1,000 Smoldering Cigarettes

Photos: Grace McCarthy
Clothing: Official Rebrand

Stella Zekri is an internationally renowned DJ, frontwoman for the band Stella and the Longos, and event producer for the Berlin-based party Body Language. I sat down with this nightlife renaissance woman to discuss her projects, music, art, partying, misogyny, fatphobia, and her desperate need to rest.

Stella Zekri recently helped kick off Berlin’s Atonal Festival, at infamous mega-club Tresor, by DJing her signature blend of house and boogie in 100% vinyl glory. The festival was an archetypally Berlin spectacle; with light and art installations, avant garde music and sound experimentation, and a guestlist line that stretched seven-times further than the ticketed line. The club itself, a caverness industrial space, with multiple smaller clubs wound together through labyrinthine corridors, felt transcendent and decadent. Swept concrete and high ceilings, filled with beams of light, vibrated with sounds both abrasive and rhythmic.

I walked into the club-within-the-club, OHM, where Stella was soon to perform, and caught the act that preceded her. A statuesque woman played what appeared to be a duck whistle into a corded dial-up phone, then reverberated the sounds into a microphone. The auditory effect was unsettling, but had transfixed the packed room of spectators. A series of questions fought for attention in my mind simultaneously. I had seen Stella play once at Black Flamingo in New York City, and wondered how the bouncing joyful music I had heard bloom from her decks would fit into this dystopian, meditative, space. Had she gone in a different direction since I had last seen her? Would this crowd riot at the mere notion of a beat? And most importantly, had I drunk enough tequila to enjoy myself?

As she took over, all these questions were answered; the room filled with a bright and airy dance beat and emptied of the duck-whistle groupies. A loud and vibrant hook vocalized on the track, “Be yourself!” and I looked behind the booth to see Stella doing just that. Smiling wide and lighting a cigarette with the butt of her last one, she bopped around in a tornado of cardboard and vinyl, grabbing records and frantically composing her set, seemingly on the fly. Like rain into an arid river, the room filled, person by person, and by the time the track let out its last, “Be yourself!” the space was twirling with a new and dancier crowd, ready to get sweaty.

I met Stella at her Neukölln apartment a few weeks later. She had been on tour DJing, and was soaking up a day or two in Berlin before leaving again to play a show in Italy with her band, then DJ a club in Vienna, and then another in Slovenia.

As she let me in, she immediately offered me a glass of wine, a glass of water, and a hug. Stella has an effortless and warm charisma, with a voice that’s simultaneously smooth and raspy. Her French accent adds to the overall effect, and it’s easy to imagine her as a 1920’s lounge singer. We sat at her kitchen table with our assortment of beverages as she chain smoked and unseasonably warm fall air filled the room from an open window.

Stella’s interest in music has followed her from her childhood. “I come from a music loving family,” she explained. “My dad is a journalist who worked a lot in night culture and for music labels in France. My mom just loves music and has really great taste. I had a lot of music around me as a kid. I loved to sing.”

“When did you start DJing?” I asked, bumming one of her cigarettes and lighting it.

“I started DJing seven years ago, a year after I got to Berlin,” she said. “It was organic, it was never a plan. When I moved here I wasn’t that into clubbing or electronic music, I thought I’d never in my life like techno. I was kind of a snob about it. I was really into jazz, hip-hop, and R&B. I started collecting records because I loved music and thought they were cool objects. Lots of hip-hop, funk, and disco. I was always going to a bar next to my flat where this older German guy would do this vinyl night called Hip-Hop for Adults, and one day I showed up and the DJ didn’t come. I said to my friend, ‘I have like 20 records.’ I picked them up, he showed me how it worked, and I played for 4 hours straight. I started playing little bars and it evolved into playing house [music] and getting bigger club gigs.”

“That’s so interesting!” I said. “That’s kind of the opposite of the typical Berlin story; where someone moves here to DJ and then ends up giving it up to just party. You came here to party and ended up DJing.”

“Kind of,” she said laughing. “But I feel that in the end, music was always my purpose. I had a band in France. I can be quite lazy when I’m not super interested. Music has always been the only thing I could put effort into. When I came here, I was still searching for my medium, but I was quite passionate. When I found vinyl, I had a lot of motivation to get better.”

