Oral history interview with Kristy Chavez-Fernandez AKA DJ Kristy la rAt

Conducted by Miriam Zoila Pérez

for the DC Oral History Collaborative

as part of the Anthology of Booty Oral History Project

July 23, 2019

One hour and 27 minutes

Part 1

Recorded at the temporary summer residence of Kristy Chavez-Fernandez in

Pentagon City / Arlington

Virginia

Transcribed by Rev.com and Kristy la rAt

Biographical Information:

Chavez-Fernandez aka Kristy la rAt is a cultural activist, artist and organizer and has come of age with her blood and chosen family in the DC area as a community-engaged educator and researcher.

Description of interview:

In this interview, Kristy Chavez-Fernandez discusses music, family and community memories growing up in the DC metro area with strong ties to her family in Lima, Peru and New York. work in activism, education and culture, with relationships at the core, led to co-founding Anthology of Booty and throwing intentional parties in D.C. with her best friends.

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Interviewer: 00:00:02 Okay. So, this is Miriam Zoila Perez and I'm here with?

Kristy La rAt: 00:00:07 Kristy. Oh. [Content partially cut for privacy] My name is Kristy Chavez Fernandez, and I go by Kristy La rAt.

Interviewer: 00:00:26 And it's July 23rd, 2019. And we are in Arlington, Virginia? Yes. We're in Arlington, Virginia doing an interview for the Anthology of Booty, DC oral history project. So thank you for doing this.

Kristy La rAt: 00:00:42 Yeah, thank you.

Interviewer: 00:00:43 Yeah. I'm excited to be talking to you. What pronouns do you use Kristy?

Kristy La rAt: 00:00:48 I use she/her pronouns.

Interviewer: 00:00:49 Okay. Awesome. So we're just going to jump in.

Kristy La rAt: 00:00:55 All right.

Interviewer: 00:00:56 Yes. So tell me, where did you grow up?

Kristy La rAt: 00:01:01 So I grew up in Northern Virginia, in the area outside of DC. And I also kind of in my heart and sometimes physically had a home in Lima, Peru. And I also spent a lot of time in New York as a family place.

Interviewer: 00:01:20 Like New York City?

Kristy La rAt: 00:01:21 No. New York, outside of the city, like Queens and right outside of Queens … Long Island.

Interviewer: 00:01:27 Beautiful. So what was your life like as a kid? What are some of the things that stand out to you from your childhood?

Kristy La rAt: 00:01:35 So I feel like some things that stand out to me are kind of feeling like our family was a little island. My dad moved down from New York to live in DC, and then Virginia. And my mom was the only one from her family that immigrated to the United States. And so, you know, it was the five of us, me and my brother and sister, and them … didn't have any family around right in this

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immediate area. All our family was either in New York or in Lima.

Kristy La rAt: 00:02:09 And so, I remember feeling like they made a really sweet home for us, in our house, and also feeling we were our own little world. Not everything that we did as a family really made sense in the outside world. There was kind of a distinction, our family and then Americans, which now I realize meant white Americans who were probably going … living life along some dominant culture vibes, I guess, in their own ways.

Kristy La rAt: 00:02:49 And I remember spending a lot of time connecting with that far away family. And the family in New York we could see sometimes, the family in Peru it was more difficult. And so, I do remember just my mom really trying to cultivate this connectivity in all these sweet ways. I remember eating meals and when we didn't want to eat anymore, she would be like, "Oh well, let's just have a spoonful for Mamá Carmen. Let's just have a spoonful for Tia Neneé. Let's just have a spoonful ... what about Lorenita?"

Kristy La rAt: 00:03:27 And you couldn't turn them down. I loved them. And she did take us when we were young a few times. When we could, she would take us. At one point she went … all of us were born within four years of each other, not even, and at one point she went with three kids. I don't even know if it was a triple stroller situation.

Interviewer: 00:03:47 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:03:47 I don't think they made triple strollers.

Interviewer: 00:03:48 No. Probably not.

Kristy La rAt: 00:03:51 On a plane, took us. It was also tough, because there was the civil war happening, and so it was sometimes contentious in my family, whether to go or not. And she was like, "My sisters would never let me go down if it wasn't safe. I'm taking the kids." You know, I imagine figuring that out was tough, but she was really committed. And my dad was, too.

Interviewer: 00:04:12 There was that sweet story of you all recording audio tapes.

Kristy La rAt: 00:04:20 Yes.

Interviewer: 00:04:21 Cassette tapes.

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Kristy La rAt: 00:04:22 We would record cassette tapes. That was like a fun pastime in general. We had this one tape recorder and you could just record over and over and over on these tapes. And we would record and listen to ourselves. I would interview my brother. But they started sending tapes. I think they started it. It was an idea my mom and her sisters had, but they started it. And I know like tons of other transnational families were doing this.

Kristy La rAt: 00:04:43 I went to the Smithsonian the other day, and there was Filipino family I think, where they were showing … and it was really touching to see. But yeah, we did that. It was the thing. The tapes were really fun. I remember also we would write letters and it was like, "Oh, we have to write letters before mom travels." Cuz she was the one, she and my grandma were the ones who could travel um back and forth.

Kristy La rAt: 00:05:09 And you know, getting kids to sit down and do something…. But I remember the feeling of getting letters from my cousins, ot was so exciting! And like growing up knowing their handwriting, and little expressions they would do, and understanding some of it, and not understand…. And my great-grandmother, and my grandmother, they would write on that really thin paper, like the air mail paper … even though it was coming with my mom in a suitcase, it wasn't coming through the mail. But they had you know... when my mom came here they'd always written her on that paper that was super light weight…

Interviewer: 00:05:38 Because it was cheaper to mail?

Kristy La rAt: 00:05:38 Yeah! Because it was so lightweight, it was cheaper to mail. So it was like tissue paper. Super, super thin. They would write in small handwriting on both sides. So they would always still write on that.

Interviewer: 00:05:51 It's like before there were WhatsApp voice memos to send back and forth, right?

Kristy La rAt: 00:05:56 Uh-huh (affirmative). Exactly.

Interviewer: 00:05:56 Is it really different now, the way you communicate with your family in Peru?

Kristy La rAt: 00:05:59 It is. Yeah. We always talk about having Skype conversations and whatever, but the primas’ WhatsApp thread is how we keep in touch. We send photos and little comments, and it does work for that connectivity. But the reason that my sister,

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brother, and I are so close, is because ... with our cousins, is because they really made that effort when we were young.

Kristy La rAt: 00:06:21 And I was always like, you know looking back, I'm like, "Oh, that must’ve been so nice for them to all just ...” They saw each other all the time you know?. And then, I think ... “wow that’s so beautiful that I feel even as remotely close as I do.” I feel like extra siblings, with my cousins, given that we were so far away and we only saw each other every few years.

Kristy La rAt: 00:06:44 But they did feel very close, almost sibling-like. Because when we would go, my mom would just pull us out of school and it would be like you’re gone for two weeks. No, I'm sorry, two months. I think I actually didn't learn how to tell time, because I missed that unit, and then I had to learn in the ninth grade, because she just pulled us out during that time. And I think it's a good choice.

Interviewer: 00:07:07 Yeah. And so you'd go for months at a time?

Kristy La rAt: 00:07:09 Yeah. Yeah. When we did go, we really went. And again, I , again, I remember… I remember like knowing that we were different because I could tell some of the adults would raise their eyebrows, or make comments like, "Well that's a long time…." Or about some of the decisions my mom would make.

Interviewer: 00:07:27 Adults here?

Kristy La rAt: 00:07:28 Yeah. Adults here. But she didn't care. She was like, "This is important and we're doing it, and we're able to do it." Which as I grew up learned more and more that for many people who are living here it's not. And I knew that no one else in my family could travel, you know, in that way, at that moment. Later some people were able to and that was really exciting. But she was like, "We're going to do this." And you know, that came from her experience of being the only one who came and stayed and feeling very, very -as the oldest- very committed and attached to her family.

Interviewer: 00:08:03 And is your father also Peruvian?

Kristy La rAt: 00:08:04 He's not. He's Sicilian. Very strong Sicilian identity. And his parents immigrated to New York. So he grew up in an immigrant household, and in a multicultural/bicultural ... maybe more than bi, bilingual household with them speaking Sicilian growing up. But I think the importance of family, having each other's back, and spending a lot of time together, as each other's primary

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system of having each other's back, and supporting each other, was really big in both of their lives. So even though they're super different in a lot of their codigos and their ways of being, and personalities in some ways, a lot of the things that they were looking for in building home and family were really similar.

Interviewer: 00:09:04 Similar. Yeah.

Kristy La rAt: 00:09:04 And I think I share in a lot of those with them, as well.

Interviewer: 00:09:07 Yeah. Do you remember what identities you held as a kid? What communities you identified with or?

Kristy La rAt: 00:09:15 I remember having really long hair, down my back. And when I was five, I told my mom I wanted to cut it all off. And then having this experience- so I cut it short to my head… and then having this experience. I can't remember if it was preschool or kindergarten, I was either four or five, of coming home being like, "Mom, people don't know if I'm a boy or a girl." And being really like curious and thrilled by that and feeling that reflected something in me, too.

Kristy La rAt: 00:09:52 Because I always was a little too hyper for what I was supposed to be ... like I had a sense of being a little bit of a quiet rebel. And wanting to get up and around, and get dirty, but also being soft in social interactions. And she let me start dressing myself, and I guess I was tomboy-ish. I knew that I was on some spectrum of what you were supposed to be, of the very regimented gender roles that we were being taught.

Kristy La rAt: 00:10:33 That's one of my earliest me being me memories. I remember getting on the bus once, and the bus driver asking me, "You haven't been here for forever." And she was our bus driver for a few years, and this was the second grade. White woman who got to know all the kids and was friendly with us. And I was like, "Oh, I was in Peru." And she was like, "What's a Peru?"

Interviewer: 00:11:06 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:11:06 I remember that feeling of just an adult asking me that. And it was one of the first times of so many where I'm like, "Oh, I'm going to go to this world. And for a lot of people here, it's going to be just this secret world that they just have no idea. I'm not going to have a way to explain it to them what it is. But it's still real. I didn't imagine it.” And that was another purpose that my family served as far as it really is real, and we can go between these worlds, even if other people can't imagine them.

