Amanda Usher — Starting Over From Zero

Subscribe to the Tiny Table Radio Newsletter for new episodes.What happens when you walk away from a DJ career that's working and start from zero somewhere nobody knows your name?Amanda Usher joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about growing up with a DJ dad she swore she'd never become, the night out that changed her mind, and the years she spent earning her place in Puerto Rico's underground.Amanda grew up in a house full of vinyl, played violin from kindergarten, and went to Barnard and Columbia. She started DJing in Brooklyn around 2016 and was playing every weekend soon after. Then the pandemic took her to San Juan, where the scene was reggaeton and dubstep. She went years without a big gig while she helped build venues, brought amps at midnight, found decks at 2 a.m., and worked for free.We talk about how the big opening slots actually happen, the up-and-coming DJs she's had hard conversations with, running a wellness business and raising a three-year-old on three or four hours of sleep, and why she throws out her lyrics and writes them live in the studio.This is a conversation about showing up for a scene before it shows up for you, and being okay with exactly where you are.🎵 About Amanda UsherAmanda Usher is a Puerto Rico–based DJ, producer, and singer making melodic indie dance with a raw, alternative edge. She's opened for Max Styler, Disclosure, and Diplo, and her first solo productions, all carrying her own vocals, are on the way.📻 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://instagram.com/amandaushermusic

Subscribe to the Tiny Table Radio Newsletter for new episodes.What do you wear to the meeting that could reject your life's work?HOVR joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about a singer-songwriter dream that stalled, coming out as non-binary, and carrying queer dance music into rooms that weren't built for it.Raised by a music-teacher mother and classically trained on piano, HOVR moved to Berlin to study communications and sing sad songs in smoky cafés. It didn't land. They stopped making music for two years and DJed their own warm-ups at university parties. From there they built a decade-long career on the one thing the guitar never gave them: people coming up after the show to say the music made them cry.We talk about the cease and desist that cost HOVER its E, the Floorplan track that pulled them out of tech house, how coming out made their music braver, and pitching their debut album Love Language in a glitter black dress. We also get into what it costs to speak up about queerphobia in dance music and where they draw the line on AI.This is a conversation about identity and belonging, and about what changes once you stop wearing a costume.🎵 About HOVRHOVR is a Berlin-based non-binary DJ, producer, and multi-instrumentalist fusing a classical education with Berlin rave culture: playful indie dance and melodic house, often carrying their own voice. Their debut album, Love Language, is out now on Stil vor Talent.🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://instagram.com/hovrmusic

Subscribe to the Tiny Table Radio Newsletter for new episodes.Some DJs get years to prepare for the biggest call of their career. Bella De León got an hour.Bella De León joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about growing up behind casino decks, translating fashion into sound, and holding your ground in rooms that see a kid instead of a DJ.Born in Washington Heights and raised in Biloxi, Mississippi, Bella became a DJ at 15 because a casino DJ couldn't afford her mom's hair extensions — so they traded: lessons for the daughter, hair for the mentor. She spent her teens as a roadie and hip hop DJ across the southern circuit, modeled from age ten, and at 17 flew to New York to play a Christian Siriano fashion week party that changed the trajectory of her life.We talk about the magician's note that lives on her fridge, the childhood habit of scoring muted movies that became her method for DJing Christian Louboutin events, killing her Gov Ball set as an independent and signing with 4AM right after, the sabotaged controllers and dismissals that built her thick skin, and Breaklight — the debut single she built around how the vocal chop sounds.This is a conversation about what it costs to be underestimated early — and what it sounds like when you refuse to shrink.🎵 About Bella De LeónBella De León is a New York-based DJ and emerging producer known for experimental sets weaving house, disco, and UKG with Latin and soulful roots. She's played for Christian Louboutin, Christian Siriano, L'Oréal, and Univision, opened for Benny Benassi, and played rooms from Terminal 5 to Gov Ball. Her debut single Breaklight is due later this summer.🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://instagram.com/belladeleon.wav

