Mum’s the word: changing the tune on motherhood in dance music (DJ Mag)

When Jayda G signed up to play a prominent live stream seven months into her pregnancy in 2024, she never anticipated how warm the response would be. If anything, she tells DJ Mag over the phone (her son, now approaching one, babbling in the background), she’d predicted DJing pregnant would more likely be a “hindrance” to her career. “I just thought people wouldn’t care — not necessarily a backlash, but it wouldn’t help me,” she says. “When it actually happened, they were so into it. People were really into the bump.”  

The Canadian DJ born Jayda Guy’s assumption was not entirely unfounded. When she first became pregnant, she struggled to find videos of other expectant mothers DJing. Some women before her had been vocal about playing out with a bump — Annie Mac, Anna Lunoe, Jamz Supernova — but it nevertheless remained a rarity in clubland. When we ask Guy how she feels mothers are perceived in the industry, she is less exaltant: “I don’t think there’s a lot of visibility, personally.” She recalls one festival where the stage she was booked for was a walk away from her pick-up point — fine in ordinary circumstances, “but when you are heavily pregnant, these distances become a thing”. 

The penny dropped when Guy requested a buggy. “There’s been certain situations where festivals or promoters are very willing to accommodate you, but it’s apparent it’s never been thought out how to do that.” 

Things may have improved for female DJs since the early days of clubbing, but Guy’s experience points to working conditions that impede them if and when they become mothers. Only 22% of women musicians have primary caring responsibilities for children, according to Help Musicians, a number that is likely lower for DJing, characterised as it is by late nights, precarious pay and travel. With women making up 29% of DJs in the UK (compared to 59% of classical musicians), it’s worth asking how many are forced to quit the industry, or find it impossible to enter, after having kids.  

“There’s always a worry: are you going to come back?” says Ivanka Selkirk, aka Mini da Minx, who organised a panel on motherhood and DJing at Brighton Music Conference (BMC) last year. She highlights that many DJs sustain their music career with a second job. Managing that alongside motherhood, where the bulk of parenting responsibilities still fall on women, is a fast route to being overwhelmed. One UK study found that nearly half of working women spend 45 hours a week on childcare (compared with 25% of men doing 17 hours). “It’s like three jobs in one,” says Selkirk. She herself was drowning in “the infinite amount of work, time and worry that goes into every single gig for a mum” when she saw a Facebook post from Lisa Loud describing the same experience. She wasn’t alone. 

Selkirk invited Lisa Loud onto the BMC panel where they, with fellow DJs and promoters Hilit Kolet, Lola and The Glitter Bosher, plus Keleigh Batchelor from AlphaTheta, lifted the lid on the realities of motherhood in dance music. As the panellists tell it, mums in the industry are burning out, and urgently need reform. “Can we be both?” Selkirk addressed the room. “Can we be mothers and can we be artists?” The answer will depend on whether the industry heeds the brewing conversation between mums in its workforce.  

Annie Mac was frank about her need for early nights when she started Before Midnight’s daytime and evening raves. She and Guy compared notes on motherhood at AVA London last year. Mums That Rave, a party series run by Nikki Beatnik, has struck a chord worldwide, commanding a following of thousands, with over 90 million video hits to date. In a scene still rife with inequalities, the needs of mothers feels like yet another significant missing piece in the puzzle. 

“We know it’s a misogynistic industry,” says John Shortell, who leads on equality, diversity and inclusion at the Musicians’ Union. “It is not set up in the first place to cater to someone with children.” One of the first things he tends to see when musicians become pregnant is women covering up their pregnancy, for fear of being passed over by bookers — even if for well-intentioned (albeit misinformed) reasons. “‘We didn’t want to place additional stress on you’,” those types of conversations,” he says. “And some really stupid excuses as well, like, ‘That piece of music is really emotional. It might send you into early labour’.” 

