*DJ小女孩=DJ Gurl=DJ Xiaonvhai*
My first encounter with DJ Gurl was through “爱我的请爱我” (Love Me If You Love Me) from 节奏的主人（Master of Rhythm）. The track confused me before it impressed me: aggressively “土嗨”（tu-hai）and early-internet Chinese aesthetics blended with hyperpop and glitch textures, yet still gets compared to highly artistic musicians even Bjork. This paradox of being raw but refined, ironic yet sincere fascinated me and soon I found myself listening through the whole album, trying to make sense of an emotional reaction I couldn’t yet articulate.
This blog seeks to discuss DJ Gurl as an artistic project: her identity, her aesthetics, her cultural significance, and the deeper sociopolitical elements embedded within her “dirtiness.”
–
One of the first “twists” I learned is that DJ Xiaonvhai is not an actual girl. The project is created by a young Guizhou musician called 劣(Lie), who describes DJ Xiaonvhai as the place where he embraces his feminine side. The visual identity of “DJ Xiaonvhai” comes from his friend, whom he calls his “Venus.”
By making music in empty classrooms with a cheap laptop and headphones, he received loads of negative comments on his mixing technique. However, he just admitted there’s neither mixing nor fancy gear at all, because being “劣” (low-quality, same as his name) is part of the style. Somehow, this roughness becomes its own aesthetic.
–
DJ 小女孩 exploded in 2024 with her 节奏的奴隶 (Slave to the Rhythm). People describe her music as hyperpop, glitch pop, early-internet nostalgia, and even punk collage. She samples everything, not only the significant viral elements among 2000s Chinese internet: By2, Wang Rong, QQ message tones, northeast “喊麦 (hǎn-mài)”, 00s “非主流 (Chinese subculture)” culture, minority folk music, 00s pop songs like 《醉清风(Zuì-qing-feng)》and 曾轶可(Yike Zeng); but also Artists like Arca and Crystal Castle. She refused be known as “Charlie XCX/Yeule/Sophie..etc. Chinese local ver.”, instead, she claimed “DJ Gurl is just DJ Gurl.”