Subscribe to the Tiny Table Radio Newsletter for new episodes.What if the day job isn't what's holding your art back — what if it's the thing keeping it honest?Saqib joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about staying grounded, relentless persistence, and making music for yourself before anyone else.He grew up playing in death and black metal bands in Lahore, Pakistan, walked into a Toronto afterhours in 2009, and quit metal overnight. He kept producing through med school — his first release came out while he was studying — and today he's a practicing physician in NYC with more than 100 releases, a label of his own, and a firm belief that being a real person in serious situations where people depend on you is exactly where the inspiration comes from.We talk about sending Adam Ten 35 demos to get two tracks signed, the $1 he handed a security guard to get his USB to blond:ish, why he never makes a track with a label in mind, what Van Gogh's output taught him about judging his own success, mentoring three artists, and where he stands on ghost producers.It's a conversation about building an artist's life that doesn't need permission — or a fallback plan — because it was never all-or-nothing to begin with.🎵 About SaqibSaqib is a Pakistan-born DJ and producer based in NYC, with 100+ releases on labels including Maccabi House, Get Physical, Kindisch, Indo Warehouse, and Sol Selectas. He runs the label and event series Beats On Time and mentors three artists in music production. Coming up: an open-to-close b2b with Pezzner in Seattle and an EP on He.She.They.🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://www.instagram.com/saqib_music

What happens when the career you never planned becomes the thing you can't stop doing?Jasa joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about unplanned beginnings, the long game of building a career, and staying authentic in a business that's always been a business.He spent four years in the Army, got out, and took a table-bussing job at a Montauk venue for quick summer cash. When the brunch DJ didn't show, he filled in with 150 songs and almost no experience — and slowly, without ever planning it, DJing became talent-coordinating, which became producing 8-to-10-hour days, which eventually meant leaving a stable paycheck behind entirely.We talk about learning to open a room, the Moby reel that changed his mind on social media, why getting your song played by a big artist doesn't actually change your career, sampling old disco records to keep production fun, and the fear that comes with betting on yourself financially.It's a conversation about patience, community, and what it takes to keep going when there's no shortcut and no guarantee.🎵 About JasaJasa (Jack Abrams) is a Brooklyn-based DJ and producer blending modern indie dance with classic house. A former resident DJ and talent coordinator, he's earned early support from artists like Mita Gami, Yamagucci, and Notre Dame, with releases on NYC labels Beats on Time and AFP (Another Effing Party).🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://instagram.com/jasa_ofc

What happens when a trained musician spends a decade behind the decks — and never stops feeling like he's on the wrong instrument?Lovecraft joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about musical identity, the community that shaped him, and the long game of staying creative.He came up hating electronic music. A guitarist since nine, dragged to his first rave at 16, he walked out obsessed and never looked back — through music school, a studio-engineering job with Deep Dish in D.C., throwing early parties that booked Tale of Us before America knew them, and a ten-year run inside ZERO. But underneath all of it is a quieter tension: he calls himself a musician first, and he's spent years trying to build a live, all-original set that lets him prove it.We talk about the pandemic's honest effect on the underground, the perfectionism that stalled his music for years, the daily system that finally broke it, going down the modular-synth rabbit hole, and where he hopes to be in ten years.This is a conversation about who you are when the thing you're known for isn't quite the thing you love most.🎵 About LovecraftLovecraft is a Brooklyn-based DJ, producer, and Berklee-trained musician rooted in the ZERO community, known for deep, atmospheric house and melodic techno — plus a live set built entirely from original music, electric guitar included. He's played Brooklyn Mirage, Mysteryland, Lightning in a Bottle, and Burning Man's Mayan Warrior, and has a full summer ahead with ZERO at Industry City and the crew's Kater Blau takeover in Berlin.🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://instagram.com/lovecraftmusic

What happens when every kind of music you've ever loved ends up in the music you make?Eskay joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about a lifetime in music, refusing to chase the algorithm, and the night he decided to stop being a fan and start producing.A Brooklyn DJ and producer by way of Long Island, Eskay has been a musician since he picked up the saxophone at eight. Two decades of guitar, a stretch as a metalhead, and a deep love of bass music all came before house — and now they all live inside the deep, groovy sound he makes. The turning point came at a single Silo show, when he looked at his girlfriend mid-set and realized he couldn't just watch anymore.We talk about why he'll never bend his sound to what's trending, how New York's underground moved from Manhattan to Brooklyn, the one sentence he'd say to his eight-year-old self, and how he folds jazz, classical, metal, and old-school hip hop into house that's a reflection of everything he's lived.This is a conversation about identity, persistence, and making something that's yours before it's anyone else's.🎵 About EskayEskay is a Brooklyn-based DJ and producer making deep, groovy, melodic house built from every stop on his musical journey. He's part of a NYC collective working to bring a more soulful, old-school New York sound back to the scene, with new releases — including the collab "Talk to Me" — coming this year.🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://instagram.com/eskayinthehouse