Beatnik, who used to DJ for brands like ASOS, Formula 1 and the British Fashion Awards, noticed a drop in bookings after she had her son, which she puts down in part to gendered ageism. “I think it is to do with so many brands being youth obsessed, and mums don’t fit into that box,” she says. That attitude was prevalent when Beatnik founded Mums That Rave. Her attempts to drum up press attention invited at best tumbleweed, at worst rejection. “It was heartbreaking sending out press releases about the one mum rave out there, and getting people saying, ‘We don’t like the words mum and rave together’.” She now sees that kind of sexism play out on social media. “I get so much toxic masculinity online,” she says. “‘Why are these women out in the club? They’re too old to be doing this’. I constantly delete comments on TikTok and Instagram. I don’t want my mums seeing that.” 

Mums’ ability to network also takes a hit, prompting an impossible choice between burnout and obscurity. Gigs beget gigs, and any amount of time off feels risky. “The problem with freelancers is you’ve got to keep connected, because you fall off the radar,” says Shortell. “You’re not being booked for gigs because people forget about you.” 

Beatnik planned to take just two weeks off when she gave birth, but six weeks after an emergency C-section, she was helped to walk into a press event for her own record launch. “I was wearing C-section pants in clubs, pumping breast milk,” she says. Choosing to prioritise her family meant Beatnik’s income fell by a fifth. This financial penalty is all too real for DJs who, as a largely freelance workforce, receive only a statutory maternity allowance of up to £187.18 a week for 39 weeks. If a DJ wants to keep her hand in the scene, she is limited to 10 days of work before that allowance is revoked — each gig counts as one full day. “That gig could be three to four hours,” says Shortell. “How many gigs, realistically, are you going to be able to do during the time you took off to keep your business afloat?”  

For Guy, that meant gigging more during her pregnancy. “It’s not just the maternity leave you’re saving for,” she says. “Childcare is fucking expensive.” The DJs we speak to are unanimous on this. The UK has the fourth most expensive childcare of all high-income countries, according to OECD data. In England, the average full-time weekly cost for a child under three is £305.11. Often, women find they lose money when they return to work; then there are the added logistical problems for DJs. The part-time daycare options seen by Guy tended towards rigid configurations of the same days each week, “but for me, every week is different, so I needed that flexibility”. Guy elected for a more bespoke setup. “I pay for a nanny, which is incredibly expensive. Not everyone is able to afford that.” 

Indi Khera, AKA Mantra, who co-runs the Rupture London club night and label with her partner David, aka Double O, can relate to this. “Sometimes, when people want me and David to play, it’s 200 quid on childcare for the night,” she says. “It’s the expense of it that then has to come out of your wages.”

In some ways, running Rupture has helped Mantra shape her music career around parenthood, especially now that promotion relies less on flyering. “By the time I had [my son] Tage, a lot of things had moved online, so I could spend time at my computer planning, prepping and organising,” she says. Nonetheless, she stepped back from DJing while pregnant. “I’ve had really complicated pregnancies. With my first son, I was on bedrest from 24 weeks,” she says. “The reason I stopped is because I have a short cervix, so it’s not a normal pregnancy. I didn’t feel comfortable even just standing.” 

Every pregnancy is different, but the toll childbirth takes on women’s bodies seems inescapable. Khera was confined to her bed when Rupture did their first Glastonbury takeover, which she joined vicariously over the phone. Guy is still fielding hormonal changes, which only settle to pre-pregnancy levels several months after childbirth. New mums reckon with weight gain, hair loss and postpartum bleeding. It takes some mental fortitude to adjust while playing in clubs. “People don’t want to hear about it in a club a lot of the time,” says Khera. “You don’t want to burst the euphoric bubble of a rave.” 

Putting on that brave face gets even tougher if your child falls ill. Khera took months off when her two youngest, both premature at 32 and 29 weeks, were treated in the ICU. “That really affects you,” she says. “I didn’t have a massive desire to DJ for a while.”

Selkirk’s son developed croup, a common respiratory illness among young children that causes their airways to swell, leaving them struggling to breathe. Flare-ups can happen 10 times a year, and come with no warning. “Your child goes to bed perfectly fine and three hours later, you’re almost calling an ambulance,” says Selkirk. “Every gig, you can’t stop thinking about it.” Few would feel confident leaving their child in those circumstances — and Selkirk’s son isn’t keen on the idea either. “Every child has a different attachment style. Mine is really attached to me still, as a six-year-old,” she says. “He’s extremely outgoing, but when it comes to nighttime, it’s, ‘I want my mum’.”  

