By Eliana Gruvman

“DJs are false gods,” Cat Both says to me as she drinks a peppermint chocolate latte. (She very kindly offered me the first sip). She’s wearing a UNIQLO thermal and a skirt that I want to borrow. Her mug is covered in polka dots and exclaims “evil genius.” I’d have to agree with it. Cat, or DJ bumrokky, is an evil DJ genius.

As a child growing up near Philadelphia in a “really vertical house,” Cat fell down the stairs a lot, á la the titular Rocky of the lauded Rocky trilogy. “You’re a bum, Rocky” her father would say, a phrase that was quickly shortened into bumrokky and transformed into her DJ moniker. Cat has been creating music since she was fourteen, eager to find an outlet and find community with other young musicians. In high school, she formed the band mucus membrane, learning how to produce and perform.

Arriving at Fordham University, Cat found herself drawn more to techno and DJ sets, especially with the guidance of her “DJ Sensei” (which, by the way, is a fantastic phrase and how I would like to be referred to from now on), DJ ColdSteel. There’s a difference, Cat explained, between performing your own creative work and deejaying, looping and manipulating the creative work of others.

As a DJ, she clarified, “you’re an idol.” It’s different from the personal, ultra-vulnerable act performing your own music. Playing your own creations, you’re at the mercy of the crowd’s preferences, of their opinions. To Cat, the absence of vulnerability is the appeal of deejaying. It’s a form of art where you don’t have to reveal anything, where you’re in control. “People will dance and, if not, it’s not that big of a deal,” she laughs.

I was curious. How do you make this transition from sacrifice to idol? What’s the first thing you have to learn?

Well, Cat reflected, you have to learn a lot of songs. The most important thing is to find and amplify what people want to listen to.

Of course, I then had to ask, what do people want to listen to?

It turns out that people want the Big Three: throwbacks from the 2000s (I totally agree), Big Booty Beats, and hardcore house with heaving drums and heavy bass. People want to hear what they are used to, beats that they can follow. Cat loops and mixes as her set progresses, following the energy of the crowd. She respects that deejaying is fluid, remarking, “you can’t plan it out because you don’t know how people are going to react.” We try and make a metaphor out of the DJ and the crowd representing the X and Y variable on a graph, but neither of us remember eighth grade Earth Science enough to fully flesh out this metaphor.

Cat herself loves 90s techno and dub step. She loves to discover new music, to incorporate the creations of her friends and the new music developing on the New York scene into her sets. When I ask for an example, she plays me a “crazy song,” screamo over a pounding beat. “It’s the kind of song I wish I could play at Barnyard. I know that not everything is a joke, but I just want everything to be silly.”

All joking aside, Cat was the first female DJ to ever play the famed local watering hole The Barnyard BBQ. That’s an accomplishment that, honestly, cannot be overstated. Simon even gave her not one, not two, but three hugs!

Woman power is awesome,” Cat adds as we finish the interview. “If a girl starts DJing, I will teach her, I will show her what to do,” Cat adds.

Barnyard, get ready.

Catch bumrokky at Grandpa’s basement (Pugstini optional), hopefully back at the Yard, or at various house shows around campus.