Life & Work with Eliza May

Today we’d like to introduce you to Eliza May.

Hi Eliza, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstories.
It’s quite a long story. When I was 5 years old, my older sister got killed. My parents went to see the famous mystic Baba Vanga in Bulgaria to find out what happened. They also asked her about me and she said she was hearing music when trying to see into my future. So my parents decided to take me to music school. I chose the piano as my main instrument.

I was in music school for 8 years and finished it with merit at the age of 13. I didn’t really enjoy it back then and took a break from music up until my first year at university. I was working at a University radio station, turning music on and off and talking on the mic. That’s when I saw an ad about DJ courses. I thought it was about radio DJing and went to check out the 1st free class. It was about club DJing!

At that time, I knew nothing about it, I had no idea what DJs do and couldn’t even tell genres apart, I didn’t even know the difference between trance and house. But I had some free time and I decided to take the course. I really like learning new things and thought why not learn a new skill. I ended up liking it and found my first residency a couple of months after. I wanted to keep growing as a DJ so I went to Moscow.

There I went to Audioschool and learned how to mix vinyl, produce music, and scratch. I also had a private teacher that helped me learn faster. I even took part in a few DJ competitions back then. The first one didn’t go well. I took the 2nd one much more seriously and won 2nd place which was my first big achievement in DJing. Then I kept working at nightclubs in Tyumen and some nearby cities.

After I graduated from University, my parents asked me what gift I wanted for my graduation. I was on a scholarship so they didn’t spend any money on my education and saved it to gift me. I told them that I want to go to San Francisco to learn scratching from DJ Qbert. It sounded crazy to them but they told me that it was fine. If I can get lessons from him they would sponsor my trip.

And it was actually very easy for me to organize everything. DJ Qbert replied to me on Facebook and told me that I’m already his student (I was at his online Skratch University) and I’m welcome to come to the Thud Rumble office any time and he would teach me.

It was also easy for me to get a visa to the states. Everyone was scaring me that being a young single girl from Russia it’ll be impossible to get it but I was so excited telling the officer about my dreams and desire to learn scratching from one of the best DJs in the world that he didn’t even ask me for any documents. He was just like “Go get it”.
And just like that, I was in the Bay Area.

I was staying in a motel in San Bruno near the Thud Rumble office and from the very first day there it felt like home. People in the office were so friendly and helpful. They let me practice every day Monday thru Friday. Sometimes I’d practice 6 hours per day. I still have no idea how they were able to cope with me. DJ Qbert would come to the office once or twice per week and would show me new elements and combos and I would just practice them till the next time I see him.

They had me open for Qbert at the California Academy of Sciences about a month after. I was basically just scratching for half an hour. I had a great time and met a lot of cool people. And they also took me to my first ever NAMM Show in Anaheim. I had never been to shows like that before and it was incredible. After that, I decided to visit Miami and of course, I also found a teacher there. It was DJ I-Dee. I loved his beat juggling and wanted to learn from him.

He was giving classes already so it was easy to schedule lessons with him. I stayed in the US for a total of 4,5 months. Then I came back to Russia and focused on improving my English. During my first visit, it was even challenging for me to say hello. So I was watching a lot of movies, TV shows, and cartoons in English and it helped me out tremendously. The next time, I came to the US I could understand pretty much everything. The speaking part was still pretty hard but I made huge progress.

The next time, I went to the states was about a year after. I got invited to DJ at the Pioneer DJ booth at the NAMM Show which was a huge deal for me. I was playing on the same stage with Invisible Skratch Piklz and I think there were only 3 or 4 other DJs performing so it was definitely an honor. So I came back to the Bay to meet with the Thud Rumble crew and we all flew to Anaheim for the show.

The show went great, Pioneer DJ gifted me the S9 mixer which I still use and absolutely love. After the show, I decided to stay in LA for a bit, I had a couple of shows lined up, and also I met my future husband at NAMM and a lot of other people who were helping me in my journey.

I met a lawyer who helped me to apply for an O1 visa, I met a lot of promoters and business owners. So instead of staying for a few weeks, I ended up staying much longer. And now 6 years later I’m a US citizen, I’m married and I’m DJing in the states and all over the world.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It hasn’t been a smooth road but I think I got very lucky with meeting good people who helped me along the way – with my English, my first gigs, and even finding my first apartment to rent.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I’m a DJ, music producer, and travel blogger. I have released 18 original songs and 5 remixes. My track “Up In The Club” was #8 On Beatport’s Trap/Future Bass Top 100 and my music video for “I’m Coming Home” had over 100k views online.

My most recent song is called “My Angel” and is dedicated to my sister who was killed when I was 5 years old. I made the beat, my husband played guitar and it is the first track that I’m singing on! Before that, I’ve only worked with other vocalists. Now we’re shooting a music video for it.

I DJed all over the world in the countries like France, Malta, Mauritius, India, Nepal, Taiwan, Azerbaijan, and more. I also played at some of the best clubs in the USA including TAO in Las Vegas, Le Jardin and The Reserve in Los Angeles, 1015 Folsom and Ruby Skye in San Francisco, and Prysm Nightclub in Chicago, Slate NY in New York, and many more.

I’m also a turntablist so you can see a lot of my scratching videos online. Thanks to DJing, I got to travel to many amazing places and started to share my adventures in my blog, you can check it out here: https://elizamaytravels.com.

We’d love to hear what you think about risk-taking?
I think one of the biggest risks I’ve taken was moving to another country where I didn’t know anyone and could barely speak English. But I was never scared of it. The USA felt like home from the very first day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.djelizamay.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/djelizamay
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DjElizaMay
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/djelizamay
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/elizamaytv
• SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/djelizamay

Image Credits
Tony Barnes, Jr, Miles Schuster, and FuryFoto Senate Club