SoundCloud, some reaching thousands of new fans. With a ‘no fucks’ attitude that shuns the typical boy’s club of dance music, DJ Fuckoff has triumphed in just a short few years without the help of big label deals, self-releasing music and working her way to dream stages, from Las Vegas’ EDC to Belgium’s Tomorrowland.

Read this next: “It’s fun when people get pissed off at my music”: DJ Fuckoff won't change for you

Now, DJ Fuckoff is building out her expansive ‘Fucktopia’ universe: an all-encompassing project that spans club nights, a recent album featuring fantasy characters — there's promise of a video game, record label, and even a new Berlin-based listening bar, all under the Fucktopia name. The world-building project was born out of a need to celebrate neurodiversity in the industry, creating a space beyond just the music itself. “It can contain fashion and art, and be a little community space,” she explains. “I figured I'd just make an alien planet where me and all my other alien friends can exist!”

We sat down with DJ Fuckoff to chat about neurodiversity in music, reclaiming sexual power as a femme, and her cross-disciplinary Fucktopia universe. She also delivers a new mix channeling “bassy summertime dancefloor energy”, with a true taste of the “Fuckoff style”. Check them out below.

How are you doing? You’re currently on your North America tour, right?

I'm good. I'm just in Montreal at the moment, it’s fucking sick. I was in Atlanta and Washington, and then I’m going to Toronto tomorrow. I haven't spent this long before in Montreal, and it kind of feels like a mini Berlin mixed with New York!

What kind of events were you going to growing up in New Zealand? 

There’s this one festival called Splore – it's like an all-ages festival on the beach. Me and my friends would go when we were about 16, because one of my best friend's mum’s would do a yoga workshop there. All of us had a fake ID, and we would sneak into the restricted areas where all the cool DJs would play late at night. I went to a lot of those kinds of festivals growing up, and then once I turned 18, I was going to more bush stuff, ravey festivals and drum ‘n’ bass or dubstep gigs at clubs in the city. That was really big in New Zealand, and techno started coming up more when I was leaving New Zealand in my early 20s.

What actually is a bush doof? Is it just like a free party?

Yeah! A doof is like another word for a rave, I guess. But a doof is usually always out somewhere, it's gonna be quite raw – a bit of a dirty experience. 

You started out as a pop artist before releasing more electronic-leaning music on SoundCloud. What informed that shift?

When I was 18, I was just singing drunk and some guys overheard me, and they needed a vocalist. We were at a party and they were like, ‘come into the studio tomorrow’. I thought, fuck it! I went in hungover, recorded the vocals, and then the track I recorded became a bit of a hit in New Zealand, it was on the radio and stuff. Then I got approached by Sony Music and they offered me a deal, and the deal was really shit. They started sending me all these tracks, the kind of style they wanted me to go towards, and none of it aligned with who I was. I didn’t think I was ready as an artist or vocalist to enter that world without knowing what I really wanted to do musically or what my sound and style was, so I think SoundCloud was like the perfect platform to express myself in whatever way and post whatever tracks I wanted. I started working with lofi hip hop producers and then I was posting stuff every week. Sometimes no one would listen to the tracks, and sometimes I ended up getting quite a few plays, so that was the segue from the poppy stuff to SoundCloud, where I felt like it was able to express myself and find my community.

It’s a good place to experiment and find out what you like with the sheer amount of music on there...

Yeah, and I think Soundcloud was also a really good space to be inspired and spark a lot of creativity. The algorithm can bring you some random track, and you'll be like, ‘what the fuck! I've never heard something like this’. Just something that blows up – it'll be some crazy remix that’s insane. It was such a good place to find so many artists that I would never have heard in other spaces.

You said that Sony Music was trying to push you in one direction, and you release a lot of stuff independently now. Is that because you're trying to keep clear of those big labels that are pushing you into a certain narrative?

Yeah, because I feel like I'm quite impatient when it comes to releasing music, and so when I do it all myself, I'm down with how it sounds and I'm happy to just put it out straight away. Creatively, that works better for me than waiting on a deal where they might just release my tracks in a year's time, and maybe they want it to be tweaked a bit. I think it just gives me full control and authority over my process, my sound, and how I wanna do it.

Your style is renowned for being quite fun and cheeky and seductive. There’s definitely a notable trend in that direction recently, with a lot of sex-positive vocals and playful styles emerging in dance music. How did you fall into that sound?

Growing up in New Zealand, I've always been quite sexually expressive and I really enjoy the cheeky side to music, and listening to a lot of ghetto house and ghetto tech, but that was always from a male perspective. I wanted to reclaim that energy as a femme and feel empowered, because rap music and dance music was always more centred around guys talking about women, and sometimes not in a very nice way. I think it was really therapeutic for me to write music like that, and it helped me go through my own experiences. ‘death by pussy’ is one track that really helped me work through an experience where someone was telling me: "No one's going to respect you for making the music that you make", and that I was just using sex to sell my product, or whatever. It really fucking pissed me off, because I was like: "Who are you to tell me what I can and can't do?". No one ever tells men what they should and shouldn't talk about. I want to empower other people, and let them reclaim the energy for themselves. Creating the DJ Fuckoff persona helped me gain the confidence to do that. 

