Meet one of Germany's most successful female DJs

The Täubchenthal is a hip concert venue located outside of downtown Leipzig between old warehouses and factory buildings. Fog fills the hall while a deep bass rumbles from the speakers. Up on the stage, a table is covered with a lot of high-tech gear. Behind it, Josi moves to the rhythm, turning knobs and switching records. People are dancing in front of her, and they cheer every time she creates a good mix. Some people go up to her to ask for their special requests and give her the thumbs-up.

Josephine, called Josi, also known as DJ Yo-C, is one of the best female hip hop DJs in Germany.

Josi is delicate, natural and open. Although some people in Germany use the term "DJane" to distinguish female DJs, she doesn't care for it at all. She doesn't see herself in the same club as Paris Hilton or German nude model Micaela Schäfer, who both happen to DJ, too.

Josi prepares her sets for hours. When something goes wrong, everyone can notice - there's no one in the background to press an emergency button for her. She believes good DJs need creativity, musicality, a good sense of rhythm, and a large musical repertoire to become successful.

'Pretty good - for a woman'

In the end, gender doesn't matter. "When the crowd sees that I'm not just a girl standing there, but that I can actually do something, then they like it," she says. At the beginning, she'd hear people complain when a mix wouldn't be perfect. Now she rarely gets bad comments anymore. "Sometimes there's someone who'll say, 'Hey, that's really great, even though you're woman,' or, 'Pretty good - for a woman.'"

It's part of a DJ's job to be able to ignore stupid comments and stay polite and calm. DJs are known to collect partygoers' most absurd requests. Josi has a few favorites of her own: "Once someone came to me to order a beer because he thought the DJ booth was the bar." Many come with their special requests - thinking they know better than she does what people will dance to, or insisting on hearing a song right away because they have to leave.

Yet others ask really cautiously, addressing her in such a formal way that leads her to think, "Come on, do I look that old? I'm 26!" But at the same time, she appreciates them being polite.

'My brain only starts working in the afternoon'

Josi has three to four DJ gigs a week. Very often she'll only get home at 8:00 in the morning. "I sleep a lot. Every day. My brain and my circulatory system only start working at about 4:00 or 5:00 pm. Then I start listening to music and picking songs, I'll practice mixing them, and so on. And then I'll go to bed again very, very late."

Sometimes Josi also gigs with her band Cover, Girl! on the weekends. "I sing and I play xylophone really badly. But it looks neat when I do it," she grins. Often she'll get booked as a double package - with her band and as a DJ, for example for birthdays or wedding parties.

"At weddings, people are always ultra happy. Our band usually performs during the day, I'll sing my four songs and then during the party in the evening the rest of my band is free while I'm mixing songs - that's obviously a contrast program. I'm there alone, people are looking at me, it's this mega party and I have to focus for four hours in a row. I like that - I even need that. It would be boring to always be doing the same thing."

Josi still finds the time to complete her media arts studies. Her final project for her Bachelor's is a documentary on homeless people in Leipzig. Still, she'll be glad when it's finally done.

Then she will focus on her true calling: She is and wants to stay a musician. She's not just a DJ. She writes her own songs and wants to produce music later, too. For now, she makes enough money to live a good life. She shares an apartment with her cat Uschi, which she loves more than anything, in a trendy neighborhood in Leipzig called Südvorstadt. Its countless bars, cafés and clubs make for a vibrant student nightlife.

'I see Germany as a whole'

Josiloves her home city. She found out not so long ago that this is where the Peaceful Revolution actually began: The Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig set the stage for the downfall of the GDR.

"There are commemorative plaques in Leipzig which were put up three or four years ago, so you can read what happened where. That's when I read about it first and started to look into that part of history." It also makes her a bit proud of her city.

German reunification is celebrated every year on October 3, but that's not important for Josi. It's just a normal holiday, and she usually goes to work the day before. "I see Germany as a whole. Nevertheless, I sometimes encounter prejudice when I go to the western part of Germany, along the lines of 'Oh, you don't even have a Saxon accent.'"

She does sometimes notice differences between eastern and western Germans - in their appearance. "When I have a gig for example in Frankfurt, I look at the people in the crowd and usually see all these trendy girls who look unbelievably artificial with their high heels and their tight dresses. You don't get that in Leipzig. I'm not like that either. Especially designer bags and that kind of thing, I can't relate to that at all. But otherwise they like to party just as much as we do and are super friendly - were not that different by nature."

Zero tolerance for racism

Josi can also get really mad when she thinks about Germany. "Racism is a big issue here in the East. And even more now that so many refugees are coming. There's a rally here every week. Heidenau [Eds.: where anti-refugee protest has become violent] is just around the corner and you can see what's happening there. You just need to overhear people talking there and it's enough to make you feel sick."

When Josi is on tour in the West, she realizes that it's a lot more multicultural there than in the East. "Here there aren't that many foreigners at all - and people are still afraid of them.

Especially in villages - there's just Germans there. I don't know what they're so afraid of. And when I go to the West, I have the impression that there's more social cohesion there."

Josi has just participated in an anti-racism campaign. A friend of hers who is a photographer did portraits of different people in Leipzig with short texts for a website. His anti-racism campaign was successful all over Germany.

AlthoughJosi doesn't describe herself as a political person and suddenly starts swearing a lot when she talks about these issues, her standpoint is clear. "As a DJ, I play music in many different languages, from musicians from all over the world. I love to travel and to discover new cultures. So it just stuns me to see people in my own country who have and share right-wing ideas. But there are also so many people resisting and showing solidarity: That gives me hope."

Here is Yo-C's playlist: Her 25 most important songs and all-time favorites