Shoki287: Techno Has To Be Sexy
For SHOKI287, a break is a waste of time. Keep the body moving, keep the tension intact, make the techno sexy, and don't interrupt the trance just because convention says a drop needs somewhere to land. The same impatience runs through the rest of her world. Rap does not need to stay separate from DJing. Sexuality does not need to soften itself into suggestion. SHOKI would rather get on with it.
The latex mask might suggest a character, but SHOKI287 insists there isn't one. Rapper, DJ, performer, girl in a balaclava: these distinctions make more sense from the outside than they do to her. She does not arrive at the club and become SHOKI, or reach for the microphone to access another version of herself. There is nothing to switch on.
"I'm not creating anything, I'm just showing my personality. I'm not a stage persona, I'm just me, a girl with a latex mask."
Even the idea that SHOKI287 began as a rapper before becoming a DJ needs correcting. Both practices emerged at roughly the same time during COVID. The only separation was initially a name, and that did not last.
"Actually I started both at the same time. I got a DJ controller for Christmas and started DJing at home when COVID started. At the same time I recorded my first rap parts. My very first gig was with another DJ name but I thought it wouldn't make sense to raise two characters and projects at the same time so I combined it."
That decision still defines how she performs. A SHOKI287 DJ set can become a live performance without announcing the transition. She can reach for the microphone, rap over her own material, return to mixing and continue. There is no reason, in her mind, to establish where one format ends.
"It was natural. I don't separate both. It's me, Shoki, and I do both. I will always do tracks and probably some techno edits for the techno crowd :)"
Sexuality travels just as easily between the two. In her lyrics it can be explicit and verbal. Behind the decks, it becomes something she tries to establish across the room before her own tracks make the intention unmistakable.
"I think in my texts it's more obvious but while my DJ sets I try to transfer the open sexual vibe as well. At the latest when I play my own songs in my DJ sets everybody feels the provocative sexual vibe."
Her selection moves freely between fast techno, Latin techno, bounce, trance and vocals, generally somewhere between 140 and 160 BPM. The test for whether a track belongs is considerably less complicated than the genre list suggests.
"I have to feel that special bounce, a driving track that makes me dance. I don't like the happy tracks, I think techno has to be sexy."
That physical instinct also explains the lack of downtime in her sets. Long breakdowns interrupt something SHOKI would rather sustain. She is not waiting for a drop when she dances, and she sees little reason to make her audience wait for one either.
"As a DJ I sometimes feel uncomfortable when the breaks are too long. When I'm on the dancefloor I don't need drops as well. I want to be in a trance. A break would break it, haha. My sets are definitely not predictable. I switch between different genres all the time."
The momentum may be relentless, but SHOKI is less interested in turning the person behind the decks into a constant spectacle. Berlin taught her to value the opposite: rooms where the DJ can almost disappear and music does not have to compete continuously with the demand to produce an image.
"I don't want to feel like I have to perform. I think music should always be the focus. In Berlin you barely see the DJs sometimes. I love that. I hope the whole social media focus will get boring someday and music will be more important. Sure you have to play the game a bit but I don't like it. Also it's all about the vibe of the crowd, a good crowd, beautiful people from the inside make a good party."
There is an obvious friction there. SHOKI287 has a visual identity designed neither for invisibility nor neutrality. The latex mask, styling and sexual directness make her instantly legible in a culture increasingly consumed through images. Yet she refuses the assumption that visibility means the performance has to revolve around being watched. The mask can remain. The music still comes first.
As the crowds have grown, nervousness has remained part of the experience. Hive Festival in 2024 marked one of the first occasions when the scale and setting made that growth tangible.
"It was the first time I played at Hive Festival 2024. It was the first time with so many people at daytime. I was so nervous. Also Sound Department a few months ago. I was also very nervous playing at the same time as Yanamaste, unfortunately, but the crowd was so excited and felt my vibe and I really enjoyed it."
The confidence projected through SHOKI287 therefore does not depend on pretending discomfort never exists. More central is what she does with the space once she has it. That becomes especially clear when she talks about sexuality and the women for whom she writes.
Provocation is personal, but it is not only personal.
"Definitely. My best girl friends are so open and strong in their personalities, especially how they interact with men and knowing that we have the power over men. When I'm speaking to women who make themselves small or are shy, when they say they want to wear some sluttier clothes but they don't dare because of men, I write my texts for these girls. Don't be afraid of some stupid men. Nowadays in every club men that don't behave will get kicked out so fuck them and feel yourself."
There is no careful manifesto around it. The language is as direct as the impulse: wear what you wanted to wear. Stop reducing yourself in anticipation of somebody else's reaction. The provocation works because SHOKI does not present sexual confidence as something requiring permission.
It also puts the latex mask into a different context. An object that could easily be treated as branding becomes almost beside the point when she describes it herself. Fashion, sexuality and music are not components assembled to manufacture a coherent persona. They are already part of the same personality.
"I'm not creating anything, I'm just showing my personality. I'm not a stage persona, I'm just me, a girl with a latex mask."
The line deserves returning to because it removes much of the mythology that can accumulate around an artist whose visual language is this immediate. SHOKI does not seem particularly interested in explaining herself into complexity. The coherence comes from refusing to divide the things she already does naturally.
That principle now has somewhere larger to go. Rap, DJing, live performance and fashion are being joined by a new party concept and her first album. Rather than consolidating SHOKI287 into a cleaner category, she wants the next stage to contain more of her.
"I want to serve a lifestyle. I'm just starting a party series with a concept that I haven't seen before. Also I'm working on my first album with an unexpected sound. I want to emerge my Latin side more and combine it with everything. DJing, sound, dance and feeling of life. Bring more sex to the inhibited ones."
