After successfully grabbing the crowd’s attention with her upbeat and wide-ranging set back at Nusasonic Festival in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in October, Munich born producer and DJ Bao-Tran Tran aka mobilegirl set foot in Jakarta for the first time. Thanks to last November’s Studiorama Ascension series, the capital city could dance to her rework of R&B classics and her Afro-Caribbean roots mixes. With three Boiler Room appearances in 2016 followed by the release of her EP Poise in 2017, she has undoubtedly built herself a strong reputation.
Bao, who is affiliated with Berlin-based STAYCORE crew and an all-woman collective Discwoman, shares the inspiration behind her unusual stage name and even more out of the ordinary mixes.
Globetrotter Lab: What’s your musical journey like, from your first encounter with music until the moment you actually decided to become a part of the electronic music scene?
mobilegirl: My first encounter with music was probably my dad trying to lull me to sleep. About 17 years later, I started becoming really interested in electronic music that wasn’t established as a genre. And after a while, I tried my own hands at it, but it was never a conscious decision to become a producer or DJ. It was more a matter of you’re doing something for fun and it’s either going to be picked up or not.
Globetrotter Lab: Why mobilegirl?
mobilegirl: It’s not very deep. When I uploaded my first track, I needed some moniker because I needed a username and at that time Mobile Girl, MiM was my favorite sticker pack. She’s this little girl with the type of haircut that every Asian girl has had at some point in her life.
“I like for everyone to be on the edge all the time, come up with new dance moves, whine to a Japanese piano song. It’s very fun.”
Globetrotter Lab: Your mixes are often called “Collages” for their unusual style, in which you also incorporate a lot of 2000s R&B to Final Fantasy 7 theme song. How did you get all the ideas to mix various sound elements to your mix?
mobilegirl: It’s really just about different things I like. I don’t see why they cannot exist in the same mix. I know it’s more challenging than a set with the same genre for an hour straight, but my point is not to make you fall into a trance while I’m playing. I like for everyone to be on the edge all the time, come up with new dance moves, whine to a Japanese piano song. It’s very fun.
Globetrotter Lab: We have to ask you this, what is your #1 R&B track of all time?
mobilegirl: Wow, how does one decide!?
Globetrotter Lab: You are a part of the collective Discwoman. Can you please tell us a bit about it?
mobilegirl: Discwoman is a collective and booking agency representing female identified and gender non-binary artists. It’s a reaction to the heavily male-dominated music industry.
Globetrotter Lab: So what’s more to come from mobilegirl?
mobilegirl: I’ve worked a lot on different commissions this year, so for next year, I anticipate to work on my own project again and finally release new music.
To know more about mobilegirl, click here.
Images c/o Hatnim Lee & mobilegirl’s Facebook