I think it's also cool that you now hear it more and more in dance music – when you hear that kind of music on the dancefloor, it's just fucking sick. It's super fun, it's super sexy. People have smiles on their faces, and you have all the girlies at the front. Bringing that energy into more male dominated spaces has been super important for the scene, and I think it's always nice to see when I'm performing and DJing – as soon as I start playing this music, the front starts filling up with more FLINTA* and femme people. That makes me super happy, it's so fun and liberating!

I hear you have an OnlyFans too. How’s that going?

I’m actually not really active on it anymore, I was on it for a little bit a few years ago, and people are still subscribing to it – I'm just passively getting like €50 a month [laughs]. But I've always like been working in this field more or less since I was 18, I used to work as a waitress at a strip club and then I did some sex work for a while. That also helped to fund the start of my music career, because buying a laptop and speakers and decks is super fucking expensive. I was really lucky to have some sugar daddies that helped fund little Fuckoff as she was taking off. I have one track called ‘$ugar money/dreamstate’, and it's about that – like, ‘tell me what you want / tell me what you need’, and I get my little reward in the end and can use that to make music.

Can you tell us about your Fucktopia universe?

Fucktopia came from all these experiences I've had over the past few years, and just wanting to do things how I wanted to do them without being put into a box. I wanted to create a little world that was centred around community-building and authentic expression – to create a space outside of this world, injecting everything you would want in a place of existing. Growing up and coming into the music scene in New Zealand especially, I didn't really feel like I fit in anywhere. I've always felt a bit alien in general. I think that's in part from realising that I was neurodivergent as I was growing up. So now, because I've always felt alien, I figured I'd just make an alien planet where all my other alien friends can exist! Fucktopia allows me to create this whole universe which isn't just music, but it can contain fashion and art and be a little community space.

It really feels like you’ve built a little lore around this world, too…

Yes! I fucking love story writing, and I've written a lot of fairytales in the past. I love writing poems and creating characters, so I think creating this lore was so sick for me, and having each character of the lore be my best friends was also amazing.

Fucktopia already spans events and releases; how do you see it expanding from here? Where do you want to take it?

The next steps for my little Fucktopia universe is making a comic book, then I want to turn Fucktopia into a video game. It’ll be a world-exploration game where you have your character, and it’ll be interactive so you can walk around and play certain games in different buildings and interact with the environment. I want to score the whole thing and produce the music for everything. I also want to start a record label, and start putting out more of my releases under Fucktopia Records. I’m still doing my parties and expanding that universe – I like seeing how I can also incorporate different types of performances, and have some workshops surrounding them, too. I have so many ideas and so many things I wanna do with Fucktopia!

You previously said that Fucktopia is “built on neurospicy energy” that reflects your “nonlinear mindspace”. Can you expand on that?

Each character in the Fucktopia realm – I think there’s about five – reflects a different trait or energy. Each one has its way of moving within the world and reflects a different part of neurodiversity, so for me, that’s ADHD. Me and my friends are all pretty neurodivergent, so it’s a reflection on the different struggles we have, but also the strengths we have. Fucktopia doesn’t look at it as a negative, but a place to exist and support each other and create a community.

What’s next for you?

Something exciting that I haven’t told many people yet is that me and my sister have been working on the launch of a listening bar in Berlin. I’m gonna do all the music curation and get some friends together to build a soundsystem in the bar, and I’m gonna run our little Fucktopia Records inside. On top of that, of the releases I have coming up, I’m excited about my next release on ec2a. I’m doing a three-track release with them, and we’re releasing some cool merch with it. Tour wise, I’ve got a lot of shows coming up! I’m excited for Boomtown, and I’m doing a B2B with DJ ADHD who I’m a big fan of. I’m playing Bang Face again which I’m looking forward to. I’m also playing at Glitch Festival in Malta, and then going home to New Zealand at the end of the year. I’m so happy I’m able to travel the freakin’ world doing what I love and screaming into the mic [laughs].

Can you tell us about your mix?

In this mix, I'm channeling bassy summertime dancefloor energy. I've been to some epic soundsystem events the past few months, as well as hanging in the dark corners of the club! I got all that going on in this hour... full Fuckoff style.

DJ Fuckoff's latest release, 'Fucktopia: Character Chronicles', is out now on vinyl. Grab your copy here

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor, follow her on Twitter

Tracklist:

MILLET - Spice 
Coldpast- Act Right 
Ruff Style - Yet Another Badboy Tune 
Main Phase - Rare Bargain Bin White Label Type Beat 
Da Elusive Ganjaman - Da Return 
Shufla - Trademarks 
Ruff Style - modul8 
Soul Mass Transit System - Up In Da Club 
BLACK GIRL / WHITE GIRL - Hush Baby (Edit) 
Cardi B - Mind The WAP (Maara Edit) 
Olsvangèr - Quadi B 
Trax Unit - Ephemera 
X & Ivy - Stick in Control 
? - Kitchen Sink
Mathis Ruffing - Nerfed