Dylan Ali, 28, is not yet a household name, but she has DJed sets at some of New York City’s trendiest clubs: Cafe Erzulie in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Kind Regards on the Lower East Side, Casa Maya in Bushwick, and the newly opened Silencio in Hell’s Kitchen.
She’s been booked for New York Fashion Week afterparties, for Chance the Rapper, and for up-and-coming singer Teezo Touchdown’s album release party.
And while most DJs tend to specialize in a particular genre, Ali has built a name for herself as an open format DJ, which means she can play whatever she wants, whether it’s hip-hop, techno or underground. She performs at corporate events, small clubs and raves.
Ali is known for her style, her quips on X (formerly Twitter), her ability to draw a crowd, and her good looks — she’s modeled for GQ magazine.
She’s also earned the respect of her peers.
“She’s just got that thing,” wrote Tyler Johnson, a DJ who performs under the name Tylerfromwhere, in an email. “Call it style, swag, an aura … whatever. You can’t manufacture being cool.”
DJ Brandon Sinclair, who performs under the name Joopiter, said he loves Ali’s versatility and noted that she can “blow most DJs out of the water.”
“She’s a student of music and culture,” he wrote in an email. “She can play to any crowd at any time. It’s inspiring.”
Ali is doing what many New York City creatives dream of doing: She’s made a career out of her passion. She wouldn’t disclose what she makes from DJing but said she can pay her bills, rent and groceries, and still afford extras like traveling.
Making it as a DJ in New York City — where the average rent is around $5,000 a month and DJs often have to perform for free or for as little as $150 per set to build their brand — is no small feat.
“I, too, want the shiny things, money and accolades,” she said during an interview in her Bed-Stuy apartment in mid-February. “I do think I’m halfway there. There’s still a lot more to go.”
‘I feel like finally, after 10 years, I’m getting the recognition.’
Ali was booked to play a Hennessy-sponsored event at Babel Loft, a membership social club in Prospect Heights, on a recent Friday night.
Once she took her spot behind the DJ booth, Ali set the tone for the night with songs like Pharrell Williams’ “Frontin’,” Omarion’s “Touch,” and a SoundCloud remix of Beyoncé’s “Heated.”
The early-20s- to early-40s-aged crowd nodded in appreciation. People were dancing in the lounge area toward the end of her 90-minute set as she played classic feel-good songs like Lloyd’s “Get It Shawty.”
“I’m grateful that I’m able to do all these cool jobs, grateful that I’m getting good money for it, and also super grateful that I feel like finally, after 10 years, I’m getting the recognition,” she said.
Johnson, the DJ, said that someone starting out in the field can make anywhere from $150 to $300 per gig on the club circuit, while larger venues and corporate gigs typically pay between $500 to $1,000 per gig.
He said the corporate events pay more because the event is “a true marketing expense and the DJ isn’t usually hired to help them sell tickets or drinks,” whereas DJs working club or bar gigs are expected to attract a crowd that spends money at the venue.
From couch surfing to Gucci
Ali grew up in a suburb of Washington, DC and moved to New York City in 2014 to study acting at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts.
As she started going to clubs and meeting DJs, she decided she could do it, too. Her friend loaned her a DJ controller — a Hercules DJControl Impulse 200 MK2 — so she could practice. She said she stopped attending school two years later.
“I got so consumed by DJing, I was doing terrible in class,” Ali said.
She said she began nannying for “rich French families” and working various retail jobs while booking gigs at clubs and bars around the city.
The gigs she was getting emboldened her and she decided to freelance as a full-time DJ in 2018.
“I had to sleep on my friends’ couches in the earliest stages of freelance,” Ali said. “But by the end of the first year, I was making decent enough money to buy groceries and do whatever I needed to do.”
Ali said she began seeing major success in 2021 as pandemic-era restrictions were lifted and people returned to bars and clubs.
She said maintaining a social media presence and self-producing shoots helped her get small influencer jobs that ultimately led to other jobs once things picked up again.
One of her favorite jobs so far was a Gucci event — because it delighted her now-deceased grandmother.
“When I screenshotted myself and sent it to her, she sent it to all of her homegirls in Ethiopia on WhatsApp and she was gagging, and I love that,” Ali said.
Her advice for anyone looking to make it as a DJ
Ali recommended starting off by investing in basic equipment.
“If you just need to learn fundamentals and you want to really figure out, ‘Am I interested in this?’ the really cheap, crappy controllers in VirtualDJ are your best friends,” she said.
She also advised those who are sure about wanting a DJ career to focus on building relationships with DJs, clubs and party promoters by supporting them and staying in contact.
“That’s what helped me the most,” Ali said. “[What] New York already offers as a city is enough of [a] resource. It’s just one of those places where you have all of the tools right there to get to it for real.”
Finally, Ali recommended being ruthless about budgeting. When she first started throwing parties, she said she focused too much on optics and making her parties look “lit” by hiring too many people.
“I’m super big on community, so I’m glad I got to put money in people’s pockets, but in retrospect there are moments where I feel like I wish I would have realized my own value,” she said.
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