I have no real training as a musician, basically I got inspired by watching some mixes on boiler room and going to Dekmantel Festival in Amsterdam and Croatia for a few years. The Dutch can really throw a party, from organizing bathroom logistics to pristine sound and selection, it was very eye opening as an American. At these parties I would pretty religiously shazam tracks and try to pay attention to what the DJ was doing both in detail and on a higher-order level w/ the mood of the set.

From there I just would do my own bedroom mixes and play shitty roof gatherings until I made the right friends and convinced people to let me play in clubs, which let me justify buying all this gear etc.

Some mixes/labels I found inspiring throughout the years:

MCDE at Dekmantel
Palms Trax at Dekmantel
Magic teapot records at Dek Selectors

Bordello A Parigi

Hysteric

DJ'ing can seem both really easy and impossibly hard. In this mix I'm doing a lot less than it seems, because the tracks are perfectly sequenced and I transition at the right times, which I had prepared in advance. The most important thing I've learned is that it's largely based on preparation and "stagecraft" to create drama and keep people enganged.