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Kristy La rAt: 00:11:43 But I knew that I was from somewhere. And when I went to Peru, everybody could imagine the United States in certain ways. And this was even in the 80s, when you didn't have this level of globalization that happened later, or transnational economies, or these companies. You still had McDonald's and stuff, but it wasn't like everything, every type of, I guess I would say infiltration…. or media. But still, people knew a lot more about the United States in Peru than vice versa, which is classic. So that was like I think one way also.

Kristy La rAt: 00:12:25 I remember being in the Girl Scouts and not wanting to say the national anthem, or no, not the national anthem, the pledge of allegiance, because I had already said it once that day, and I felt like that was enough. And they wanted to make me say it. And I refused. And I got in trouble. And I remember my mom backing me up on that. Coming and being like, "I don't understand what the problem is? Is this a requirement to be part of this group?" Then later she had me become a famous Girl Scout. She volunteered me for all this stuff.

Interviewer: 00:12:57 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:12:58 We went to ... she had me on the cover of one of the Girl Scout calendars.

Interviewer: 00:13:04 Wow. Okay.

Kristy La rAt: 00:13:05 In which I rolled up ... I hated those skirts. I rolled it up, and I didn't know how to sew, so I taped it with masking tape on the inside.

Interviewer: 00:13:13 To make it shorts?

Kristy La rAt: 00:13:14 To make it like a miniskirt.

Interviewer: 00:13:15 Oh, a miniskirt. Okay.

Kristy La rAt: 00:13:18 Yeah. I wanted it to be a miniskirt. And then I think they had to Photoshop-

Interviewer: 00:13:21 More skirt.

Kristy La rAt: 00:13:21 ... right between my legs, because we were sitting on steps here in the capitol.

Interviewer: 00:13:25 Oh my lord.

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Kristy La rAt: 00:13:26 So I'm playing guitar, everybody looking all unity, they wanted some diversity picture.

Interviewer: 00:13:32 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:13:32 So my mom volunteered me, and then yeah. I hacked the outfit. Because I was like, "This skirt is so ugly. I need it to be a miniskirt."

Interviewer: 00:13:40 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:13:43 But yeah, I remember my mom, both my parents really backing me up when I would be weird. We also weren't allowed to ... I mean, I think I'm very American in a lot of ways. I also do have these identities that feel like I was either knowingly or unknowingly standing outside of that in some ways growing up. We weren't allowed to watch TV. That was not a thing. We could only watch PBS, Sesame Street or something once in a while.

Kristy La rAt: 00:14:15 We had to really wait for it. And we watched very little TV. And that was my mom. She was like, "I want you to read. I want you to read. I want you to read." I would read these huge stacks of books during the summers as a kid. And we would sneak the TV, but there were a lot of references that I didn't get. I didn't watch a lot of the shows that the kids would talk about at school, and I think I didn't learn a certain… what I associated with an American sense of humor.

Kristy La rAt: 00:14:45 Or like some of the things that were just really pop culture I learned a lot later, like in college or something. And would go back and research them. It was funny, because I became interested in media studies, but there were a lot of things that I really missed out on. Yeah. In the 80s, 90s, and 2000s, I gotta do my research sometimes.

Interviewer: 00:15:06 Right. What was music like in your childhood?

Kristy La rAt: 00:15:13 So it's okay that I'm going between kid and teenager?

Interviewer: 00:15:22 Yeah, totally.

Kristy La rAt: 00:15:24 So I remember music as a like background thing when we were in the United States. Well, that's not true. We got a CD player. and that was a huge deal. It was when CD players were like coming out, and you could have one in your house, and old CDs used to be super thick. They were like thicker than a quarter.

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They were thick! That was the weight of it. And I think they used to make them archival quality, too, when they first started making them. I think they were a lot better quality than they later became.

Kristy La rAt: 00:16:01 But we had a five disc changer, and we had cassette players. We always had like media tools, a cassette player, we had a CD.... My dad was really into ... he got a video cassette recorder in the years when you could start having one at home, and he would record a lot of things. And he still has them. He and I are both obsessed with how those machines have evolved, and work, and what you can do with them. So we would listen to books on tape I remember, and then we would listen to music.

Kristy La rAt: 00:16:37 I remember the first time I got in trouble actually was from that we had this cassette tape from Peru, and I wanted to dance to it at my house. I was like five, my sister was four. And so I took it with the tape recorder to go listen to it and she had been listening. I forget what it was. I took it from her in some way. And then when she asked for it back, I told her I needed it for a school assignment.

Kristy La rAt: 00:17:06 Which like who has school assignments when you're five? Who has homework? But I really wanted to march around in a circle in some other space in the house, and then my mom was like, "Did you really have a school assignment?" And I admitted I didn't. And then I got in trouble. She was like, "You have to share. And what would be the problem of sharing this music with your sister anyway?"

Interviewer: 00:17:28 Do you remember what the music was?

Kristy La rAt: 00:17:30 I think it was Peruvian vals.

Interviewer: 00:17:32 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:17:33 I remember it was a white tape with a neon orange sticker on it. Yeah. I think it is. And I think I might have it still. We keep… I used to keep everything. Some of those tapes between me and my cousins, I still have at least one of them.

Interviewer: 00:17:49 That's amazing. Was a lot of the music Peruvian music that you were listening to?

Kristy La rAt: 00:17:53 I think so. There was a lot of Peruvian tapes. Then I remember when we got the CD player, for some reason my parents only bought like seven CDs so we listened to them on repeat. There

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was a lot of American soul combinations ... compilations, I'm sorry. There was a Gloria Estefan CD. Oh, and the La Bamba soundtrack. That was one of the tapes we grew up on.

Interviewer: 00:18:24 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:18:24 But there was a lot of listening to music on repeat. We didn't have like a huge variety of music in our home in Virginia. And then in Peru, I remember listening to a lot more music. And some of my aunt and uncle's friends were musicians so parties, people would come, I remember there being live music a lot in Peru, both in the streets and our family parties. Everywhere you went, I remember it being a lot more musical of a place.

Kristy La rAt: 00:18:52 And then I remember when I saw my cousins as a teenager, the main English that they knew was from alternative rock albums in English that they were listening to, like Alanis Morisette or old Aerosmith albums. And then as a teenager, some of the first music I got into that felt like mine … my sister and I continued listening to old soul from the 60s and 70s, American soul. And my brother, too, we all really liked that music. And then I think I got into... Remember?I don't know if you remember, there were these ... Oh my God, they like totally targeted teenagers, where they would send you-

Interviewer: 00:19:48 Oh, the Columbia record and tape company?

Kristy La rAt: 00:19:51 Yeah. They would send you this catalog and you paid one cent and you got nine CDs. And then you somehow were signing up for a subscription.

Interviewer: 00:19:59 Somehow it was a scam, yeah.

Kristy La rAt: 00:20:00 It was totally a scam, because they would bill you no matter what. It was also a scam because you had to give them your social, and supposedly it could mess up your credit, but we were underage so I don't think it actually could.

Interviewer: 00:20:10 I do remember those, yeah.

Kristy La rAt: 00:20:12 So that's the first album that I ordered on that was The Ramones, and got into punk rock. And then my sister and I were really into punk rock culture. So somehow, I don't even remember how we would start, maybe from kids at school, finding out about punk shows in the area. And the cool thing was that in DC there were a lot of all ages shows, so no matter how young you were, you could go if you could get there. And

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so I remember all the stories I would have to concoct to be able to then end up at these shows.

Interviewer: 00:20:39 Do you remember the first show you went to?

Kristy La rAt: 00:20:43 I remember going to a show at a weird place in Georgetown. Oh, I think it was called the Tank and Groggard or something like that. I don't know. Oh now I want to look it up. And it was a punk or a hardcore show. Oh one of the first ones I went to was at the old firehouse in Virginia, it was The Decepticonz.

Kristy La rAt: 00:21:05 And it was this short-lived ska band of all these other kids in high school playing ska. And it was super fun, and we liked, me and my best friend at the time, Hillary, is still very… aww BFF Hillary… liked this singer called Adam Dirge Kirk. Oh my God, I'm failing my Decepticonz roots. I cannot remember like what he did, but he was the spazzy one in the band. And we were like… felt seen in that.

Interviewer: 00:21:36 Yeah. What do you think it was that you liked about the punk scene?

Kristy La rAt: 00:21:41 I think it was kind of like that rebel refusal free spirit, the energy of it. The abandon. That you could just jump around in the mosh pit was definitely ... I was a pretty hyper teenager with lots of energy. I was an optimist, too. There was a lot of the darkness of it that I was like, "Eh." But-

Interviewer: 00:22:11 You weren't feeling that.

Kristy La rAt: 00:22:13 I mean, I had my dark moments for sure. But I think there was also something that was very high energy about it for example that other maybe rebel musics that were more downer didn't capture my heart in the same way. So yeah, I really liked that energy of shows. I remember meeting a couple of other Latina girls at the shows and being-

Interviewer: 00:22:38 Yeah. I was going to ask what the demographics were like.

Kristy La rAt: 00:22:40 It was pretty I would guess white middle class. And I'm guessing on class, and I'm guessing most people identified as white, and pretty cis-dudey. But there were always those people… and I didn't grow up with that many Latina friends available to me at school in terms of demographics of the schools that I went to, at least leading up to high school especially. And so like, seeing somebody else, we would just gravitate towards each other and

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make friends, and then email each other, because we didn't have cell phones at that … as teenagers.

Kristy La rAt: 00:23:26 And that being really sweet to be able to ... I guess it was superficial, but we really liked each other off the bat. I ultimately became disappointed with that scene because it was so bro-y, and I ultimately I think over time, and not just as a teenager, realized that independent and alternative music, and even aesthetics of masculinity or of just personhood doesn't translate to independent thinking, or it doesn't turn into radical values that are invested in building something separate in the way that we treat each other, or what we fight for, which is pretty obvious I guess, but for me it was very conflated in terms of what I was hoping for from that scene.

