Honour the roots

We strive to honour the Black American origins of the blues. As a DJ that means paying attention when selecting songs for a social dance setting. Some pieces, like “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday, are not meant for a happy dance floor. They hold deep meaning, grief, and historical trauma, and deserve to be listened to in a context of reflection.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list shared by a fellow dancer, Nalla Kim, an instructor from Seoul, to help guide your reflection when building your playlist.

Support real musicians

AI-generated music is flooding our music libraries very often at the cost of musicians. AI often reproduces human creativity without credit or consent, using real artists’ work to generate imitations. This undermines artistic integrity and deprives musicians of recognition and income.The blues was born from lived experience, pain, joy, resistance,resilience. We honour that humanity at our events by choosing to play only real, human-made music, no AI-generated tracks. Please do your research prior to your DJ set and strive to not use AI-generated music.

Embrace Diversity

We value diversity in both genres of music and genres of artists. From Delta and Chicago blues to funk, soul, gospel, rhythm & blues, and contemporary interpretations, we would like our DJs explore it all. We also aim to represent a broad range of voices, backgrounds, tempos, genders, and generations in the music we play. We welcome variety, but always within the blues family.

Connect with the community 

A great DJ doesn’t just play music, they listen and connect to the room. At Bluesin’ Brussels, you will be DJing between live sets of musicians. Respect that flow and build around it. If the band just played several fast songs, give the floor a breather or the other way around.

Honour the roots

We strive to honour the Black American origins of the blues. As a DJ that means paying attention when selecting songs for a social dance setting. Some pieces, like “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday, are not meant for a happy dance floor. They hold deep meaning, grief, and historical trauma, and deserve to be listened to in a context of reflection.

Here’s a non-exhaustive list shared by a fellow dancer, Nalla Kim, an instructor from Seoul, to help guide your reflection when building your playlist.

Support real musicians

AI-generated music is flooding our music libraries very often at the cost of musicians. AI often reproduces human creativity without credit or consent, using real artists’ work to generate imitations. This undermines artistic integrity and deprives musicians of recognition and income. The blues was born from lived experience, pain, joy, resistance, resilience. We honour that humanity at our events by choosing to play only real, human-made music, no AI-generated tracks. Please do your research prior to your DJ set and strive to not use AI-generated music. 

Embrace diversity

We value diversity in both genres of music and genres of artists. From Delta and Chicago blues to funk, soul, gospel, rhythm & blues, and contemporary interpretations, we would like our DJs explore it all. We also aim to represent a broad range of voices, backgrounds, tempos, genders, and generations in the music we play. We welcome variety, but always within the blues family.

Connect to the community

A great DJ doesn’t just play music, they listen and connect to the room. At Bluesin’ Brussels, you will be DJing between live sets of musicians. Respect that flow and build around it. If the band just played several fast songs, give the floor a breather or the other way around.