Havana Brown is no stranger to playing major gigs for huge audiences. In a relatively short career, she has already opened for musical powerhouses such as Britney Spears, Rihanna, The Pussycat Dolls, Chris Brown and Enrique Iglesias, and is currently supporting Bruno Mars in Las Vegas.

“My main aim is to have fun; sometimes when you’re in the industry and you’re working on music you can think about things way too much.”

How did you get started?

I was living in the UK and was in a music group. It was three guys and me. We recorded an album and had a record label, but right when we were about to release the first single, the band broke up. It was really hard for me. I felt like I had come so far and was so close to pursuing my dreams. Then, I was right back down to the bottom. One night, I was talking to the DJ in the band and I was telling him how he had the best job in the world. He gets to go out and perform, play good music, make people laugh, sing, dance and enjoy themselves. I was telling him how much I’d love to do that. So, he told me I should do it. At the time, DJing wasn’t something females thought about doing, but I just ran with it.

Where do you draw your inspirations from?

I create mixes that make me feel like hitting the dance floor. Essentially I love what I do and it really does not take me much to get inspired. I’m constantly researching new tracks, sounds and artists online and finding new songs that I love or that are somewhat different.

What genre do you spin?

My sound is always evolving. When I started DJing it was just RnB all the way. I grew up with RnB so it was only natural but the older I get the more I appreciate other types of music. I love incorporating different genres because good music is good music and I don’t like to discriminate. So you may hear a little house or rock in among the RnB and Hip Hop tracks. If the crowd is open to it I can go wild if they let me.

If you could collaborate with any other artist, who would it be and why?

There are quite a few; I’d love to work with Janet Jackson as I’ve always idolized her and Kylie Minogue purely for the fact that she is an absolute legend and she’s done amazingly for an Australian pop act, worldwide and I aspire to be like her.

What do you think makes a good DJ? It seems like nowadays anyone with a laptop can become a DJ. What are the skills that are involved?

Anyone can become a DJ but to become a good DJ, there’s a difference between the common DJ that can’t necessarily book international gigs and there’s ones that can. Yeah, anyone can be a DJ but you can be a good DJ or a bad DJ. I think you have to be able to mix the songs well, there’s got to be flow and mix the right songs. It’s so difficult to explain, really. I’m just so glad that people enjoy what I do. I like to cut things short, and mix things well, to have a flow and be a journey. I like to have a lot of types of music as well, a little bit of rock, rnb, house and dance music. Mixing it up is really good, and lots of fun and lots of people can enjoy it too.

What would you say has been the most difficult performance in your career?

I think probably my first performance with Britney Spears. It was in Paris, and I just remember being so nervous, I couldn’t eat! I remember just thinking ‘I can’t believe I’m on tour with Britney Spears!’ On top of that, there’s 43,000 people out there in the audience, and her dad actually came to the dressing room and introduced himself. He was really sweet, and then he said ‘By the way, it’s really really quiet out there! I don’t know what it is, it’s a full house, but its dead silent. I need you to really pump them up!’