“Do you think that if it hadn’t been for that kismet night, that you would have started DJing anyway?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said. “I’ve realized that I was always kind of doing this. House parties in high school, I’d be the one playing music. I’d burn CDs and give them out. I was the first girl in my group with a boombox and would bring it with me everywhere.”

“You said you didn’t like techno,” I said. “That’s a bit sacrilegious here. How’d you eventually come around to it, as a genre?”

“I got into techno through my friends, who would take me to clubs,” she explained. “In Paris the clubs where they were playing techno were small, there wasn’t space to sit, and it was loud, so if you didn’t like the music you felt stuck. In Berlin I didn’t like the music at first, but there were always big areas to chill and the people were so open minded and cool. There weren’t gross straight guys hitting on you. One night at Cocktail, during this set by Abajour, I caught myself in that like ‘trance raving’ feeling that people talk about, and it clicked like, ‘Oh that’s what this is about.’ Still, with techno I can’t dive right into it. If a party only has techno, it’s harder for me to get into it.”

“It’s also interesting that you started with vinyl,” I said. “I feel like normally now, people kind of work towards that. Do you ever play digital?”

“Not yet,” she said. “I’ve had a couple of attempts. I’ve said to myself, ‘Ok, I’m going to start building a digital collection.’ But then I just end up sitting at my computer not knowing where to start.”

“And what draws you more to vinyl?” I asked.

“It’s my medium, it’s how I started. I have my process for digging. I love that it’s manual and tactile, but it’s really more the digging process. There’s a commitment, you really have to choose and buy each record. Sometimes a record finds you, you see it in a shop or someone gives it to you as a gift. With digital it’s such a different process that I’ve never done. I’m not very patient with my computer, so the whole aspect of finding the right file, with the right quality, bleh. I’m a bit lazy to do it.”

“Yea, but there are so many downsides…” I said.

“There are soooo many downsides,” she cut me off. “People love to remind me of this, like, ‘I know!’ There’s so many technical issues; venues not getting the set up right, the sound technicians can be a bit clueless about it nowadays. It’s annoying, that’s their job. Now that I’ve joined an agency, my tech rider has gotten more and more strict and precise. If the correct things aren’t provided I might not play.”

“Have you ever had to do that?” I asked.

“Once,” she said.

“Give me the deets,” I said, as we both started laughing.

“It was in France at a club called Le Sucre in Lyon,” she started. “It’s a really old big club, which is why I was so annoyed, that kind of club should definitely have it sorted. I was closing, it was packed, and the booth is on a stage which I hate. I got on stage and started playing, and basically the left turn table wasn’t working. I was on stage in front of a huge crowd, so exposed. People are so used to flawless digital, that they project these kinds of problems onto you. There was no technician around, so I tried to fix it myself. I changed the needle, I changed the channel. Finally someone came up, and I told them they had to change the turntable. He said that, ‘The extra turn tables are being serviced.’ I didn’t want to look like a raging woman on stage, but I asked him if they sound checked them, and he said, ‘Yeah, we tested the right one.’ Like, ‘You need to test the left one too!’ I was so pissed, I told them to find someone else to take over in the next 10 minutes. I still got paid.”

“That sounds so embarrassing,” I said. “The whole DJ on stage thing is so weird. Do you ever bring a crew with you to surround you and make you feel less vulnerable?”

“I don’t usually bring friends much anymore,” she said. “I like to be pretty sober for my sets and I know if I bring them, I’ll get tempted too easily. Now, I usually spend maximum an hour or two socializing after my set then leave.”

“Even with all this, vinyl is still worth it?” I said, more as a statement than a question.

“I’m committed to it,” she said. “I absolutely love it. I have a visual memory. I won’t remember the name of the track, but I’ll remember, ‘It’s the second track on the side with the blue sticker.’ There is so much personality. You can develop a real personal style. When I started playing, because I wasn’t playing club music, I didn’t start by learning to beat match, I was mixing in a more hip-hop style, doing cuts. Later I learned beat matching, and combining the two was a really interesting process.”