Kristy La rAt: 00:24:19 And what a lot of it promises and then doesn't delivery. And I found it hard to intervene in that as somebody who was so on the outskirts of who it felt like was centered in that space. I still had a great time, and I didn't feel like, "Oh, poor me," but yeah. Again, before we started, you and I were talking about what it means to feel misunderstood or understood. And I think I felt understood by some of the people I would find, I felt understood in music, and then some of the energy of the space, but also pretty disappointed by some of the more negative interactions that I would have in those spaces.

Kristy La rAt: 00:25:01 And so, gravitated away from it ultimately until I discovered other at least bands where that space could temporarily exist in a way that felt much more exciting and it wasn't ... like I just saw The Downtown Boys this year, and I hadn't been in a mosh pit for years. And to see them in the Black Cat, which is a venue I used to sneak out to go into. Sneak out is a strong word, because you couldn't really sneak out of my house. Get permission to do something else, and then-

Interviewer: 00:25:33 And then go.

Kristy La rAt: 00:25:33 ... manipulate it into going, and then have a very convoluted, complicated plan to get back and not be discovered. It was really sweet to be back on that exact same floor moshing around, where the band's political outlook is really exciting and not disappointing, and with people in the band who share identity and also defy what a lot of the punk spaces looked like and felt like as I was growing up. So it was an example. That was really sweet concert this year, because it took me full circle on that journey.

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Interviewer: 00:26:07 Yeah. So what was your relationship to DC like when you were growing up with it, just these nights out, sneaking out, or did you have a deeper relationship to the city?

Kristy La rAt: 00:26:17 Well, so my associations with DC were mainly through music and through activism. And it wasn't usually that ... I mean, I guess I would go out for evenings, but I had to be home by a certain time. I was pretty, the whole "we have each other's back" thing in my family also meant we’re gonna be really controlling of you as a teenager. Which now, I appreciate. Safety. But it was not like I had much leeway to move around. I felt it was very unfair often.

Kristy La rAt: 00:26:54 So I remember going for protests, for exploring what it meant to be in a protest for environmental stuff, some politics, some post-Riot Grrrl organizing that was happening still. I definitely missed the Riot Grrrl boat. I wasn't old enough, but it felt really influential still. But it felt also disappointing. "Oh, I could've gone to those shows." And there were things happening that I didn't know about, just because I was living in Virginia and didn't find out. The way I found out about music was going to record stores and reading the backs of the tapes or CDs of the artists that I like.

Kristy La rAt: 00:27:39 And so, one thing led to another, but if you didn't get onto the right ... I guess that's still true now. If you didn't find out where the right band to lead you to another band to lead you to a whole subculture, then you just missed it. And so I know now that there were little mini subcultures that I probably would've loved to be a part of, but I was like 15, exploring. So I'd go to DC. The Black Cat and the 9:30 Club were two places that I would often try and go or end up.

Kristy La rAt: 00:28:11 But there were also little tiny independent spots that people would throw shows at, and I would get a flyer at one show, and orchestrate some way to get to the other. There was also a place in Maryland called Phantasmagoria I think? And living in Virginia, many of my friends did have cars. And so, it was possible to pop in and out. There were also ... there was Nation, which before was the Capitol Ballroom, and so they would have raves and concerts there. So we'd go there, which has of course now been erased and there's condos there. There's a demise of a lot of important culture. Cultural spaces.

Kristy La rAt: 00:28:57 In high school during the day, sometimes we would leave and go to Georgetown, which that was one of my first during the day concepts of a neighborhood that was DC which was really funny for Georgetown to represent DC. I'm sure I'm not the only Page 13 of 44

suburb kid who had that experience. And at the time, Georgetown had actually some interesting alternative culture. It had Smash Records was there, it had ... what was it called? This rave place. I remember that's the first time I saw herbal ecstasy and I was like, "Whoa, this is ..." They sold vinyls, and they would play music the whole time. It was a lot of electronic vinyls.

Kristy La rAt: 00:29:36 There was Commander Salamander that was the alternative outfitter. But it was a place for weird punk subculture rave kids to go. Even if it wasn't that underground, because it was in Georgetown, it still felt like places where we could ... it felt like access points at that point. As did 14th Street in a different way. It definitely looked completely different. But where the Black Cat ... actually, I got to go to the old Black Cat, which is right next door to where the current Black Cat is. And a friend's uncle worked at where the current Black Cat is, it was called The Attic.

Kristy La rAt: 00:30:15 And I remember one night that we did really get to sneak out, dancing there and being like, "If we get non-alcoholic drinks, are we supposed to tip?" I didn't know how it worked at all. I didn't know what getting a drink at a bar was like. That was probably my first time. And our being like, "I don't know." I think we called the uncle to find out. It was a dance club, a fancy dance club, before it was the current Black Cat. Or it was fancy to us.

Kristy La rAt: 00:30:43 So yeah, I had a map with this constellation of experience. Where the Next Step charter school is, there used to be shows in the basement. I forget what they called that space. And I remember riding in on cars packed full of kids who all wanted to go to these shows. RFK Stadium, there were festivals. Each year we would go to Merriweather Post Pavilions. I think I had a map of the DMV area.

Kristy La rAt: 00:31:12 And of course, I knew when I was in DC and when I was in Maryland, and when I was in Virginia, but it really did function as this map of constellation of places where I could find something that was exciting to me, where I could connect to other people. But I wouldn't go at another time for the most part. It was because it was the happening there, and that space was being activated in a certain way.

Interviewer: 00:31:40 Right, right. When did you actually first move to DC?

Kristy La rAt: 00:31:44 So I moved right after I moved out of my parent's house. No. I got a job, and was trying to commute from Virginia, and it was hell. And-

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Interviewer: 00:31:55 Was that before college?

Kristy La rAt: 00:31:57 No.

Interviewer: 00:31:58 After?

Kristy La rAt: 00:31:59 My first job after college. So all my jobs before that were in Virginia. But my first job after college was with a janitor's union as an ELL teacher. And it was McPherson Square, so I’d take the orange line in from Vienna, and it was so ... it just felt so conformist and depressing.

Interviewer: 00:32:22 Commuting or the job or?

Kristy La rAt: 00:32:23 Commuting.

Interviewer: 00:32:24 Commuting.

Kristy La rAt: 00:32:26 I don't know why I was so affected by it. It was a jolt. I had been on tour with a hardcore band, I had been organizing Lady Fest right before this and-

Interviewer: 00:32:33 So this was the stuff you were doing in college?

Kristy La rAt: 00:32:35 Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:32:36 Where you were in college?

Kristy La rAt: 00:32:37 I was in Fredericksburg.

Interviewer: 00:32:38 Okay. So not super far, but not DC.

Kristy La rAt: 00:32:41 Yeah. It wasn't super far, but it did allow us to come into DC also all through college. So my relationship with DC did continue, and Virginia.

Interviewer: 00:32:48 Yeah. Mostly through music still? And activism you said?

Kristy La rAt: 00:32:50 Mostly through music and activism. Yep. And that's where I got to know some of my first friends in DC, it was that protest in front of The World Bank or ... because I could come up. It was only an hour drive during college. So it does feel like this continuous, if different relationship.

Interviewer: 00:33:05 And then you left college and moved back in with your parents for this job?

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Kristy La rAt: 00:33:09 Yep. And-

Interviewer: 00:33:10 And then you were commuting in a conformist way.

Kristy La rAt: 00:33:13 Well, everybody just felt like they were dressed all the same, they looked miserable. And it was just an energy. I was like, "Whoa."

Interviewer: 00:33:21 What is my life?

Kristy La rAt: 00:33:22 This is terrible. I had to be on that for an hour every day with those people and then back. Everybody just seemed so miserable and it was my first day. I'm like, "Oh, this is what adulthood is." Was a lot worse things that could've been, but that was mine. I was like, "Oh, no."

Interviewer: 00:33:36 Right. It's a big first experience, yeah.

Kristy La rAt: 00:33:37 I've got to figure something else out. I really liked my job.

Interviewer: 00:33:41 Cool.

Kristy La rAt: 00:33:41 I'd always wanted to be a teacher, so my first teaching job.

Interviewer: 00:33:45 And you were teaching members of the union.

Kristy La rAt: 00:33:47 Out of college. Yeah I was teaching members of the union. So if you were a member of the union and you wanted English classes, that was part of your benefits but for paying dues. And I worked a lot. I taught three classes a day at 9:00 AM until noon. Then another afternoon one, and then an evening one from 6:00 to 9:00.

Interviewer: 00:34:04 Three hour classes, wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:34:04 Yeah. And that was where I learned to be an ELL teacher. They trained me on the job. It was also funny because we were contractors at the union, teaching. But I also learned so much there, because I hadn't had strong experiences with the union up until that point, so I didn't really understand how a union…I like I knew what it was, but didn't really understand how it worked.

Kristy La rAt: 00:34:24 But it was held at the union, so at that point, they were gearing up this huge Justice for Janitors campaign to gain healthcare for janitors. A lot of the building owners had ... or the cleaning companies were just hiring everybody, 90% of their employees

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part-time, so they didn't have to give anybody health benefits. And so everybody was cobbling together two or three jobs, and that campaign changed that. It changed the way people-

Interviewer: 00:34:49 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:34:49 ... received healthcare. So I got to, you know after class, we would go out and I would follow them down to a demonstration. So we really ... we were all teaching each other. Which always happens in classrooms, but this was like I was getting a huge education that complemented the formal education I had just gotten.

Interviewer: 00:35:04 Very cool.

Kristy La rAt: 00:35:05 Where I'd become interested in social justice in so many ways. They taught me so much. And I also learned what a classroom functions as. A lot of people were here alone in DC and in the United States. And so, we learned some English for sure, and I taught the beginners, but it also really worked as a support group and as a community, those classrooms. And I was really excited to learn how to hold and shape and contribute to that.

Kristy La rAt: 00:35:30 And you know as like a DJ, people think DJing and being a teacher are so different, but it's really about shaping spaces and being a part of them, and that was a really, really exciting experience. I had been a teacher before, over the summers at different projects. Even in high school I started a mentoring program with newcomers at the elementary school next door, recent immigrants.

