Ballroom Frequencies: How Black Queer DJs Are Reshaping The Sound Of Pride

The sound of Pride is shifting. It’s fierce, it’s political, and it’s rooted in ballroom culture—a sonic rebellion led by Black queer DJs who aren’t just changing the soundtrack of June, they’re expanding what liberation sounds like.

For decades, ballroom has thrived as a haven for the Black and Latinx LGBTQ+ community, particularly trans and nonbinary femmes who built space in a world that refused to make room. While the visuals of ballroom—runways, voguing, and face—have been appropriated by pop culture, the sound remains sacred. It’s gritty and glorious, designed not for passive consumption, but for embodiment. For performance. For survival.

Today, a new generation of Black queer DJs are reclaiming and reimagining that sonic tradition. Artists like MikeQ, founder of the Qween Beat label and one of the most visible figures in the global ballroom scene, have brought the ballroom sound to international stages while fiercely protecting its roots. A longtime DJ for ballroom balls across the U.S. and abroad, MikeQ has kept the pulse of the underground alive, even as fashion houses and festivals have come knocking.

Alongside him, rising forces like Byrell the Great, quest?onmarq, Raha Rach and Bapari are pushing the sound forward—whether it’s blending ballroom with footwork, industrial, or ambient textures, or creating sets that center Black queer femme energy in all its rage and joy. These DJs don’t just play music. They craft sonic experiences that remix memory and movement.

The dance floor, in their hands, becomes something more than just a place to party—it becomes a site of reclamation. At a time when Pride is increasingly commercialized, sanitized, and stripped of its radical roots, these artists are creating underground spaces that echo with intention. They’re transforming raves and runway battles into rituals—restoring the spirit of Pride as protest and pleasure.

In cities like New York, Chicago, New Orleans, Atlanta, and Los Angeles, queer Black DJs are staging their own celebrations on their own terms. Events like Papi Juice, Dweller, Femme Fatale, and Brujas are reshaping nightlife with purpose. No rainbow capitalism. No gatekeepers. Just sound, sweat, and self-expression. In these spaces, ballroom frequencies don’t just get played—they erupt.

For artists like Skyshaker, a genre-pushing producer and member of the House of Vogue, the work also means future-building. Through experimental club music, ballroom edits, and politically charged visuals, they help define what queer electronic music can look and sound like when it breaks all the rules.

These sonic movements are also deeply archival. Every sample of a ballroom commentator, every hand clap or hi-hat, is a thread in a lineage. The sounds recall the legacy of the late Vjuan Allure, considered one of the originators of modern ballroom beats, whose production continues to influence vogue tracks today. Each beat honors the past while declaring a future in which Black queer artists don’t just survive—they thrive.

While some mainstream festivals and brands are catching on, there’s still a wide gulf between recognition and respect. These DJs aren’t spinning for visibility—they’re spinning for sovereignty. For the aunties in the back room of a function. For the trans femmes whose names deserve to be chanted like a beat drop. For the community, always.

The future of Pride’s sound is not rainbow pop or sanitized Spotify playlists. It’s layered, low-end heavy, and full of ancestral echoes. It’s ambient and abrasive, soft and severe. It defies easy classification—just like the people who created it.

These are the ballroom frequencies.
This is the new queer sonic resistance.
This is what Pride really sounds like.