“You look a bit stressed at times when you’re playing,” I said. “But way more than that you look like you are having a lot of fun!”

“It’s very emotionally intense,” she said. “To me it feels like a race. I’m always chasing something. If you watch me playing I’m manic. I’ll be looking for the next record, and the track playing is running out, I get hectic and find it in the last 30 seconds. The adrenaline is part of it. I always light 1000 cigarettes while playing and never finish them.”

“Do you face any issues as a woman, making most of her living from DJing?” I asked.

“For me, a lot of men in the scene are hiding behind rules that they’ve created about what DJing should be,” she said. “I’ve got a lot of critics, not being perfectly tight, using vinyl– it’s always men. They are insecure, because I don’t need to hide behind technical rules to nail it and draw a crowd. A lot of those rules are put in place to make DJing less accessible. Often they’ll assume that women are only successful because ‘They’re hot,’ even though they ‘Can’t beat match properly…’”

“Nightlife can also be pretty fatphobic,” I said. “Do you think you face issues particularly as a bigger woman?”

“It’s a very masculine scene,” she emphasized. “There are subtexts that you experience as a fat person, as a fat woman, you can feel those nuances. You have to extra prove yourself, and show that you are serious. It can feel like people don’t even see you. At this point, I’m mostly booked at events where people understand who I am and what I’m about. Obviously you have some s#!^ty gigs, but I’m usually treated very well.”

Photo by Jerome Warburton X Courtesy of Stella and the Longos

“Tell us about your band, Stella and the Longos,” I said. “When did you all start?

“I started it a year ago,” she explained. “It’s been really exciting, I’m loving it. It’s a totally different dynamic, because it’s a show. When I DJ I don’t think of it as a performance, there’s nothing to watch, really. I thought I might get nervous, but in some ways it feels safer. We have a clear plan and the audience is passive and there to watch. DJing is hectic– couples fighting, people being crazy– you have to be adaptable. If I feel scared while performing I can hide behind my persona.”

“It seems like you’ve blown up super fast,” I said. “How’d that happen?”

“I put out a record with Ed Longo just for fun,” she said. “We didn’t expect the record to be so successful, but it really resonated with a lot of people. We created the band after—  we formed it for the record release party. Some were friends, but like the background singer I found on Facebook. After a year we have great chemistry.”

“Is it weird for you to front a whole band?” I asked. “You alluded to having a shy side.”

“I love being the center of attention!” she said, framing her face and laughing. “I embrace my diva side and pulling big outfits. I get anxiety when I DJ because it’s all these people looking at you when nothing is happening.”

“Have you started getting fans?” I asked.

“It’s starting,” she said, laughing. “It’s new and weird and great. People have started asking for pictures and autographs. People will come up and share their experiences with my music, it’s really fulfilling and validating.”

Graphic Design by Jude Gardner-Rolfe X Courtesy of Body Language

“So many people have been talking about your party, Body Language,” I said. “I wish it was happening while I was here! How have you liked being on the production side of partying?”

“I’ve loved learning how to produce events,” she said. “I’ve been running my party, Body Language, for 2 years]. It’s definitely a queer party, but we are careful not to use that as a brand to promote it. We want to be inclusive to anybody. I do the booking for it, which I’ve been loving. Making connections throughout the world. I book house DJs, so it’s been important for me to book DJs from places where that music comes from; like New York— give them a platform and show that we understand the roots of the music we play.”

“Have you guys also brought in DJs from other homes of house music, like Detroit or Chicago?”

“Not yet,” she said, putting out a cigarette. “Most of the people I book I’ve met. We can’t afford to fly people over, but we can chip in if people are coming anyway. I haven’t been to Chicago or Detroit yet. But we have started having people reach out to us from different places. I’d love to keep expanding our reach. That’s the fun thing with curating, finding a balance between offering a new experience to a new person and also booking local DJs and helping give them a platform. A mix of famous people and up-and-comers.”

“And what’s your party’s ethos?” I asked.