Interviewer: 00:35:54 Aww.

Kristy La rAt: 00:35:55 I was like, "Oh, cuties." And we would do homework, and it was a good program. It went on for awhile I think.

Interviewer: 00:36:01 You started that as a high school student?

Kristy La rAt: 00:36:02 Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:36:03 That's amazing.

Kristy La rAt: 00:36:03 Yeah. I think I was a sophomore.

Interviewer: 00:36:06 Look at you, 15, starting that kind of thing.

Kristy La rAt: 00:36:08 I was an optimist, I'm telling you.

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Interviewer: 00:36:11 Yeah. I love it.

Kristy La rAt: 00:36:11 I also started HA, which was the Hispanic Alliance I tried to pull together for the Hispanic/Latino kids. But even then, the idea was like"let's have parties and social events". Our whole budget that we submitted was food and celebrations to build community.

Interviewer: 00:36:29 So that's always been your orientation?

Kristy La rAt: 00:36:31 Yeah. I think since a young age, having people all together really felt that was this important and potent way to achieve a lot of things at once.

Interviewer: 00:36:43 Where do you think that came from? Why was that your orientation? Why was that what you-

Kristy La rAt: 00:36:50 Maybe my mom fighting to get us across the world just for the sake of hanging out.

Interviewer: 00:36:52 Out. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Kristy La rAt: 00:36:58 That if you're gonna like be connected to people, it's important to sometimes spend time in person. Maybe that? I don't know.

Interviewer: 00:37:03 Around food and-

Kristy La rAt: 00:37:04 Food, music.

Interviewer: 00:37:06 ... music.

Kristy La rAt: 00:37:08 I think also thinking about food and music, like I understand that that's this damaging cliché of how cultures package sometimes, and consumed, and reduced. I think a lot of our cultures are reduced to that. It's also, I think, those are really important forms of communication in media, and sometimes media can communicate things that your regular ways of interacting and using language, regular every day interactions can't.

Kristy La rAt: 00:37:40 And so, I think I see music and food as expansive on some of the trust building and communication that can happen in many ways that I value as well. But I'm not sure, I was just a social kid, too. I really liked ... I think the social also felt freeing from what you're supposed to do. I mean, I would crawl around on the classroom floor. I was really hyper.

Interviewer: 00:38:07 With the newcomer kids?

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Kristy La rAt: 00:38:09 No. I remember being two years ahead in math-

Interviewer: 00:38:11 With the janitors or?

Kristy La rAt: 00:38:12 ... and ... No, in high school. So I was a freshman. First of all, I was 13 when I went into high school, so I was young. And when I was a freshman, they placed me with sophomores. So I was with kids who were a couple ... and I was just so excited to be with the older kids, and I wanted to meet them all, but I didn't really know how.

Kristy La rAt: 00:38:28 And I was just such a goofball, in the middle of class I'd be crawling across the floor over to the other end of the room to go whisper to my friend so-and-so, or pass a note. And my teachers, I was lucky I went to a math and science school, where there was a lot of trust given. It was a public magnet school. There was a lot of trust given to the kids, and a lot of patience, and they assumed the best of you, which just as an educator, is always on my mind.

Kristy La rAt: 00:38:55 Like, "What happens when you give trust, assume the best, and expect teens to be teens, but don't think that they're bad. Assume that they're good. And super smart." Yeah. I was all over the place. So the things I organized in high school were pretty high energy oriented and socially oriented.

Interviewer: 00:39:19 And how did that end up looking in college?

Kristy La rAt: 00:39:22 Same. I think I really did gravitate towards music as all the magic things it can do and the liberatory possibilities of I love talking, I love conversation, and I also I like this other type of conversation, when you can't talk, and it's so loud that the music does offer this chance to through your body and other parts of you, interact with it and what happens. What happens within yourself, what happens among the people you're in the room with, what ways do you act out some of the speculative. Yeah.

Interviewer: 00:40:09 And was it punk that you were focused on in college as well?

Kristy La rAt: 00:40:13 No. In college, once we had our own little spaces that we could organize stuff, we would do some punk, but it would be also playing Prince, or I was going to say Grace Jones, but I learned about Grace Jones from my Anthology of Booty sisters. Pop, but maybe pop that was a little retro, and maybe punk adjacent. But I think I also really learned a lot about American culture in

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college, and I think I learned the value of a sing-along as being another really cool communication method and experience.

Kristy La rAt: 00:40:54 And I was definitely into pulling people together in college and going to punk shows still that felt a little bit more my speed. Yeah. I remember the last year of college we lived off campus and had a house with some friends. We would have a lot of parties. There would be this combination of sitting around, ruminating about life, and then also we would meticulously plan the music.

Kristy La rAt: 00:41:30 And we learned that because CDs were the main option, or cassettes, there were those all-in-one stereos, the cassettes were better because if you jumped up and down the CD would skip, and so you literally had to plan ... I learned this from my friend Joe in college. You had to plan the set ahead of time, because you literally recorded it onto a cassette tape, but the benefit was that when everyone was jumping around screaming or dancing, that the music wouldn't go off. With CDs it was a problem.

Interviewer: 00:42:00 So that was that your first DJ experiences?

Kristy La rAt: 00:42:03 I guess so. Yeah. And I think I still have some of those tapes, too, that we would make. And it felt very retro to go back and make tapes. Although, I always have loved audio tape technology.

Interviewer: 00:42:15 Because what would professional DJs be doing at that time? Were they using vinyl?

Kristy La rAt: 00:42:20 I think a lot of hip-hop DJs and electronic DJs were using vinyl, because that's how all of the music was released. But I bet in radio stations they were using CDs.

Interviewer: 00:42:29 CDs.

Kristy La rAt: 00:42:30 Yeah. They were using CDs at that time. But for me, in high school, it was also when I was in an oldies station, Oldies 100- shout out to Scooter Magruder, who then owned a record shop in Silver Spring that only closed down five years ago I think, eight years ago. I would stay up, and because of the late night shows, you could request whatever you wanted and they would play it because it was so late that they weren't getting calls, like 4:00 in the morning, and then I would have my tape ready to record that song.

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Kristy La rAt: 00:42:58 Or then I would just be listening and record the song that I liked, and that's how I would collect music, too, is recording it off the radio. And then I would make mix tapes for people that I liked, like on an actual tape, and loved the different tape designs you could get with the colors and writing in the liner notes. So I guess that was also early DJing, creating little mix tapes for myself and for other people. And really loving the way music first were really liberating, and then also storytelling.

Kristy La rAt: 00:43:30 There's so much storytelling. And then all of a sudden, you'd living this person's life through the lyrics. I'm feeling all this drama even those this didn't happen to me. But finding a place for the melancholy and joy, and the sense of not being understood. I could find all of it in music, stories that were told, so I think I was feeling really drawn to that. Even outside of community spaces. And then realizing that other people related the same way and I wanted to share it.

Interviewer: 00:44:00 When did you start calling yourself a DJ? Do you remember?

Kristy La rAt: 00:44:04 So I remember being at Natasha's house for a house party-

Interviewer: 00:44:09 Okay. And this is in DC now?

Kristy La rAt: 00:44:10 We're in DC. We're not friends yet.

Interviewer: 00:44:13 Nope.

Kristy La rAt: 00:44:14 And changing the music, pulling a CD out of my purse. It was a house party. You never know who's playing music. There wasn't a DJ. And then it changing back, and she had gone back and changed it, and then-

Interviewer: 00:44:26 It was her house?

Kristy La rAt: 00:44:27 ... me going ... It was her house. I didn't know it was her house, it was just we had gone to a house party we heard about. And we'd gone back and forth a couple times. I think it was her house party, she got distracted, and so we ended up ... and it was pretty late when this was happening. So I was with Selina at the time who was already friends with and the CD I put on was just a compilation.

Kristy La rAt: 00:44:50 Because we just wanted to hear all the songs. And I think Selina was supposed to leave with someone she was dating at the time who got mad because then she was like, "Oh, no. I'm going back." And we just danced to all the songs on the Prince

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compilation for the rest of the night. Which really went over well, if you never know what to do, just-

Interviewer: 00:45:05 Prince.

Kristy La rAt: 00:45:06 ... pull out like a whole Prince compilation. There's no song that's not good.

Interviewer: 00:45:10 But how did Natasha feel about it?

Kristy La rAt: 00:45:10 Well, I think we laughed because we only realized later that that had been us. Way later. When I went back to her house when we did become friends, I was like, "Oh, yeah, this is the house."

Kristy La rAt: 00:45:21 "Oh, this is my house."

Kristy La rAt: 00:45:22 "Oh, yeah. That party."

Kristy La rAt: 00:45:23 "Oh, yeah. You were the one to ..."

Kristy La rAt: 00:45:25 I wonder if she remembers that. That wasn't when I called myself a DJ, but that was an early intervention that I remember.

Interviewer: 00:45:32 How long after? So you were talking about you were commuting to DC for your first job?

Kristy La rAt: 00:45:40 Yeah. And then I moved to DC because I couldn't take it. I actually got a room in a house first from someone who I had been on tour with this hardcore band, DC hardcore band.

Interviewer: 00:45:50 So yeah, how did end on tour with a hardcore band?

Kristy La rAt: 00:45:54 Oh my God. It was this band called Good Clean Fun, which is this goofy hardcore band with serious musicians who had been in other bands, and lots of different style projects, but it's just the theme of it was positive hardcore. So of course it matched my optimism and they were kindof like being funny and positive, and they had these catchy songs, that probably hardcore hardcore fans would be like, "Ugh." But they were also really popular with the kids.

Kristy La rAt: 00:46:23 And so I'd go to their shows sometimes, and they had these lineups with 15 bands. So they would be in a lot of the shows and then their songs, like I said, were catchy. And then I guess I was in college, and we had become friendly, because you would see the same people, and there was this guy Issa. Hey, Issa. And he would be friendly with everybody. And somehow they

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invited me to go on tour with them as their roadie, and I was like, "Sure." It was a European tour.

