[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":308},["ShallowReactive",2],{"codex-\u002Fcodex\u002Fwould-you-still-do-it":3,"codex-around-\u002Fcodex\u002Fwould-you-still-do-it":301},{"id":4,"title":5,"body":6,"cover":267,"date":268,"description":269,"draft":270,"extension":271,"faq":272,"kind":285,"meta":286,"navigation":287,"noindex":270,"ogImage":267,"path":288,"readingMinutes":289,"seo":290,"seoDescription":291,"seoTitle":292,"standfirst":293,"stem":294,"tags":295,"updated":267,"__hash__":300},"codex\u002Fcodex\u002Fwould-you-still-do-it.md","Would You Still Do It?",{"type":7,"value":8,"toc":253},"minimark",[9,18,24,27,34,37,42,53,56,59,63,70,73,76,84,88,91,94,101,104,108,114,117,131,138,142,145,148,151,159,162,166,169,172,175,179,182,185,188,192,195,198,201,209,216,220,223,226,229,232,235,241,244],[10,11,12,13,17],"p",{},"Jaymie Silk published sixteen slides in January under the heading ",[14,15,16],"em",{},"Food for\nThoughts",", and the first one does not warm up:",[19,20,21],"blockquote",{},[10,22,23],{},"Being a DJ doesn't make sense in 2026",[10,25,26],{},"Underneath: social media burnout, blood money, and a scene that still pretends to\ncare. House, techno, rap, hardtechno, afrohouse — he notes it is the same thing\neverywhere.",[28,29],"embedded-player",{"height":30,"provider":31,"src":32,"title":33},700,"Instagram","https:\u002F\u002Fwww.instagram.com\u002Fp\u002FDTN_J7yjMw9\u002Fembed","Jaymie Silk, So you wanna be a DJ? Does it still make sense in 2026?",[10,35,36],{},"It would be easy to file this as pessimism. It isn't. The last slide argues that\nDJing can still make sense and can even be healthy. Everything between is the\nlist of conditions.",[38,39,41],"h2",{"id":40},"the-myths","The myths",[10,43,44,45,48,49,52],{},"He starts with the vocabulary the scene uses about itself. Peace, love, unity and\nrespect. ",[14,46,47],{},"Community",". ",[14,50,51],{},"Our scene",". No racism, no misogyny, no homophobia.",[10,54,55],{},"His word for this is the starter pack — present in almost every scene, at least\nat the beginning.",[10,57,58],{},"That \"at least at the beginning\" is doing a lot of work, and it is fairer than a\nstraight accusation of hypocrisy. These are not lies. They are promises that\nsmall scenes keep easily, because everyone knows each other and there is nothing\nmuch to fight over, and that get quietly renegotiated once there is money, status\nand a lineup to protect.",[38,60,62],{"id":61},"the-exhaustion","The exhaustion",[10,64,65,66,69],{},"He has been watching small DJs post that they are stopping. The response he\nnotes — ",[14,67,68],{},"who even knows them, nobody cares"," — misses what is actually being\nreported.",[10,71,72],{},"It is not failure. It is exhaustion from playing the social media game: making\ncontent, chasing followers, trying to be seen, all in order to be booked and\nrecognised as an artist, instead of practising and sharing what you love with\nreal people.",[10,74,75],{},"That is a precise description of a job that has grown a second job inside it,\nwhere the second one is louder, never finishes, and is graded publicly every\nday.",[77,78],"codex-cta",{"body":79,"kicker":80,"label":81,"title":82,"action":83},"If you want to know when something lands here, a mailing list is the one channel nobody ranks, throttles or charges you to reach. No feed, no metrics, no game.","No algorithm","Join the newsletter","The Radar","newsletter",[38,85,87],{"id":86},"the-question-that-settles-it","The question that settles it",[10,89,90],{},"Then, midway through, the test. If you had decks in a room and nobody around —\nwould you still do it? Would you still consider yourself a DJ if you loved\ndigging and practising, but never got a gig?",[10,92,93],{},"Why are you doing this in the first place?",[95,96,98],"codex-note",{"kicker":97},"The test",[10,99,100],{},"If the honest answer is no, everything after that is a business plan with music\nattached — and a bad business plan at that.",[10,102,103],{},"The point isn't purity. It's diagnosis. If the answer is yes, the industry can\ndisappoint you without ending you, because the practice was never contingent on\nthe industry. If the answer is no, then every disappointment is existential,\nwhich is exactly the mechanism that burns people out and makes them quit.",[38,105,107],{"id":106},"what-do-you-bring-to-the-dancefloor","What do you bring to the dancefloor",[10,109,110,111],{},"Silk's next move is the sharpest formulation I have read of a thing I have\ncircled repeatedly on this page. Social media, he writes, created a feeling of\nconnection and a feeling of isolation at once — and the distortion of online\nfame replaced the question that mattered: ",[14,112,113],{},"what do you bring to the dancefloor?",[10,115,116],{},"And because nearly everyone now has access to the tools and can present\nthemselves as an artist, the audience plays the game too. Which is why the next\nslide lands so flatly: the audience wants entertainment, escapism, a night to\nforget the world — and for many people it doesn't matter, as long as the music is\nloud.",[10,118,119,120,125,126,130],{},"That is bleak, and