“Our motto is fem to the front,” she said. “It’s a caring space for fem bodies. I would say we are a really intentional space. We want people who are there intentionally and know why they are there. Take responsibility for yourself and the way you treat others. It’s a very difficult thing to reach. You can never quite reach it, but we are all about details. Intense staff care and artist care– I think that’s the key to a good event.”

“Another way to ensure the vibe you want is a strict door,” I said. “Have you been employing that?”

“We evolved into a stricter door as the party got more popular,” she explained. “At first we were sourcing our crowd from our community, so we didn’t have to worry about it. Now that it’s gotten more popular, we’ve had to adapt to keep the same feeling alive. We want to be inclusive. It’s good to be friendly at the door so you get the best out of people. If you are snobby, people will be snobby back. It’s a door, it’s 2 minutes, you can’t judge someone, but if you clearly don’t get what we are trying to do, you aren’t getting in. We are learning some tactics– planning the party on the same day as a big party that draws a crowd you’d rather not have.”

“That sounds a bit more sympathetic and nuanced than, say, the door at Berghain,” I said.

“The Berghain door is the worst, and nobody gets exactly how it works,” she said. “But they love to be distant and make you feel nervous. The process creates an elitist dynamic where the people getting in feel better than people who didn’t. Also a weird vibe in the line where people are hoping the people in front of them don’t get in, so that they have a better chance.”

“It seems like there might be more career longevity in event production than DJing,” I said. “Is this part of what draws you to adding this type of work to your roster?”

“I love DJing and partying, but I don’t know if I could do it forever. Event production and curating is something I could see myself developing in the future. I don’t think I’ll want to be playing clubs three nights a week at 50. People do, but are they still having that much fun?”

“How has being so busy on the professional side of nightlife affected your partying?” I asked.

“I still love to party,” she said. “But I’ve learned it’s not professionally sustainable. I play better sober. I try not to spend too much time at the party before, because nervousness builds up. I’m also touring every weekend, so I don’t get to party much in Berlin. I have to really choose the nights that are worth it. It’s taught me to decide when partying is worth it, and not those nights where you stay somewhere forever for no f*#king reason.”

“Touring sounds like such a fun adventure,” I said. “But also, so much intense work.”

“This year I’ve been really discovering touring,” she said. “It’s definitely an adventure, but it’s also very tiring and exhausting. I play vinyl so I’m always carrying 20 kilos around. Also just flying all the time is super annoying, especially as a bigger person, flying is not fat friendly. I struggle with my back. I’m figuring out what works for me. I love getting to a place that I don’t know, meeting the people who booked me, and really getting to check out the scene. That’s not really possible if you are playing a lot. You get somewhere and play right away, then have to wake up early to leave to go play somewhere else. That’s a bit of a shame in my opinion, so I’ve started asking for a second night in the hotel and pushing my dates further apart. That gives me space to stay and party if I want or sleep. Even just take the time to take a walk in a new city.”

“Do you miss going out in Berlin?” I asked.

“I miss just being home,” she said, laughing. “I got home Sunday, it’s Tuesday, and I’m leaving for another week tomorrow. I want time to chill, to spend time with my partner, and time to make new music. Between DJing, my band, and my party, I need to figure out a way to take breaks.”

“You are super social, but also have this side of you that really desires solitude,” I said. “Do you kind of think of yourself as an introvert?”

“I’m between an extravert and introvert,” she said. “I can be really social, but there’s a point where I become saturated and I don’t have any more capacity and I need to go and be alone for two days. If I don’t have that space, I start to be not so nice.”

“It sounds like in some ways coming into your professional self has helped you find a healthier balance between living and partying,” I said. “Do you think, in Berlin specifically, that’s a hard thing to do?”

“It’s dangerous in a way,” she said. “The city doesn’t put limitations on you. If you don’t have a purpose or drive you can get lost. You can always find someone to take drugs with or go out. It used to be more affordable and the culture is still based on this lack of a need to hustle. You could work one or two days at a bar and survive well. It’s easy to lose your sense of purpose.”

Music and staying busy has helped Stella channel all of her intensity into more generative modes. Still living in the chaos of vinyl tornados, endless flights, and wild parties, but now with a mission, role, and a lot of responsibility.