Interviewer: 00:46:52 Just like carrying their equipment?

Kristy La rAt: 00:46:53 Carrying their equipment and selling their merch.

Interviewer: 00:46:55 Wow. You were like 20?

Kristy La rAt: 00:47:00 Yeah. I was a baby. I was not of age. It was fun. It was a little hard, because I was going through a breakup at the time and I had just gone done working with Lady Fest in San Francisco. And so being with a bunch of radical feminists of color which is when I started ... I joined a rollerskating gang.

Interviewer: 00:47:22 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:47:23 That's how I got my name Rat, because they needed a street name, and I was like, "Rat." And then my friends from that still call me Rat the most faithfully.

Interviewer: 00:47:30 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:47:32 So to get in the van though, with ... it's these dude bro hardcore guys, it was just rough. And they were like, "You're so academic." I'm like, "Well, I'm in college, but it's true." We talked about the digital divide, and they thought I was being really academic. It was a little rough.

Interviewer: 00:47:45 How long was that tour?

Kristy La rAt: 00:47:47 It was a month. It was long.

Interviewer: 00:47:50 All in a van together.

Kristy La rAt: 00:47:51 Yeah. We were all in a van. But it was fun. We'd have wrestling matches and again, that hyperactivity. I guess that sounds like a pathologizing term. I just mean very hyperactive and probably could be in every sense of the word considered that, but I just still really like that energy.

Kristy La rAt: 00:48:12 And there was this one song, it was “Song for the Ladies”, and so they would have me sing that every night. There was a part that a woman had recorded on their album, and it was really popular, and so they would have me, since I was on tour with them. So the best part was getting to do that every night.

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Interviewer: 00:48:25 So you were performing?

Kristy La rAt: 00:48:26 Yeah. I would leave the table, come up, sing the song, and then some of them we were playing these huge festivals, and get to jump off the stage and crowd surf.

Interviewer: 00:48:37 Into the ... yeah. Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:48:39 That was really fun. That was definitely epitome of high energy punk. I mean, I had crowd surfed before, but jumping off the stage to crowd surf was pretty fun. And I remember there was one guy, I think they were all nice to me for sure, but we just had such different perspectives and experiences in the world, and there was one guy, Sean, who was more like closer to my baby age and also trying to be political.

Kristy La rAt: 00:49:05 And there was this one show where someone had been really homophobic. And so we turned around. It was a Vans Tour somewhere in I forget, Finland, I don't know where. And we had turned over this banner and drawn this whole poster that was like, "Hate is not posi. Fuck homophobia." And that was probably besides singing, really my strongest intervention on that tour. It ended up being ... I think I hadn't anticipated how I was just going to be in these very bro-y spaces and then leave, and also I learned then that on tour it's really tiring, so you don't have all this time to explore like you think you would.

Kristy La rAt: 00:49:44 But yeah, it was definitely a once in a lifetime experience for sure to be in that position, with that group, on that tour. So anyway, Issa had I think felt bad also, because I was like, "I want to go see this other indie band, and why can't we stay at this festival?" I expressed my dismay at some stuff. I'd be like, "You guys are so this and that." So he had offered me for super cheap a room in his house in DC.

Interviewer: 00:50:15 In what neighborhood?

Kristy La rAt: 00:50:18 It was in Columbia Heights on Harvard Street near Georgia Avenue.

Interviewer: 00:50:20 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:50:20 And so I lived there. I think he bought the house for $70,000 or something.

Interviewer: 00:50:26 Wow.

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Kristy La rAt: 00:50:26 I don't know. I'm telling all of Issa's business. Yeah. So that was my first time out of my home. And I went to another group house in Mount Pleasant that had a sublet. Someone from Dischord was out of town for a couple months, so I stayed in his room, and everyone was really nice. And I went ... it was mellow music people, so I started meeting more people. But I already knew a lot of folks from hanging out at the Black Cat all the time and other shows. And then, I rented my own place for a year on 11th Street, 11th and Florida.

Interviewer: 00:50:58 Like your own apartment?

Kristy La rAt: 00:51:00 My own group house.

Interviewer: 00:51:01 Your own group house.

Kristy La rAt: 00:51:02 With a friend from college, and then we would have a rotating subletter in the third room, and that was where we ... that I had a place that I could organize stuff, too. And so when I made friends, but also had my share of house parties. Partyline played their first show at our house.

Interviewer: 00:51:17 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 00:51:17 Which was super fun, and meeting folks who were a part of more Crystal Bradley, Allison Wolfe, who were musicians that were a generation and very integral part of Riot Grrrl movements, was like what I had been longing for before as a teenager. So yeah, and that's the period of time when I met first Selina and Natasha-

Interviewer: 00:51:48 Yeah. How did you meet them? I heard you met Selina first right?

Kristy La rAt: 00:51:50 [crosstalk 00:51:50] Yeah I met Selina through the DC radio co- op. We were both training at WPFW to be baby junior reporters. And we have a good story for it, actually, which we'll have to go back and find out what year it was, but we were both reporting on the Iraq War and The Washington Post.

Kristy La rAt: 00:52:14 There was a protest in front of The Washington Post for their coverage or lack thereof or shitty coverage. At the time there was a really strong critique at the way that they were covering the war. And so there was a protest organized, and I had gone to cover it and Ryme who was running the DC radio co-op as one of the main facilitator leaders and trainer-

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Interviewer: 00:52:32 Is that Radio CPR? Or is that something separate.

Kristy La rAt: 00:52:34 It was separate. So there was an organization called Radio Co- op, DC Radio Co-op, and they operated out of PFW as donated space. I mean, we would sleep on the floor of PFW editing these things all night. It's funny that they allowed us to just crawl all over the radio station. It was cool. We were young people and trying to learn and we did. So I was there, and she had said, "Kristy's going to be there. You should find her."

Kristy La rAt: 00:52:58 And she came and found me and introduced herself, and also had her recorder, and the protest wasn't over, but I was going to go to a video report of high school students at Blair in Maryland, walking out of high school. I think it was Blair. It was somewhere in Montgomery. Walking out, also against the Iraq War. So I was leaving, and she was coming in. So she was going to continue covering it, but we hadn't coordinated. Someone had just sent her. And she needed batteries, and so she asked me could she borrow my batteries. She was so cute. And I was like, "Sure." I gave her my batteries.

Kristy La rAt: 00:53:35 But I remember thinking I was like, "No one ever returns batteries. I hope I have enough juice for anything else I'll need to record after this." And so we each went and did our thing, and then we saw each other back at the radio station a few days later, and I remember she gave me back my batteries and I was like, "Oh, first of all, you remembered." And second, she had on her cellphone, she had “queer chica” written. You know, you could put a thing on the screen that was your message, and I was like, "Oh."

Kristy La rAt: 00:54:06 And then we were pretty soon after than thrown on assignment together, since we already knew each other from our little exchange. We worked on it, I think we also worked on the Janitors Campaign, a piece on that as well. [One sentence removed for privacy] We started producing for some national news magazines on Pacifica Network. And then became really, really good friends.

Kristy La rAt: 00:54:39 She was just ... she has a type of tenderness and optimism. Not just optimism, like such a strong sense of what is possible. And really always tapped into that, in this really inspiring and exciting way, that in a visionary way, rejects the status quo, or what seems like is available, and insists on visioning and on possibility all the time, but not in what feels like a lofty way. Just in a goofy, exciting, sweet way. And she would say stuff, "You know I really like spending time with you." It was just really

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sweet that in adult life I hadn't experienced that, I'd only experienced it in my home.

Kristy La rAt: 00:55:30 So we became good friends. And we would rove the streets together at night, we'd carry a boombox around with us and dance down 13th Street. She taught me a lot about what it means to be me, in terms of understanding that all the parts of me are okay to be. And she had studied political science and had a lot of the language that I was looking for that I didn't know. And I mean, it wasn’t just because she studied political science, she just has a brilliant, brilliant mind, and is able to put into language. I'm still to this day like, "Whoa."

Interviewer: 00:56:13 Oh, let me.

Kristy La rAt: 00:56:16 Oh, sorry.

Interviewer: 00:56:16 You're making noise. It's okay.

Kristy La rAt: 00:56:24 And so then yeah we started going to parties together-

Interviewer: 00:56:27 And that was-

Kristy La rAt: 00:56:27 Megan, I remember I met Megan Honor outside of a record store once, like a show. And then she, outside of that ... No, I met her before then. But she introduced me to Natasha outside of this record store in Adams Morgan.

Interviewer: 00:56:41 But that was after you had been at Natasha's party with [inaudible], right?

Kristy La rAt: 00:56:43 Yes. And I'd seen her around. And maybe, I don't know, she had come to the Partyline ... No, by that time, I knew her by the Partyline party that we had at our house. And somehow, one of our friends called us the Fraggle Rockers. I don't know what we did. We were making money to pay our rent, but we just had so much free time during the day that we managed to make and just rove around together.

Interviewer: 00:57:09 You and Selina?

Kristy La rAt: 00:57:10 And Natasha. And Natasha has a thing. She always wanted to sleep at her house. She would always maneuver it, and she's really good at putting together spaces. She just can pull together a space, any space. The lighting, the colors, the drapes. So at the time, I didn't have an appreciation for that. I'm like,

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"Why do we always go to your house?" But now I'm like, "Probably because her house is way nicer."

Interviewer: 00:57:28 Like just to hang out?

Kristy La rAt: 00:57:31 Yeah. Or we would always end up being out late together and crash somewhere-

Interviewer: 00:57:34 Crash there.

Kristy La rAt: 00:57:35 ... and we always wanted to have a slumber party, and it would always be her house. It was her house on Columbia Road. Yeah. We would wake up, go to work really early, and then yeah, I told you I was teaching, so I would teach for three hours, but then I would have some kind of a break. Yeah, we would go on all these adventures together and make stuff and do things. We would crash a lot of house parties, and I think through that got a sensibility of what we might want to do on our own.

Interviewer: 00:58:03 Right. Right. Do you remember the first time you ... I mean, you said you were taking over the music at her party, but do you remember the first time you really were DJing in a more overt way in DC?