What do you do when you've already "made it" — and it still isn't enough?CISUMMI joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about leaving a built career behind, the discipline of patience, and refusing to let an algorithm shape his taste.CISUMMI built a DJ career in Paris, playing the big rooms, before deciding that real growth meant starting from zero in New York — the most competitive city he could find. He grew up between France, Spain, and Benin, and that multicultural ear is the throughline of his sound: West African rhythm, European melody, and the conviction that every culture has its own musical codes worth learning.We talk about the friend who pushed him to build his own studio, why he became more selective about the rooms he plays, what AI is really doing to music, the daily habit that keeps his crate-digging honest, and what the name CISUMMI means when you read it backwards.It's a conversation about patience, preparation, and the quiet years of believing in something before anyone else can see it.🎵 About CISUMMICISUMMI is a DJ and producer based in Brooklyn by way of France, Spain, and Benin — vibrant, travel-shaped music he calls an ode to the world's cultures. His MoBlack-signed track "DIKEBO" has passed 1M plays, and he's preparing for a major show alongside Francis Mercier in New York on June 13th.🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://instagram.com/cisummi_

What does two decades of dance training do to your ear — and your DJ sets?Bea Trinidad joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about reclaiming music from obligation, finding community in the underground, and the debut EP she's been working toward her whole life.Bea spent 20 years as a trained dancer before stepping behind the decks — not because she was supposed to, but because she finally made the choice herself. Growing up Filipino in NYC, music was structured and expected. It was classical. It was practice. Getting into DJing was the first time music became entirely hers.We talk about what it felt like to stumble into promoting events for Possession — one of the most respected underground queer techno collectives in Europe — and what that experience taught her about what community actually means in underground music. She talks about learning to say no, about the research and vinyl digging behind every set, and about the EP she's building from Asian sounds — a project that's been taking shape for years and will arrive this summer.This is a conversation about the gap between music as obligation and music as identity — and what it takes to finally close it.🎵 About Bea TrinidadNYC-born Filipina DJ rooted in house music and the underground. 20+ years of dance training behind every set she plays. Debut EP — drawing on Asian musical influences — coming summer 2026. Follow her at @beatricetrinidad.🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 ConnectInstagram → https://www.instagram.com/beatricetrinidad/

What if you took the gig before you were ready, and it worked?Sanvero — the Brooklyn duo of Nico Castillo and Cesco — joins Tiny Table Radio for a conversation about fast-tracking a career that usually takes years, finding your sound after years of genre-hopping, and what it costs to build something real in a city full of shortcuts.Nico and Cesco met through mutual friends at NYU, started playing together during the pandemic, and built their initial reputation on a NYC rooftop where they weren't supposed to be — folding table, cable dropped through an apartment window, a few friends and a couple of brave strangers. Within a year, they were on lineups with bigger acts than they'd earned. Not because they were the best, but because they were proactive, played for free, and made a deliberate choice to collaborate with producers way more experienced than them — coming second on the billing by design, using other people's networks to get their music in front of rooms it never would have reached otherwise.We talk about the rebrand from Space Tiger to Sanvero, what the name means, and the eight-hour drive from Santiago where it finally clicked. Nico tells the story of the breakup that freed up a week at Thanksgiving and how he spent it buried in Ableton instead. And they get into what the NYC house music scene looks like right now — smaller venues, community-first culture, no-phone rooms — and why they think this moment is something worth paying attention to.Two people from opposite ends of the world, figuring out a sound together in Brooklyn. That's the whole story.🎵 About SanveroSanvero is Nico Castillo and Cesco (Francesco), a Brooklyn-based DJ and production duo. The name is a portmanteau of Santiago and Verona — the cities they're each from. Their sound sits at the intersection of deep house, Afro house, and melodic progressive. Their music has been supported by major names in the scene, and they're heading into 2026 with new releases including their first EP on Fluke Lab.🎙 About Tiny Table RadioTiny Table Radio shares the stories and sounds from the creative underground — house music, culture, and community, live from Brooklyn, NYC.🔗 Connect with SanveroInstagram → https://instagram.com/sanveromusic