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Lola Kay’s relationship with music was never passive. It was lived, absorbed, and embodied long before she ever stood behind a booth.
Growing up in Minsk, Belarus, Lola Kay‘s childhood unfolded inside theatres rather than classrooms, shaped by the backstage corridors where her mother worked and where atmosphere, tension, and emotion were constructed night after night. Drama, sound, and silence all had purpose. At the same time, she was already dancing, learning intuitively how rhythm moves the body and how music alters mood. That early immersion taught her something foundational: music is not decoration, it is architecture
As a child, Lola Kay was introspective and self-directed, spending long stretches alone with records and artwork. Electronic music arrived early, not through trends but through curiosity. Digging became instinctive. The raw energy and strange aggression of The Prodigy left a lasting imprint, a first encounter with electronic music that felt unruly, physical, and alive. It was less about genre and more about sensation, something she would later return to again and again.
Dance became her first profession, and with it came a deep study of musical cultures. Classical, jazz, swing, and the lineage of artists like Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong were not abstract references but living histories she felt through movement. Each dance style demanded immersion into its cultural context, its era, its emotional code. Music was never separated from place, time, or identity. That obsession with understanding where sound comes from still underpins her approach today, whether she is producing or layering four decks into a single evolving narrative.
Her DJ sets are built with the body in mind. Groove dictates structure. Energy dictates pacing. Tracks are not standalone moments but emotional blocks that create tension, release, and continuity. Theatre remains present in her work, not as spectacle, but as cohesion. One atmosphere runs through the entire set, a full-circle arc where nothing is accidental and nothing is wasted.
Leaving Belarus was never romantic. Growing up in a post-Soviet environment as a free-spirited, open-minded young woman came with friction and constraint. Escape was not a desire but a necessity. Barcelona became her exit point almost by chance, following visits that revealed a city driven by openness and rhythm, and an unexpected opportunity to open a dance school. The city gave her space to exist, to experiment, and to begin carving out an artistic identity on her own terms
Community became central to her rise. Collectives were not branding exercises but survival structures. House of (S)PUNK, founded by Perrine aka La Fraîcheur, was pivotal. It was the first time someone truly believed in her as a producer and pushed her to release music. That belief translated directly into action, resulting in her debut EP and a clearer sense of artistic direction. Alongside this, her involvement with YO-YO allowed her to exist unapologetically as a queer artist, prioritising FLINTA lineups, safety, and genuine community over industry optics.
Stylistically, Lola Kay resists rigid definitions. Mental techno, hardgroove, Detroit, and 90s and 2000s references appear not because they are fashionable but because they carry the emotional weight she is searching for. Her mixing is architectural, using multiple decks to layer texture, rhythm, and atmosphere into something hypnotic and primal. Berlin looms large in this evolution. It was the first place where techno fully made sense to her, where intuition aligned with sound. The city did not teach her what to like, it confirmed what she already felt
Her influences extend beyond records to the people who sustain the culture. Artists like DVS1, Luke Slater, and Efdemin matter not only for their sound but for their commitment to the scene. DJs such as Steffi, Lady Machine, Paula Koski, Bashkka, Philippa Pacho, and Isabel Soto continue to shape her understanding of what it means to give back while pushing forward.
Visualisation is central to her process. Before a set, before a recording, she imagines the space, the crowd, the emotional temperature of the room. A single mood is chosen and followed with discipline. This is why her mixes feel transportive rather than scattered. They are designed to take the listener somewhere specific, even if that destination remains undefined. The venue matters. So does the city, the weather, the time slot, and her own internal state that day. Final playlists often come together hours before she plays, once the environment has been fully absorbed.
Production remains deliberately minimal. A laptop, mobility, freedom. While she dreams of one day building a professional studio, she values the ability to create anywhere, guided more by emotion than equipment. That emotional clarity became especially pronounced on Run Lola Run, a turning point EP inspired by the iconic German film but rooted in self-encouragement. It marked the moment she stopped searching and started moving decisively toward the sound she wanted to represent. Once the direction was clear, momentum followed
Inclusivity is not a slogan in her work, it is lived experience. As a queer woman navigating a male-dominated industry, she encountered enough resistance to harden her resolve. Those experiences forced independence and confidence, but they also reinforced the importance of support systems. She is acutely aware that belief from others made her career possible, and she sees giving back as a responsibility, particularly to voices that are still marginalised within electronic music.
Her advice to emerging artists is uncompromising. Learn the roots. Know the history. Techno and house were born in queer spaces, and their raw energy still carries that lineage. To ignore that context is to hollow out the music itself. Preservation and education are part of the work, not distractions from it.
At its core, Lola Kay’s vision of the dancefloor is almost spiritual. She wants people to meet themselves there, stripped of self-consciousness, free, seen, and connected. In her ideal room, the crowd breathes as one organism, phones down, conversation gone, replaced by ritual and shared emotion. It is not spectacle. It is communion.
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