Desislava Andonova is better known to audiences in Bulgaria as DJ Desy. Desy has the knack of combining different roles and the amazing thing is that in all of them she excels.

What is it like for a woman DJ, how can one influence musical tastes and what are the projects and collaborations she is involved in – these are some of the questions DJ Desy answers for Radio Bulgaria.

What is the secret formula for riveting the attention of audiences? DJ Desy:

“I do the things I love and it all comes from the heart. I have always had the support of my family. My father was a musician and my mother was a dancer before I was born. Another influence in my childhood was Ronny – we now sing together in Sentimental Swingers and in our duet LavaLava. We have been the best of friends since we were little girls and our interest in music was the “vortex” of our friendship, music was what our childhood was all about. My first band was with her, and then we parted ways. She went to America and when she came back I was with a band - Phuture Shock. But now we are working together again. We recently recorded an experimental children’s album along with Arabel Karajan and that fueled our energy, ours and our children’s. My daughter is with me at rehearsals and studio recordings all the time. She is studying at the National Music School together with Ronny’s daughter. And our own friendship is now repeating itself – this time by them. We are continuing our work with the Sentimental Swingers – we recently released an album. We also have a project coming up with a big band.”

Desy has been DJ-ing for some 15 years. Thanks to her, club audiences have been able to listen to the best of soul and R&B, hip-hop, jazz and funk. How does she make her musical selection?

“Unfortunately I do not have enough time to select the music - you could spend all of your time doing that and nothing else. But I spent a great deal of time at a vinyl record shop, with two record players, a mixing engine and lots of records. I was so keen that to begin with I would only use vinyl. Thanks to my moonlighting as a DJ, my life now is all about music. When I graduated the music school I said to myself I would never make any compromise – I would only sing my own stuff. And that is what I have been doing. The Sentimental Swingers are the first project where we perform music we have not composed ourselves.”

Desy has performed together with different Bulgarian artistes –Mr. Brown Sugar, WahTony, Marten, Trombobby.

“When Phuture Shock broke up I needed to have the songs I have composed see the light of day. I have had many collaborations – with Trombobby (trombone player Bozhidar Vassilev) for example and we recorded several pieces together. Easy is the first single from the album we recorded together which is to be released shortly. I guest perform in Heartbeat – the new project by DJ Marten and Nikolay Danev. It is an album that is so interesting, so colourful and stylish. I can think of no other such project.”

The audio file contains the following tracks:

-  Swing Me on the Cradle of Love, performed by the Sentimental Swingers;

-  I am A.M., performed by Desislava Andonova, Andronia Popova with Yantra and Rada;

-  Everybody Loves Disco;

-  Easy! Performed by Desislava Andonova and Bcap.

English version Milena Daynova