it is also an opening. If most of the room is not listening\nclosely, the people who are listening closely become the whole point of doing it\ncarefully. I have written about\n",[121,122,124],"a",{"href":123},"\u002Fcodex\u002Fplay-the-room-youre-in","what a set owes a room"," and about\n",[121,127,129],{"href":128},"\u002Fcodex\u002Fanyone-can-mix","selection and order"," as the actual craft. This is the\nreason to keep bothering with either.",[77,132],{"body":133,"kicker":134,"label":135,"title":136,"to":137},"Sets built as arcs rather than highlight reels — mood before genre, from deep ambient grooves to driving club beats.","The work","Listen to the mixes","The mixes","\u002Fmusic?view=mixes",[38,139,141],{"id":140},"who-actually-owns-the-room","Who actually owns the room",[10,143,144],{},"Then he does something most posts of this kind avoid: he names the ownership.",[10,146,147],{},"In June 2024 the private equity firm KKR bought Superstruct Entertainment for\naround €1.3 billion, acquiring more than eighty-five festivals — Sónar, Field\nDay, Lost Village among them. In January 2025 Boiler Room was sold by DICE to\nSuperstruct. KKR's broader portfolio has included weapons manufacturers, defence\ncontractors and companies advertising property in occupied territory, which is\nwhy artists including Ikonika, DJ Slugo and DJ Clent withdrew from Boiler Room\nevents in protest.",[10,149,150],{},"Boiler Room's own statement is the part worth sitting with. It said the\ninvestments categorically do not align with its values — and that it is unable to\ndivest, because it has no say in its ownership.",[10,152,153,154,158],{},"I wrote about ",[121,155,157],{"href":156},"\u002Fcodex\u002Fthe-equity-nobody-shared","the equity nobody shared",", where\nlabels took shares in the platform that would set artists' rates. This is the\nsame structure with the roles moved around: the cultural layer is owned by people\nwhose other holdings have nothing to do with culture, and the people inside it\nfind out what they are part of at the same time as everyone else.",[10,160,161],{},"Silk's line is that even a small artist, nowhere near those festivals, quickly\nsees how the network works.",[38,163,165],{"id":164},"the-mask","The mask",[10,167,168],{},"Two slides that will be uncomfortable for anyone who has tried to get booked.",[10,170,171],{},"Talent isn't the main factor. It's about who you know, the game you can play, and\nthe mask you can wear. And then: when you trade your authenticity for a\ncharacter, where is the line? At what point are you betraying yourself and\nothers?",[10,173,174],{},"He does not answer, which is the honest choice, because there isn't a general\nanswer. Everyone doing this professionally performs a version of themselves.\nThe question is only whether you still recognise the person doing it.",[38,176,178],{"id":177},"the-political-weight","The political weight",[10,180,181],{},"The section that will cost him followers is the one about where this music comes\nfrom.",[10,183,184],{},"His argument: everything we do is political, because we live inside a system\nrather than outside it. Cultures born in marginalised communities — non-white,\nqueer, trans, working-class — get used in a capitalist way, for entertainment\nonly, once value exists and monetisation becomes possible from outside those\ncommunities. Political identity, he writes, is useful to the marketplace exactly\nas long as it is tokenisable and not a threat to economic growth.",[10,186,187],{},"You can dispute pieces of that. The historical claim underneath it is not really\ndisputable: house and techno came out of Black and queer communities in Chicago,\nDetroit and New York, and the money that the global festival circuit now moves\ndoes not flow back to those communities in any proportion to what was taken.",[38,189,191],{"id":190},"the-myth-that-needs-to-die","The myth that needs to die",[10,193,194],{},"Near the end, a line that pulls in the opposite direction from everything above\nit, and is my favourite thing in the whole sequence:",[10,196,197],{},"If you are creative, you will be creative until your last breath. The myth of the\nstruggling artist needs to die.",[10,199,200],{},"Both halves matter. The first is a reason to stop treating the career as the\nproof — you will keep making things regardless, so the question is only under\nwhat conditions. The second says the romance of the broke artist is a story that\nmainly benefits whoever is not paying you.",[10,202,203,204,208],{},"That is the argument I made in ",[121,205,207],{"href":206},"\u002Fcodex\u002Fkeep-the-day-job","keep the day job"," from\nthe other end. Refusing to be poor is not a betrayal of the work. It is usually\nthe only thing that lets the work continue.",[77,210],{"body":211,"kicker":212,"label":213,"title":214,"to":215},"Berlin-based, available worldwide. Tell me the room, the slot and what the night is trying to be — the form takes about a minute.","Bookings","Booking form","Book a set","\u002Fbooking",[38,217,219],{"id":218},"exist-outside-the-marketplace","Exist outside the marketplace",[10,221,222],{},"His conclusion is four sentences. If