Kristy La rAt: 00:58:14 Oh, yeah. So the first time I DJed a party, I was like, "I'm going to be a DJ tonight," was in Peru. And it was when Natasha visited me in Peru, and we made up a DJ duo called Choque y Fuga. And it was the first party I threw with my best friend there. Eliana and Deborah, best friends. And we called ourselves the Tigrilla Crew.

Kristy La rAt: 00:58:41 And we were, "We know what we want to listen to. We're going to throw our own party." And we really were conscious not to make it like the girl party, the girls throwing the party. But a lot of parties were thrown by guys and didn't feature some of the music we wanted to hear. But mainly we were just like, "We're going to do it our own way." Not as a protest, but we just want to do it.

Kristy La rAt: 00:59:02 So we found a club, organized a party, and Eliana had more experience as an artist who had organized art shows, I think, and as someone who lived in Lima for her whole life. But yeah, Eliana and I actually ended up having very similar music when we made lists and made CDs. But Natasha was in town ... Maybe Natasha was in town the second time. I can't remember. So I might have DJed with Eliana for the first time.

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Interviewer: 00:59:24 And was that in the era that you were living in DC and working, or was that in college, or when was that?

Kristy La rAt: 00:59:28 No. I'm sorry. Then I lived in DC for a year, and I moved to Peru, because that had always been my dream, and I wanted to get to know my culture better, I went and lived with my aunt, and madrina Nenée, rest in power. And I wanted to go to documentaries with domestic workers. So I'd done one trip to make connections and see if people were into that, and then I had gone back.

Kristy La rAt: 00:59:54 And I went to college there, too, but after my US college. So as an add on, because they didn't have qualitative methods at my college in my degree, and I really knew that I wanted that. And I remember, I had already made friends with Selina, and Natasha, and Darby by that point. I remember Selina writing me a letter that was like, "Keep me in your life if you can." Or something. I had that up in my room when I was all lonely living in Lima for the first time.

Kristy La rAt: 01:00:22 So then I became friends ... I lived there for a year-and-a-half, and then another six months I think at a later point. But you go through all these different groups of friends, and finally when I found Eliana and Deborah, I had found my friends. And then I had other great groups of friends and still friendly with them, but they were my BFFs that I found after several iterations of, again, not feeling that understood or seen or just some things aren't the best fit.

Kristy La rAt: 01:00:53 So maybe my first was ... Actually, yeah. Whoa, this is so funny uncovering memories. No. We would have house parties there, too. And someone had a mixer. Santiago Guerra had a mixer that he had brought from the United States. I think that was the first time I DJed. Maybe I DJed at Radio CPR earlier than this. But my first party DJing was at those parties. Sometimes you can get a beach house for a night. And we would set up too, like a Discman, on either side of the mixer, and plug it in.

Kristy La rAt: 01:01:30 And that's what we would play on. That was the first times that I would DJ. We would play on those. And I think that's what we brought to the club too when we first DJed. Yeah. The Concha party was the first one we had organized in a club, and that was my first club DJ experience, as this place called La Concha that had this huge open shell as a dance floor, which of course was from the 70s. It was a disco floor, super amazing, no longer there. But also we were like, "It's like pussy power. It's like conchas, slang for pussy." So that was a really memorable party.

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Kristy La rAt: 01:02:07 We did a few of those. But Natasha was there, either for the first or the second one of those, and we DJed together. But the first ones I really DJed were at these beach parties and house parties in Lima. And we would be testing out what we thought people wanted to hear, what we wanted to hear, it was a pretty forgiving and dance-prone group of friends. In Lima I was pretty friendly with music obsessives. That was one of the binding factors of the friends and artists.

Interviewer: 01:02:39 Do you remember what it felt like the first time you were in control of the music in that way?

Kristy La rAt: 01:02:45 I felt it was the dancer getting to play the music- lo justo. Right?

Interviewer: 01:02:52 Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kristy La rAt: 01:02:52 Because I think I had gotten tired of feeling beholden to what, especially at that time, felt like a lot of dudes, many of whom in other clubs I'd been to before I was in Peru, wouldn't dance. And I got that vibe that they felt like they were just the one, that wasn't their role.

Kristy La rAt: 01:03:12 Not that they didn't dance for other reasons, but they were just ... And I was like, "I want also for us to, like us the dancers, we should also get ... it makes sense. Get to play the music.” So I remember feeling it had flipped that script and opened something up a bit more. And maybe that little divider wall was broken down in a way.

Kristy La rAt: 01:03:36 And I always was the DJ who would play the song, but also come out from behind the DJ booth and want to dance with my friends there, or pull my friends back, being really into the fluidity of in front of and behind and breaking that down, because it always felt annoying how separate ... and weird how separate it had been, and how those roles never moved around. So I remember feeling that.

Interviewer: 01:04:01 Yeah. Do you really how you met Darby? You said you met her before you left for Peru.

Kristy La rAt: 01:04:06 Yes. I picked her up for this activist meeting, because someone had asked me if I could pick her up, someone who was in the car with me. I think it was a conversation about women's rights in Palestine, or some women leaders were speaking. And she was kinda too cool for me. I have to say. She and I would both agree that she was too cool for me.

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Interviewer: 01:04:30 Okay. I'll have to ask her about that.

Kristy La rAt: 01:04:34 I always tease her about it. And oh, she was a total badass. Oh my God, all my friends. I remember just that emoji with the heart eyes when I first saw them before they were my friends. Natasha, too. Dizzyingly badass. And that party, even though I was like, "What? Who is this girl?" And when I met her outside of the record store, I still remember that scene. And maybe that wasn't the time I met her [Darby].

Kristy La rAt: 01:05:08 I think I had seen her at other SOA Watch, we went down to Georgia, I road tripped down there for a protest, the annual protest, and then some of the World Bank protests I would see her. I remember her being in my car and just being like, "Oh my God, you're so smart and badass." And then being in maybe parties together, and punky scenes still, music scenes, and some house parties. There was queer prom. And then, I think I started organizing rollerskating, because I had been in this rollerskating gang in San Francisco, Quality Bad.

Interviewer: 01:05:49 When were you in San Francisco?

Kristy La rAt: 01:05:51 I was in San Francisco the summer ... it was a summer in college. And that was when I had met Emi, and Olivia, and people who are still in my life and we both threw in different ways. But I really liked rollerskating, and so I'd organize these days where we'd go out to Maryland and 15 or 20 of us would all go rollerskating. And Darby was interested in that and would come. Later when I tried to do rollerskating birthdays, I can't remember if it was Selina or Natasha informed me, "Kristy, we're more into rollerskating culture, not actually rollerskating."

Interviewer: 01:06:26 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 01:06:29 They were like, "We're really bad at it, so it's not that fun." And I was like, "But it's my birthday and I want to go rollerskating." That was a funny your friends just telling you how it really is. Okay, guys. Let's just put on the socks up to our knees and the booty shorts and hang out-

Interviewer: 01:06:45 And the music.

Kristy La rAt: 01:06:45 ... somewhere else. And so, that was when Darby and I ... Darby did not complain. And I remember having a lot of fun with her at some of those rollerskating ... it wasn't like we went a million times, but I was excited she’d come. And then, when I left for Peru the first time, I remember her being like, "I'll write you if

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you write me back," or something really blunt but sweet. But then later I learned she's this amazing pen pal which is not me. But I think she wrote me one letter.

Interviewer: 01:07:18 And why were you all writing letters? I mean, you had email, also text.

Kristy La rAt: 01:07:23 That's why it's so amazing. Darby's still a great pen pal.

Interviewer: 01:07:27 Yeah, just felt like an important ... But you said-

Kristy La rAt: 01:07:30 [crosstalk 01:07:30] There's a lot you can-

Interviewer: 01:07:30 ... Selina also wrote you a letter.

Kristy La rAt: 01:07:31 Yeah. Well, she wrote me a note before I left that I got. Then she sent me a Prince poster which I just really apprecia-... She sent me a package, half of it got taken out by the mail service. I still wonder what was in that package.

Interviewer: 01:07:44 You haven't asked her?

Kristy La rAt: 01:07:46 She doesn't remember. But I think also all of us having a love for analog media, or the possibilities of it, and not giving up on it just because of the new thing. I would characterize that as our group of friends.

Interviewer: 01:08:00 Like a little bit Luddite.

Kristy La rAt: 01:08:01 Yeah. A little bit. Although, also willing to use the whole range, and interested in how those can interplay. But there's so much you can do with a letter. And I really appreciate knowing all my friends handwriting really well from our different notes and letters and meeting notes. And then when I got back from Peru, I was really into reggaeton, and she was really into reggaeton. And we were like paired together by all of our friends who-

Interviewer: 01:08:27 So was this the 2005 era of reggaeton really getting big?

Kristy La rAt: 01:08:31 Yep. Exactly.

Interviewer: 01:08:32 So Darby really liked reggaeton?

Kristy La rAt: 01:08:32 Really liked reggaeton. And was researching. She got really into the online music communities. Which then transitioned into global based communities. And I learned a lot from second hand from her, because I was not willing or able or even didn't know

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how to get into those communities, and it's just there's no way I was going to do that. But she would give the report backs, and then all of us, it trickled down, which was great.

Kristy La rAt: 01:09:00 And I remember Chaska lived next door to Darby and Selina's house, the palace. And people also introduced who's now DJ Pre-Colombian. And people also introduced us like, "Oh, you're both Peruvian, you have to know each other." And so we were early friends, too. I associate on that same stoop I was pairedwith Chaska and paired with Darby. And I was like, "You guys have this super intense interest in this thing together."

Interviewer: 01:09:24 They were neighbors?

Kristy La rAt: 01:09:25 Next door neighbors.

Interviewer: 01:09:26 Next door neighbors.

Kristy La rAt: 01:09:26 Yep.

Interviewer: 01:09:27 In Colombia Heights?

Kristy La rAt: 01:09:28 Yeah. What was their house called? They had named it after some lawyer or some funny name. But yeah. The place and Slutkin. And yeah, I think that was the other name. So yeah, we became much closer then.

