Don’t be fooled by her petite frame. Samantha Rawlings ‘Lil Miss Mixer’ can drop beats big enough to stop any crowd.
‘There’s a lot of BOOM in this 4’11′ blonde that quickly caught the attention of the crowd when she walked on stage and stepped on an empty milk crate to greet the eagerly awaiting mass of people’ according to Rawlings’ bio. ‘A sexy female voice comes over the speakers and everyone in the club begins to make their way to the stage.’
Rawlings who lives on Tahoe’s West Shore says she loves to dance and that’s what drew her to the DJ scene. She started spinning records in November 2009 at home. Rawlings loves the hard rock element of dubstep but she plays it off soaring female vocals to create a truly sensual sound. It wasn’t long before her friends took notice and encouraged her to start playing in front of live audiences. After performing her first live show in January 2010 Rawlings was dubbed Lil Miss Mixer. Performing mixes live was addicting enough to motivate Rawlings to start saving and invest in her own equipment a move that set her up to become one of the top female DJs in Tahoe Reno and Northern California. Look for Lil Miss Mixer wearing her signature hats embellished with feathers and lace hopping along the festival circuit throughout California and Nevada this summer.
Moonshine Ink: What about dubstep appealed most to you?
Samantha Rawlings: I always really loved dancing. I grew up listening to rock music — Tool Deftones — and that’s the stuff that always appealed to me. Dubstep is the rock of electronic music so I was always drawn to that. And I fell in love with hip hop when I fell in love with dubstep.
MI: You also drop a lot of female vocals into your mixes. Why?
SR: It’s possible because I’m a chick and I just like them. But they’re really beautiful and really seductive. They have a strong vocal line that will grab your attention and a strong bass line that’s really captivating.
MI: Do you have any breakthrough moments that stand out in your music career so far?
SR: I had all these little goals of places I wanted to play and people I wanted to play with. I wanted to play in South Lake before Reno and it actually went the other way around. I wanted to play at the Bounce Festival and I got to do that [last year]. And I wanted to pay in San Francisco which I did last week. I think just playing more festivals and larger venues is my goal.
