Evissimax is not here to mess around

Having started DJing only 2 years ago, Evissimax is the new hot name on the scene you must get familiar with asap! Blending sounds from footwork, Jersey club, techno, ghettotech, and her West African heriatge, the Italo-Nigerian DJ brings on an high-energy and layered sonic tapestry. For Evissimax, the club represents a safe space for self-liberation and release – physical and emotional. Within this uncompromising attitude, she is leading a diverse and welcoming future of Milan’s electronic community. Although the last few months have been pretty eventful, from playing an NTS show with our cover star VTSS to releasing a debut EP REBOOT-Y, Evissimax found time to catch up with us. From overcoming shyness to sampling her mother’s voice notes saying ‘that girl is a hoe’, Evissimax reflects on her musical journey and an unbound love for dance.

Let’s begin at the beginning! What was your relationship to club culture like before you started your career as a DJ?

Yeah, I wasn’t a big club person. I think the first time I went to a proper club I was like 20 years old. Even then, I wouldn’t really go to a club to see a specific DJ. I would just end up at the club and I would always have fun regardless of the genre. I’ve always liked the experience of dancing and letting go, but I wasn’t really deep into the knowledge of DJs and DJing culture more than club culture. 

How did you go into DJing then?

I started DJing a little bit over two years ago. There were these girls I knew who were doing a DJing workshop in Milan, like a community event. I had never ever had any interest in DJing, but I was like, you know what? It’s free. It’s a cute little thing. And as soon as I put my hands on a deck, I was like, Oh my God, this is what I want to do the rest of my life. The environment that I saw was very supportive and welcoming. I dated a DJ for a bit and I had seen how the DJ community in the male realm could be a little competitive. And I never liked that, I’m not a competitive person. I’m very much a community person helping each other out. And when I saw that the DJing world can be welcoming, I realised it was a world I wanted to be a part of.

Ugh, dating a male DJ is such a canon event.

Yeah, my god, never again. As a DJ myself now, I’m like, never again, ha-ha.

And how’s it been building that community for yourself? 

It’s been a whirlwind but also proof that this is truly what is meant for me. It happened so organically and quickly but never in a way that was forced. I used to work in a club so I already had some knowledge and community, so when I started DJing everything happened without me ever thinking too much about it. Two years is really nothing, but when I think about it, I realise that an insane amount of things have happened. For the first time ever, I truly feel like I’m doing what I’m meant to. Everything is just aligned.

That sounds really special. Talking about your sound, you often refer to it as ghetto techno. Could you elaborate on what that means to you?

I say ghetto techno because for the longest time I was never able to describe my deep mixes. I play a lot of very different genres. The thing I was known for when I first started was playing a lot of ghetto footwork songs. It wasn’t something that was heard a lot in Milan club scene. I also love hip-hop culture. That was the genre I grew up listening to the most, so I feel like footwork is like an evolution of that. Like the idea of sampling and these very like explicit lyrics, but with a fast beat. When I discovered it, I was like, Oh my god, this is me in a track! I never want to play one-genre sets, maybe because I have a very low attention span, I need to switch it up to stay attentive. I also just really enjoy that mixture of different worlds – I do love a techno beat but I also want to hear some explicit Jersey or rap lyrics on top of that. 

This is definitely such an explosive combination! The first word that came to my mind when listening to REBOOT-Y was ‘ENERGY’ (in capitals, ha-ha).

That makes me so happy!

How do you summon all that force?

I used to be super shy and introverted – and still am sometimes. But I’ve always been extroverted with my friends, and I am someone who really goes off of energy. I truly believe that it’s something that you can channel and hone in. I never like to play on stages, I like to be in the middle. It’s like you can truly feel the people around you and it’s so much easier to communicate. I feel like DJing is a very empathetic job because you’re sharing something so personal with people, and they’re also sharing something with you. So, I think it’s all that energy I get from playing my sets that I also put into my songs, in combination with just my love for music and my love for dancing more than anything. I feel like for me music is very cathartic and is a way of letting go of whatever you have bottled up. It can be whatever type of emotion – say, I would listen to a very ambient song because I need to let go of something that’s more melancholic. I love a high fast beat because it’s very animalistic to me, almost primal. That’s why I make songs that have that feeling of movement where you’re forced to move and let go in some way.

They definitely achieve the aim! You mentioned being introverted, however, another aspect of your work that is really felt is your confidence and free self-expression. How have you grown into this confidence and an ability to put yourself out there?

Everything has been very tied together. I wasn’t really that confident in myself.  Then everything happened at the same time – the day I changed my name on Instagram to Evissimax, haha. I used to have my name and surname on Instagram, I was like an average John. Something really triggering happened to me in my life at that time, and it was a wake up call for me when I realised I wasn’t happy with my life. Then I changed my name on Instagram, even before I was even contemplating DJing ever in my life. Evissimax kind of represented a superhero version of me. She’s everything I want to be – she is confident, she is sexy, and she believes in herself. She doesn’t care what people think of her. Evissimax kind of became my alter ego, and then slowly through the years, Eva (my real name) and Evissimax intertwined. Now, that confidence is not separated from me, but is one with me.