Interviewer: 01:09:47 Through your mutual love of reggaeton?

Kristy La rAt: 01:09:49 Yeah. And then she wasn't too cool for me. Not because of reggaeton. I didn't know she was such a sweetie. But she was always a take no shit type of gal. And then I think also we were getting more interested in dance parties in addition to shows. And then we all started throwing house parties together.

Interviewer: 01:10:12 Right. And when did Ebony come in the mix?

Kristy La rAt: 01:10:14 So we had thrown a few house parties because the palace was a place where we would throw a lot of-

Interviewer: 01:10:18 Where Darby was living?

Kristy La rAt: 01:10:19 ... house parties. Yeah. Darby and Selina.

Interviewer: 01:10:21 Oh, Selina was there, too.

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Kristy La rAt: 01:10:22 Yeah. So that was definitely always a meet up grounds. And Darby was also part of the Radio Co-op, but I had never really seen her. But we were also producing radio pieces. Selina, Darby, and I, were producing radio pieces together for some of the same news magazines.

Kristy La rAt: 01:10:37 So Darby and I remember produced a piece about day laborers in Herndon, when there was this whole tension in the community that was trying to turn into policy to further criminalize day laborers who were just looking for work outside the 7-11.

Kristy La rAt: 01:10:52 So we went and did a whole half-hour report, and the four of us were also then selected, along with two other people, by the founders of Radio CPR to be the next crew leading Radio CPR. So that was also a place that we hung out in a lot. And I remember meeting Ebony through house parties.

Interviewer: 01:11:16 That you were throwing?

Kristy La rAt: 01:11:18 Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:11:19 So the three of you were throwing house parties, or the four of you?

Kristy La rAt: 01:11:21 Yeah. The four of us-

Interviewer: 01:11:23 Selina-

Kristy La rAt: 01:11:23 But not all the time.

Interviewer: 01:11:24 ... Natasha-

Kristy La rAt: 01:11:24 But sometimes.

Interviewer: 01:11:24 ... Darby and you?

Kristy La rAt: 01:11:25 Yeah. But it was a way of fundraising for Radio CPR. And also we would just throw these ridiculous parties. I say ridiculous because these were ridiculous themes, but we're going to try and reprise some of them.

Interviewer: 01:11:41 Like what?

Kristy La rAt: 01:11:41 Like we had this one that was K&D's Excellent Adventures, it was a Bill and Ted theme. But then it was autobiographical, so the first part we had kids games. It was a really long party. We

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met up at 2:00 in the afternoons. We played kids games until evening, and then we all had costume changes and had like a "your parents are out of town" type adolescent party, and then at midnight we had all walked down the stairs in new costumes.

Kristy La rAt: 01:12:12 I guess that was our present day party. But that had a theme that everybody had to adhere to, and that was the most public. One time we had a scam party, you had to come as your favorite scam. It was just really funny what everybody came as. Or we had triple threat party, where you either had to come as a triplet, a theme, or as a threat, or both, and it was for three of us that were Libras. Darby and I are both Libras.

Kristy La rAt: 01:12:39 And me, and her, and Benjamin, who is also a Libra, were both a triplet and a threat. We dressed up as a triple threat to the moral fabric of the United States. So what were we? We were sodomy, sex work, and so-called illegal immigration.

Interviewer: 01:12:56 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 01:12:57 And we each dressed to embody that. But that one you had to also ... we also asked people to do dance performances, like lip syncs and whole performances.

Interviewer: 01:13:04 Damn.

Kristy La rAt: 01:13:05 And they were really good. And we did ours to Pull Up to the Bumper. That was a good one. I think we might have that recorded somewhere. So we did these long, long, long ass email invitations with all these instructions-

Interviewer: 01:13:17 Right. It was all email.

Kristy La rAt: 01:13:18 ... and all this inspiration, and ... we didn't do them all the time. But when we would do them, we'd made Everclear Jell-o shots, and then we'd be like, "But we have to have food so no one gets too drunk." But it was the cheapest way. They were really fun parties. I remember meeting Ebony for that, but also Ebony was on the founding group of Girls Rock, which some people asked us to be DJ coaches for. I remember getting to know her a lot more through that.

Interviewer: 01:13:41 Through Girls Rocks [crosstalk 01:13:42].

Kristy La rAt: 01:13:42 And just being like, "Oh my God. You're so cool." Again, that's my feeling. But by cool, I mean badass. Like, "Oh my God, you're so badass." And smart, and fierce, and sweet. I remember

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thinking that about all my friends when I first met them, especially these four.

Interviewer: 01:13:59 Did you ever see Ebony do drag? Did you ever see her perform?

Kristy La rAt: 01:14:03 I did see her perform drag. I can't remember if that's before or after we started DJing together, because we started DJing pretty early. Yeah. I think I saw her do drag, because we had done this party at The Fab Lounge, that I think we were all together at. But she was interesting and started DJing, and we had talked about it a bit. And I remember being at her house-

Interviewer: 01:14:24 In Shaw?

Kristy La rAt: 01:14:25 In Shaw, on P Street, when she was about to do her first set. And up in her bedroom, preparing, being like, "What do you think?" And just being really excited for her, I'd be like, "Oh my God. I can't wait to hear your first set." And it was this party where people were giving haircuts to raise money for Girls Rock, and you got a little pin with a skull and crossbones, where the crossbones were a pair of scissors. And it was just funny, because the haircuts were in the kitchen, which what a nightmare, but-

Interviewer: 01:14:51 [crosstalk 01:14:51].

Kristy La rAt: 01:14:51 ... people were dedicated.

Interviewer: 01:14:53 Cleaning the hair in the kitchen.

Kristy La rAt: 01:14:54 Like, "Why, why, why?" And it was an awesome set. It was so good. I just remember bouncing around, and more just seeing ... because she had talked about it for ... I think I knew Ebony at least a few months. And every time we'd talk about it and she'd been thinking about it, that's very Ebony. You plan something, and then you execute completely on it.

Kristy La rAt: 01:15:14 And that was my first experience of many, of seeing Ebony do that, just, "I'm going to think about it. I'm going to think about how I want it to go. I'm going to lay the pieces in place, and then bam." And never went back. And I think we threw at least a couple house parties all together, and then this opportunity came from-

Interviewer: 01:15:36 From Backdoor?

Kristy La rAt: 01:15:38 ... from the 9:30 Club, to do a party in the basement.

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Interviewer: 01:15:42 Sounds like Ebony made that opportunity happen by working there and knowing that it was possible and then getting in.

Kristy La rAt: 01:15:52 Yes. Although I think wasn't she telling us that it wasn't a thing where you could propose it? You had to be asked?

Interviewer: 01:15:57 Well, it sounds like there was a lot of dynamics around that. You had to be careful about how you did it. But it did sound like she did-

Kristy La rAt: 01:16:04 Suggest it.

Interviewer: 01:16:04 ... suggest it. But it was like you had to walk that line carefully.

Kristy La rAt: 01:16:08 I'm sure it was another thing where Ebony saw the opportunity, thought about the approach-

Interviewer: 01:16:13 Figured out how to[crosstalk 01:16:14].-

Kristy La rAt: 01:16:13 ... laid the groundwork, and then bam, made it happen.

Interviewer: 01:16:16 Right. And what she was saying is that part of the reason was that the house parties just started to get out of control in terms of people and security, and it just felt like a big ... too big for [crosstalk 01:16:28].

Kristy La rAt: 01:16:28 That's right. Because Ebony also had a show on Radio CPR. Then I think once she became interested in DJing, that made total sense for her to have a show on Radio CPR. And she was back to back with me and Natasha, so we would see each other. I forget if it was every week or every other week. I think it changed. And we were Late Night Confessions with DJs Choque y Fuga and she was Doin it in the Park with DJ Natty Boom. And that was so sweet. She was before us.

Kristy La rAt: 01:16:53 So we would see each other all the time, and I think one of the last parties that we threw for Radio CPR that was so out of control was in conjunction with Subdrift, Subcontinental Drift, which Nina, who was another mentor friend of ours, part of the First Ladies DJ Collective who went by Miss Modular and later Nina Colada, helped bridge that where it was a collaborative party by two groups to raise money, and it was at the palace, and that one 400 people came. That was the one where maybe the floor was going to break. You went in the basement, you could see the floorboards-

Interviewer: 01:17:24 [crosstalk 01:17:24]-

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Kristy La rAt: 01:17:24 ... it was really scary. I wasn't at that one, because my grandmother passed that weekend and I flew to Peru. And it was this blur. It was one of the most heartbreaking moments of my life. She meant so, so much to me and was one of my best friends. And was also this pillar of badass fierceness, “I don't care what people say I'm supposed to do,” which I think grandmas stand for a lot of times. She was mine. So that year it was a blur.

Kristy La rAt: 01:17:58 And I missed that party. It happened the day before her funeral I think. But it was something that changed. It was also a transition, where this isn't going to be our go-to anymore. And I was living at this house that we also had a bunch of parties on Gerard Street. And I can't remember if we still had more of those there, or if that was the end of the house party era. No, we still had more there, because that house was bigger and the floor didn't feel like it was going to fall in.

Kristy La rAt: 01:18:32 But it was always something special done once or twice a year we would have a house party instead of every few months. Then when I came back and was recovering from that and grieving, we were DJing at Be Bar. We got this residency, a bunch of us, at Be Bar down on 9th Street, near the Convention Center.

Interviewer: 01:18:54 It's called a residency?

Kristy La rAt: 01:18:56 Well, yeah. It's called a residency when you are scheduled to DJ once a month, or-

Interviewer: 01:19:02 Was it the Wednesday night?

Kristy La rAt: 01:19:04 Uh-huh (affirmative).

Interviewer: 01:19:04 Drag-burlesque combo?

Kristy La rAt: 01:19:07 Yep.

Interviewer: 01:19:09 Yeah. I remember those nights.

Kristy La rAt: 01:19:09 Yeah. So I think it was each of us had a Wednesday. So Natasha and I had one, Ebony had one, and it would rotate. And we would all go to each others, and then there would be a drag performance. I think it was every Wednesday, maybe it was every other?

