1. Can you tell us where you are from and how did you first get introduced to
Christina – I’m a rare Colorado native. Growing up in Denver, I was surrounded by EDM but didn’t really dive into it until I got to high school. The older kids were going to Red Rocks shows all the time and naturally, I wanted to see what it was all about. This was in around 2011 when I attended my first-ever EDM show, Deadmau5 at Red Rocks – most iconically, Excision was opening for him. I’ll never forget my parents calling me at the beginning of Deadmau5’s set, yelling at me to come home. That’s when I knew I had to come back for
2. What were the pivotal moments in your life where you decided to join the music workforce?
Christina – After going to school for journalism, I had an intense love for writing. I moved back to Denver and realized that the EDM scene was still where my heart lied. So, 1 started trying to think of ways to blend my love for journalism and my love for EDM together. I have and always will love writing about anything and everything.
It wasn’t until a mutual friend, Daniela, invited both Yesi and I to Tomorrowland in 2018 that the early Dubstep FBI seeds were planted. Our friendship flourished and we couldn’t get enough of the festival life. Never once did we think about a music workforce or “industry” to join, we just continued having fun with our friends until…
3. Dubstep FBI has become a trusted name in the bass music scene—what inspired you to start this platform, and how has the vision evolved over time?
Christina – In 2019, Yesi and I had some close friends who always DJ’d pregames on their Traktor controller. We looked forward to hanging out and listening to them drop doubles and mix live. My initial idea was to create a page on Soundcloud where our friends could publish mixes. I wanted it to have fun branding that we could center jokes around. After several months of thinking about it, I told Yesi about my idea and that I was too scared to start it myself because I wasn’t sure how it would be received. She said, “Don’t you worry child,” and immediately offered to help run Instagram.
4. What are your future goals and aspirations with these companies and for yourself?
Christina – We decided to launch the brand in January of 2020, order a flag, and hand out stickers at the Excision 1st Bank show that March (a few days before the world stopped due to COVID-19). To make a long story short, COVID-19 actually launched us. Everyone was chronically online and we decided to “book” artists for Twitch live streams. It was funny because we ended up taking the Traktor pre-games we loved so much and sharing those with people around the world on video.
It felt like a place we all could bond, a place we could just share our love for heavy dubstep and forget about the chaos of the global pandemic. We’ve always had a passion for putting on the little guys – The brand has maintained that mission. It has also maintained the black & yellow look and feel. Over time, the vision has evolved in the form of new content – we launched the podcast about 8 months in, which opened so many doors for us to legitimize ourselves while going back to my roots of telling stories. The vision remains the same, but what has changed is our reach and impact.
5. You cover a lot of underground artists. What do you look for in an artist before deciding to spotlight them?
Christina – Music speaks for itself. Nothing excites me more than discovering a filthy ID nestled in a Soundcloud mix, hearing an unreleased banger on socials, or finding new artists based on recommendations from friends. If the music I listen to gets my blood going, I immediately look up the artist and start looking for ways I can relate to them. Whether that’s through their socials or their Spotify.
I like seeing faces, pictures of them performing and activity on their pages. The fact of the matter is that we don’t have a huge incentive to cover artists who don’t post on social media. There have been so many times we’ve spent hours writing an article just for it to get ignored or not engaged with by the artist. So, in short, I look for artists who have a story that they are eager to share. The more excited the artist is about their project, the more excited we get to provide coverage.
6. If Dubstep FBI could throw its own festival, what would the lineup and theme look like?
LOADED QUESTION. The theme is immediately going to be police and investigative themed. We want to lean into our mission of uncovering the filthiest bangers around by making fans feel like they are the secret agents. All fans would be equipped with an earpiece, handcuffs and citation pad upon entry. They will be able to unlock secret stages by hitting quotas, collect undercover intel in the form of merch drops, and attend classified sets hidden behind closed doors.
The mainstage would have surveillance cameras and lasers, with neon fingerprint signs. We would have LOTS of CO2, pyro and black and white confetti (the kind that plants a seed in the ground).
As far as the artists go, we would immediately look to book artists who we’ve worked with before on mixes, interviews, articles and on our label, Beat Intelligence Network. A few headline artists would include Jessica Audiffred, Versa, SweetTooth, YUNIT., Dr. Ushuu, Vastive and RZRKT, and the supporting acts would include THRASHA, ANTIHERO, PROXXXY, RANE b2b Crysomemore, Ophion, Ohra and several of the artists on our most recent comp, Audio Surveillance 001.
7. Anything else you would like to add? A shoutout? Promo?
The biggest shoutout in the history of shoutouts goes to my best friend and business partner, Yesi, who is there for me every single day. This has not been an easy journey and without her to share the highs and lows, Dubstep FBI would not exist.
I’d also like to give a shoutout to our other best friend and business partner, Joe Rath (AKA CUTDWN) who believed in us when no one else did back in spring of 2020. Stay locked because we have a massive riddim EP dropping on BIN this April, and are hosting our second stage takeover at Rampage Open Air in Belgium on July 4th weekend.
