On a busy dancefloor at Concorde2, DJ Isla Grace steps behind the decks to open the night. Just months earlier she had been practising mixes in her bedroom; now she’s warming up crowds at one of Brighton’s best-known venues.
The past six months have seen Isla Grace move quickly through the city’s nightlife circuit. After learning to mix at home, she began playing sets at spots including Patterns, The Black Lion and North Laine Brewhouse during late 2025. Since then, she has appeared on lineups at Concorde 2 supporting Girls Don’t Sync and Luude.
This year she is also set to play Land Beyond Festival, marking a rapid rise through Brighton’s nightlife scene. Brighton’s independent venues and close-knit DJ community often give emerging artists the chance to move from bedroom mixing to live sets.
How would you describe your sound and influences? I’d say garage and house influences, but I take stuff from loads of different scenes and artists that inspire me. I went to see Girls Don’t Sync in Milton Keynes – it was just four girls DJing together, having fun with the crowd loving it and that’s what originally inspired me. All the girls in Spotlight inspire me as well. They mix in certain ways and I’m like, ‘I can’t do that, that’s insane.’
You first started performing through a Brighton collective called Spotlight – how did you get involved with them? They booked me for my first ever set. I reached out and sent them a mix because I’d finally found the confidence to ask to play. They came back and said, ‘Yeah, we’ll have you on.’
They really focus on women-only lineups, as well as queer and non-binary artists. It’s their mission to be inclusive, especially in Brighton because it’s such a community here. They give platforms to women who want to start performing or who have their own projects they want to uplift.
Across the wider electronic music scene, conversations around representation have grown louder in recent years. While more women are stepping behind the decks, club and festival lineups can still be dominated by male artists.
The collective Not Bad for a Girl recently spoke out about the rise of all-male DJ lineups, highlighting how many events are still booking only men. In response, Spotlight shared a post listing non-male DJs in Brighton who are overlooked, arguing that some promoters rely on familiar networks rather than seeking out new talent.
What has the Brighton DJ community been like for you? In Brighton there’s a big community of DJs that feel like a family. There are people with the exact same passion as me – they like what I’m doing, I like what they’re doing and we uplift each other. That’s helped me get some of the gigs I’ve been booked for.
I realised early on it’s important to talk to people in the same position and doing the same thing as you. They’ve got their own experiences, and you can support each other. That support can be particularly important for women entering a scene that has historically been male dominated.
If a younger woman saw your name on a lineup, what do you hope it would signal to them? Women can. You can be in those spaces and do whatever you want to do. I wanted to do this for years and I learnt, practised, got better and eventually put myself out there. I think collectives like Spotlight are really important because they uplift women and create spaces for girls to go to. If it was all men, even if they were uplifting women, it’s not the same as women uplifting each other.
You’ve said the smaller venues that first gave you a chance still matter just as much as the bigger stages – so what’s next on the agenda? I got scouted for Land Beyond Festival by Ripe, the same promoter who booked me for Patterns, because they are running the stage takeover. I thought it was insane that they trusted me with that because there were all these bigger names on the lineup – and then me. Apart from that I just hope things stay steady. I want to play and carry on supporting local promoters and events because you get that community feel there.
Isla’s rise reflects the energy of Brighton’s club culture: collaborative, community-driven and constantly evolving. After the past six months, it’s clear she’s only just getting started.
www.bimm.ac.uk/brighton | 38–42 Brunswick Street West, Hove BN3 1EL
Isla Grace: @isla.grac6
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