I suppose it’s not even growing into a different version of yourself necessarily, it’s just growing into yourself more.

Exactly. It started with an intentional decision to not care anymore. I don’t care if people think I’m cringe or lame or whatever. And then slowly, I just started believing that I’m hot shit. Just allowing myself to say that and believe that. Sometimes people come to me and they’re like, Oh my God, you’re so confident. And I’m like, what? I’m like shy. And when I say that, people always look at me so confused. It’s kind of funny to be accepting the fact that I’m no longer perceived that way because I’m not actually that shy anymore. So yeah, it was a gradual process of forcing myself to be myself.

Such confidence is SO looked down upon and repressed in women, that it often automatically just gets labelled as cringe.

Yeah, people would tell me I was cringe, and even hearing the word was such a trigger for me for the longest time. But again, it’s just about not caring. And people might think I’m too sexual. People might think I get opportunities because I’m a woman or because I show my body and I don’t actually deserve it. There is a level of acceptance to it, as I can’t control what people think of me.

There is really no right thing you can do – someone will always be a hater. On a better note, let’s talk more about REBOOT-Y. I was especially fascinated about by OTT and how it was inspired by your mom. Can you tell me more about the track?

Even before making the EP, I really wanted to make a track that had Nigerian influences. I’m half Nigerian, and I grew up there for my whole high school life. My heritage is a very big part of my identity. And my mother and my aunties have always been my style icons. They’re so cool. Growing up seeing my mom, I couldn’t wait to dress like her. She’s always been a very big inspiration for me as a representation of being a strong woman. She’s very unapologetic and in your face, and I always kind of admired that. At first, I used to be embarrassed a little bit but I also wished I had that confidence.

Sounds like you got there!

Yeah, and I really wanted to include her in the EP in some way. I asked her to send me a few voice notes of her speaking Edo, because she lives in Ghana so we couldn’t do it face to face. I asked her to say ‘that girl has a fat ass’ and ‘that girl is a hoe’ in our language, haha. She was just like, are you serious? But she did it, she was so game. She even went into a cupboard to make sure the sound was isolated. So much love to her for being down to do that. We called the track OTT because that’s her name. And then we found this like Ableton plugin, which is also called OTT. I wanted to make a song that was like Afro tech, which isn’t really like the term, but it’s this new wave of Afro rhythms mixed in with experimental sounds. Like Kuduro and Kampala, but with a very electronic noise. I’m obsessed with this genre right now!

Yes, it’s so great to see it rise. It also just acknowledges the black roots of electronic music on a such a deep level that is often overlooked.

Yeah, and it’s forgotten now because it’s become so polished. When people ask me what I play, I say ghetto techno or black electronic music. To me, everything that has rhythm is black. Even when I play hardcore techno, it still has to have a certain pattern of rhythm. I attach anything that forces you to move and let go to Afro.

For sure! And now you’re based in Milan, do you think you’d like to go back to Nigeria?

I do love living in Italy, and I’m also very tied to my Italian culture. I think the Milan scene is getting better. It’s not the most diverse, but I also want to be part of that change. Because for the longest time, it’s seemed like there’s no one except for white men DJing in Italy. I want to show that new generation artists here are really good at what they do and just need a platform.  At the same time, I do definitely want to go back to Nigeria. I miss it so much. My dream is kind of to have a little tour of West Africa, or African broadly. I would fucking love it. When I’m older, I would definitely love to have my own house there again. To be able to live half a year here, half a year there…

That is a dream. And within this, what is your relationship to home? What do you  conceive as home?

I moved around so much when I was little, so to me, it was never a specific place.  It’s more of my family and the people that surround me. It’s also my culture. I can find home in different places as long as like I find pieces of my culture. For example, I went to London and was so happy because they had Nigerian food at an event I went to. Home for me is those little moments and conversations. At the same time, I am very tied to the idea of home and family and friends – things that like are wholesome and real, actually real.

Something I feel you bring to your work, too.

Yeah, that’s why the club experience is so important to me – because it feels like we’re all a big family. We all need to have a good experience and have a good time. That’s what I’m trying to transmit to my DJ sets, make it a shared experience.

What’s on the horizon for Evissimax?

We’re in the talks of a possible Asia tour, which would be insane. I’ also working on my next EP,  and some new singles to come out in October. So yeah, just lots of music, lots of DJ sets. I think from September onwards I would love to play outside of Italy, exploring Europe more. Get my name out there and shake ass globally. That’s my plan.