There lies a simple truth. Kids want their parents, especially if they’re sick or anxious. There will come times when prioritising their emotional wellbeing means foregoing an international tour or overnight stay in another city. That much is evident from 12-year-old Tage, Khera’s oldest, whom she calls in to answer whether he enjoys having a DJ mum. “In the middle, because she goes away quite often. It’s a bit annoying sometimes,” he says. “But it’s also good, because sometimes I get to come to Glastonbury.” 

This is one major perk named by the DJs we speak to, who despite the challenges, remain effusive about the best parts of motherhood and DJing. “He wants to DJ battle me,” says Selkirk. “The fact that I was DJing pregnant, he’s got the beat inside his body.”  

“It’s good for kids to see you struggle, tussle, persevere and overcome things,” says Khera. “Honouring your creativity is something really important to me that I want my kids to see me doing.”  

“It’s the best thing in the world, having kids, for me,” says Beatnik. “I wish I’d done it earlier, but it would have probably been career over if I did. Now the support is better than it was 20 years ago, but it’s still not really sufficient.”

What becomes apparent is how very different each family’s needs are. Finding a solution that fits all could prove challenging. Selkirk, for one, was reassured when multiple promoters said they would guarantee her bookings after a break (two years later, they kept their word). At BMC, suggestions included increased fees to cover childcare, or an industry maternity fund supported by larger promoters, labels and agencies. The mums are predictably enthusiastic about receiving more money, but remain realistic about its practicability. 

“The industry is really suffering. Where does the money come from?” says Selkirk. Perhaps more achievable for promoters, suggests Khera, is being flexible when offering set times. She is frequently booked for the closing shift, giving her three hours sleep before shepherding her sons to football matches and guitar lessons. “I always love warm-up sets,” she says. “If you check in early on, it doesn’t completely disrupt programming.” 

The rise of day raves is a boon for parents, with the added benefit that it is easier to arrange childcare during daylight hours. Mums That Rave is one such event that, by virtue of its family-friendly format, is especially inclusive for mums that DJ. Every party takes place between 2PM and 6PM, although “many mums stay out all night,” says Beatnik. “That is encouraged — after-parties, live your best life, however that looks to you — because mums have to plan this day out sometimes months in advance.”

Beatnik spends the first 40 minutes introducing attendees to each other, and has seen multiple friendships and new businesses bloom on her dancefloors. “A lot of solo ravers come, because a lot of mums can’t organise their friends to come, or their friends don’t have the same interest.” And it’s not just mums attending. “We’ve had nannies that look after kids.”  

The energy in the room, Beatnik says, is electrifying. “Pretty much from 2:30PM, they’ll be on the dancefloor. You’ve never seen anyone rave as hard as a load of mums with the afternoon to themselves.” 

She’s seen tearful dancers and received countless messages from mums saying they’ve regained their confidence at her events. Many mums who come to DJ find their career renewed. “They’d be in tears, like, ‘I didn’t know where my career was at,’” says Beatnik. “They were just totally transported. They were like, ‘I know I’m doing the right thing. I have to keep going’.”  

In Shortell’s view, it will take government policy to see real change for mums in the industry. Most urgent is addressing childcare, but the disparity between maternity and paternity pay also incentivises women to stay at home. Shared parental leave (where mothers end their leave early to split it more equally with their partner) is unavailable to self-employed couples. The Parental Pay Equality campaign is lobbying the government to redress this. 

“There’s that institutional issue with the way we treat freelancers in this country,” says Shortell. “They’re often left out of policy. When they are included, it’s often seen as lower than employed people.” Shortell is hopeful that the appointment of the new Freelance Champion within government could help artists demand better support. 

“I think we’re on the precipice of this, because now we are seeing more female DJs in general,” says Guy. Since 2012, female:pressure reports that women have increased their share of festival line-ups from 9% to 30%. Taken as a litmus test for the industry, gender equality looks a way off, but women are stepping behind the decks in growing numbers. 

As their visibility spreads, so does that of mum DJs. “We’re seeing it more societally. Look at Rihanna, who’s always looking amazing, and is so pregnant, and it’s just the most sexy thing in the entire world,” she continues. “All these little things are empowering for women to really be in themselves and be able to embark on this other part of life, if they want to.”