you do it only for money: quit. If you do it\nfor fame: forget about it. DJing can still make sense, and can even be healthy —\nbut only if you learn to exist outside the myths of the industry.",[10,224,225],{},"He closes with James Baldwin, on the artist's quarrel with their society being a\nlover's quarrel: the point of the fight is to show the beloved to itself, and by\ndoing so to make freedom real. Which reframes the whole sixteen slides. None of\nthis is an exit note. It is what criticism from inside sounds like when the\nperson writing it intends to stay.",[10,227,228],{},"Existing outside the marketplace is not a mystical state. In practice it is\nmundane and slightly boring: an income that does not depend on bookings, records\nsold directly rather than streamed for fractions, a mailing list instead of a\nfollower count, and a definition of a good night that a promoter's spreadsheet\ncannot overrule.",[10,230,231],{},"So: decks in a room, nobody around. Would you still do it?",[10,233,234],{},"I would. That is the only part of this I am completely sure about.",[77,236],{"body":237,"kicker":134,"label":238,"title":239,"href":240},"Five tracks between Andalusia, Ibiza and Berlin. Sold directly on Bandcamp and Subvert, so most of what you pay reaches the person who made it.","Buy on Bandcamp","Between Coasts EP","https:\u002F\u002Fhybridflight.bandcamp.com\u002Falbum\u002Fbetween-coasts-ep",[242,243],"hr",{},[10,245,246,249,250],{},[14,247,248],{},"Source: Jaymie Silk,"," Food for Thoughts, ",[14,251,252],{},"posted 7 January 2026; the quoted line\nfollows that post. The Baldwin passage he cites is paraphrased here rather than\nreproduced. Ownership and acquisition figures are from contemporaneous trade\nreporting on the KKR–Superstruct deal and the Boiler Room sale.",{"title":254,"searchDepth":255,"depth":255,"links":256},"",3,[257,259,260,261,262,263,264,265,266],{"id":40,"depth":258,"text":41},2,{"id":61,"depth":258,"text":62},{"id":86,"depth":258,"text":87},{"id":106,"depth":258,"text":107},{"id":140,"depth":258,"text":141},{"id":164,"depth":258,"text":165},{"id":177,"depth":258,"text":178},{"id":190,"depth":258,"text":191},{"id":218,"depth":258,"text":219},null,"2026-08-31T21:00:00","Jaymie Silk laid out why being a DJ barely makes sense in 2026 — burnout, tokenisation, private equity, and a scene that still calls itself a family. His test for whether to continue is the sharpest question in it.",false,"md",[273,276,279,282],{"question":274,"answer":275},"Does being a DJ still make sense in 2026?","It makes sense as a practice and much less as a career plan. The producer Jaymie Silk argues it only stays healthy if you can exist outside the industry's myths — meaning you would keep digging, practising and playing whether or not the bookings, the followers and the recognition ever arrive. If money or fame is the reason, the arithmetic will disappoint you.",{"question":277,"answer":278},"Who owns Boiler Room and Superstruct?","The private equity firm KKR bought Superstruct Entertainment for around €1.3 billion in June 2024, giving it more than 85 festivals including Sónar, Field Day and Lost Village. Boiler Room was sold by DICE to Superstruct in January 2025. KKR's wider portfolio has drawn artist boycotts; Boiler Room has said publicly that the investments do not align with its values and that it has no say in its own ownership.",{"question":280,"answer":281},"Why are small DJs quitting?","Rarely because they stopped loving music. Silk's reading is exhaustion — from making content, chasing followers and trying to be visible enough to be booked, rather than practising and playing for real people. The work of being seen has grown larger than the work itself.",{"question":283,"answer":284},"What does it mean to exist outside the marketplace as an artist?","Building a practice that does not depend on the industry's approval to continue: selling directly, keeping an income that is not contingent on bookings, holding a mailing list rather than only a follower count, and measuring the work by what it does in a room rather than by placement.","Response",{},true,"\u002Fcodex\u002Fwould-you-still-do-it",7,{"title":5,"description":269},"On social media burnout, the KKR and Superstruct ownership of festivals and Boiler Room, tokenisation in club culture, and why the myth of the struggling artist needs to die.","Does being a DJ still make sense in 2026? Jaymie Silk's case, examined","Decks in a room, nobody around, no gigs coming. Would you still do it? Answer honestly, because everything else follows from it.","codex\u002Fwould-you-still-do-it",[296,297,298,299],"club culture","music industry","djing","social media","KLh0BEI1xo5CLTTZ1AVnDdzV9rxW4J_P_WwkT4G18NY",[302,267],{"title":303,"path":304,"stem":305,"description":306,"kind":307,"children":-1},"Why a Room Dances Together","\u002Fcodex\u002Fwhy-a-room-dances-together","codex\u002Fwhy-a-room-dances-together","Several hundred people moving on the same beat, none of whom arranged it. What actually happens when a floor locks in — beat entrainment, raised pain thresholds, and why medium syncopation makes a body move.","Essay",1789031394058]