Interviewer: 01:19:23 No. It was every Wednesday.

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Kristy La rAt: 01:19:24 Every Wednesday.

Interviewer: 01:19:25 It was every week.

Kristy La rAt: 01:19:25 What a pace.

Interviewer: 01:19:26 I know. It was a lot, but it was an amazing pillar of social life at that time.

Kristy La rAt: 01:19:31 Yeah. Remember they had that white lit light wall, it was its own music video you could dance against it?

Interviewer: 01:19:36 I felt like it used to be a bath house or something? The stage felt that way to me? And then there were the weird bedroom-

Kristy La rAt: 01:19:45 Upstairs. Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:19:46 ... with the beds and the curtains that-

Kristy La rAt: 01:19:46 This is also it's own music video. It's like, "What is this?"

Interviewer: 01:19:47 Yeah. It's like that's where the drag kings and the burlesque dancers would change.

Kristy La rAt: 01:19:54 Yeah. I sometimes went up there at the end of the night.

Interviewer: 01:19:54 So was that your first time in DC DJing a club space or bar space?

Kristy La rAt: 01:20:01 No. At that point ...

Interviewer: 01:20:04 Because that was before Backdoor started happening-

Kristy La rAt: 01:20:06 It was?

Interviewer: 01:20:07 ... right? No? Am I wrong?

Kristy La rAt: 01:20:12 I really don't remember.

Interviewer: 01:20:13 Or was it the same, as the same time?

Kristy La rAt: 01:20:15 Feels like the same time period. Because we started Backdoor in 2009, my grandma passed in 2008, so maybe we were doing Be Bar in-between.

Interviewer: 01:20:23 Yeah. Be Bar was 2008. I think by 2009 Be Bar was over.

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Kristy La rAt: 01:20:28 Oh really?

Interviewer: 01:20:28 Because remember, it got kicked out? I mean, basically new owners came in and then they were like, "You're not drinking enough," basically in the show, the night got kicked … ended.

Kristy La rAt: 01:20:36 Over the night was called Be:XX, remember which was controversial?

Interviewer: 01:20:41 No.

Kristy La rAt: 01:20:41 Be Bar was the name of the Bar-

Interviewer: 01:20:43 Oh, because XX for the chromosome?

Kristy La rAt: 01:20:45 Yeah.

Interviewer: 01:20:45 I just remember thinking of it as Be Bar. I remember it was the summer before Obama got elected was the big ... at least in my memory, that was the prime Be Bar. And then by winter I think it had-

Kristy La rAt: 01:20:58 Oh, thank you for [crosstalk 01:20:59]-

Interviewer: 01:20:59 ... ended. I know bringing my experience into-

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:01 ... complementing that memory. Good thing we were all in the same spaces together. I forgot.

Interviewer: 01:21:04 Right. Yeah. I was definitely at Backdoor when it started, too. I was not at any of the house parties I don't think, but yeah.

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:12 Oh, that's funny. Yes. So if you ask me a club in DC I would've said-

Interviewer: 01:21:17 Backdoor was first?

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:18 ... Backdoor's [crosstalk 01:21:18].

Interviewer: 01:21:18 I mean, it's possible. I could-

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:19 No, but I think what you're saying is resonating with my memory, too.

Interviewer: 01:21:24 Because Backdoor didn't start until 2009. Yeah.

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:27 I'm pretty sure it didn't start until 2009.

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Interviewer: 01:21:27 Well, they were very different spaces, right? I felt like the Be Bar vibe was very different than the Backdoor.

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:36 I know. But I can't believe I didn't DJ anywhere else in a club before Be Bar.

Interviewer: 01:21:41 I mean, in Peru you did.

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:42 Yeah. But that seems ... I got to check the notes. Check my flyer archive. No, I mean, I'm sure you're right about that chronology. But I'm like, "Was there a third space? Was there anywhere else?"

Interviewer: 01:21:52 Maybe somewhere else?

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:54 But I can't remember of any.

Interviewer: 01:21:56 The house parties, but.

Kristy La rAt: 01:21:57 Yeah. House parties. We DJed once or twice at Haydee’s, too. But that was more 2009 and '10. Yeah. So that was definitely a learning experience. You go, you DJ for five hours, you practice DJing. And we were DJing on CDJs at that point, which now have come back.

Interviewer: 01:22:20 What is that? CDJ?

Kristy La rAt: 01:22:23 It's a professional CD player. So a big step up from the Discman that we were using, that DJs would laugh at. But it has a platter on the top of it that allows you to manipulate the CD as if it were a vinyl-

Interviewer: 01:22:37 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 01:22:37 ... to the same way that DJs grab-

Interviewer: 01:22:38 Without scratching it?

Kristy La rAt: 01:22:40 Right. Because the CD is inside, but then there's this platter on top that is a silver plastic platter that you're touching with your hand, and electronically it's manipulating the track on the CD.

Interviewer: 01:22:52 I see.

Kristy La rAt: 01:22:52 So I think it works by taking a sample of the CD that it already has, and the computer inside is manipulating it. It's not actually doing anything with the CDs they would keep spinning, but it

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just records some of it, enough so that you can do that. But it allowed you to do a lot of things that if you had been a vinyl DJ that you could switch over to CDs. We just used it because that's what clubs had, and so-

Interviewer: 01:23:15 Because you had never been vinyl DJs at that point?

Kristy La rAt: 01:23:15 No. And that's what we learned on. Well, Selina and Darby learned on vinyl. But I did not. The vinyls were great, but I didn't have a way to DJ with vinyls, and I definitely wasn't really collecting vinyls that-

Interviewer: 01:23:30 An expensive thing to do.

Kristy La rAt: 01:23:33 ... you would DJ. Yeah. And I was not carrying those things around. And at the time, computers always had a CD burner in them, and so you could collect all your different music, which I always remember my first CD I ever burnt was with Natasha and Selina. We made a CD called “Soul Junior” and we were united by a love of soul also. It was such a good ... I got to find it. Soul Junior had so many good songs on it.

Kristy La rAt: 01:23:58 And we would listen to it all the time when we were hanging out at the house. And I don't know what we were doing, we had all this free time. But she taught me, Natasha taught me how to burn a CD and make a CD mix tape, which I always liked to make them on tape. And so, it made sense. It was this thing that you could make off your computer, collect songs, and hack them off the internet, rip them off the internet.

Kristy La rAt: 01:24:24 And then play in these clubs that had this ... either they had CDJs or they had those drawers that come out on a rack. I think they had them in radio stations. It's literally just like the old CD players that had a little drawer come out, you put the CD, and you put it in. Whereas CDJs there's a slot where you slide the CD in and then it disappears into this machine that's a foot by a foot.

Kristy La rAt: 01:24:51 It's a big machine for each CD. And then there's a mixer in the middle and you're going between the two CDs. Now they've come back, but no one uses CDs, you just use USB sticks, and it's the same thing. But it allows for you to carry a lot less than vinyls, but still manipulate it at lot.

Interviewer: 01:25:10 So that was at Be Bar you learned on the CDJ?

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Kristy La rAt: 01:25:13 Yeah. Now that I'm thinking about it, I must have learned there. Wow. That's wild. I remember I bought a CDJ for us all to use. I saved up and bought it, and then I was trying to take it to a Girls Rock event and it got stolen out of my car.

Interviewer: 01:25:26 Oh, no.

Kristy La rAt: 01:25:27 Actually, someone called me, and they were like, "Can you bring reggaeton, because there is a couple girls who really wanted to hear some reggaeton?" And I was like, "Sure." I ran back in the house in those two minutes I just ran to grab the CD, someone smashed my window and grabbed my backpack with the CDJ. Someone was watching me. It was a matter of time.

Interviewer: 01:25:42 They knew. That sucks.

Kristy La rAt: 01:25:45 But I still played the reggaeton. And like Ivy Queen.

Interviewer: 01:25:49 Yes. Love it.

Kristy La rAt: 01:25:50 Yeah. So learned at Be Bar.

Interviewer: 01:25:52 [crosstalk 01:25:52].

Kristy La rAt: 01:25:52 And then 9:30 Club also had those same rig, and then it was much later Natasha was the technology pioneer in terms of machines in our life. She got the first iPhone, she got her first controller, and then eventually all of us went to DJ controllers because it was even easier to just use your computer and a controller-

Interviewer: 01:26:08 Got it.

Kristy La rAt: 01:26:08 ... in terms of mobility-

Interviewer: 01:26:09 Was that different than the mixer?

Kristy La rAt: 01:26:11 Yeah. So the controller is combined, the two CDJs and the mixer, which is also a foot by a foot. So the whole CDJ mixer combo would be three and a half feet wide, and a foot deep, so it takes up a lot of space and you had to carry all those machines and they were heavy. A control is a foot-and-a-half wide, by a foot deep, much lighter. And combines those three elements in one little block that you're carrying around, and then connecting your computer, and you play the music off your computer directly to the controller.

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Interviewer: 01:26:41 Wow.

Kristy La rAt: 01:26:42 So it just made it a lot easier to carry that at the computer. Also, when you're a party DJ, we would make these CDs, you always make two so you can go back and forth between them with the same one list, but one would always get scratched then you were playing in the middle of the party, and then the music starts skipping. So it was the same problem that I had had at the house parties that we made cassette tapes to remedy, and so eventually I gave in and became a digital DJ, knowing that I would always be that DJ who was struggling with a cable, and having technical difficulties of my own in that realm, but I was tired of the CDs thing.

Interviewer: 01:27:17 Right. Yeah. Yeah. That makes sense.

Kristy La rAt: 01:27:19 The technical stuff that came with that.

Interviewer: 01:27:21 Yeah. So I want to check in on energy. Because it's 10:15, and we definitely have a lot more to talk about, but I wonder about whether we should pause and do a part two. Because I feel like we have another-

Kristy La rAt: 01:27:37 How are you feeling?

Interviewer: 01:27:37 ... at least another hour of talking to get into all the details about the rest of life of Anthology of Booty and wanting… [rest of discussion is just logistical talk and removed. Interviewer and interviewee decide to do a part 2 interview.]

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