DIME only has a single song out in the world, but it’s a good one. I try not to throw around phrases like “club anthem” all that much, because I’m barely in clubs nowadays, and when I am, I usually last around an hour tops before I have a panic attack and leave, but “Shake It” sounds like a club anthem to me. Inspired by both classic Baltimore club and 2000s rap, the moody, Auto-Tuned song makes sense in 2025, in part because of DIME’s history as a New York DJ blending club and rap with techno.
The artist, who grew up between the East Coast and Jamaica, maintains a photography practice that bleeds into how she conceptualizes her music, which looks to the airhorn-blasted past to find pathways to the future. And Baltimore club seems to be in the air. I’m excited to read Al Shipley’s new book about the dance genre’s illustrious history, a true story of American energy music. Last week, in between walking my friend’s pomeranian, I made it out to Bed-Stuy, where I sat down with DIME over coffee and had a nice chat.
Where does your name come from?
DIME is short for Diamond Princess, paying homage to the original Diamond Princess: Trina.
And “Shake It” the first song you ever made?
Yeah, the very first song I've ever made. Like, ever, yeah.
What prompted you to start making music after DJing for a minute?
I love DJing. I’ve made some deep cuts here and there, club beats without vocals, but never put anything out until now. I also love jamming with hardware. I started as a dancer, I've been dancing since I was four. So I just love performing and I kind of miss it.
At some point you realized when you were DJing, you just wanted to perform.
Yeah, pretty much.
And are the songs written with performance in mind?
Yeah. This year, so far, I've been teaching myself how to write songs. “Shake It” was the first product of that.
What kind of music have you been studying in your songwriting journey?
A little bit of everything. R&B, definitely, and rap. Early 2000s Baltimore Club music, or just club music in general from the ‘90s and early 2000s that has vocals. Dance music from when I was like four years old that I would hear on the radio.
Where did you grow up?
I was born in Delaware, but I actually grew up between Delaware, New York, and Jamaica.
So you got a little bit of a lot of stuff.
Yeah, yeah.
Delaware, I assume you're getting some of that Baltimore club on the radio?
Exactly. When I was like a little girl in dance class in elementary school, that's the music we would dance to, Baltimore club, so that's where I first heard it—it was in dance class.
So this music is really embedded in you.
Yeah, completely.
And when you started to DJ, were you playing that?
Oh yeah, that's the first thing I started DJing, actually, before I really got into ‘90s techno.
I listened to a recent mix of yours and I really liked it because you were blending these Baltimore club classics that I hadn't heard in a minute, all these amazing records, with techno.
Yeah, I love doing that, that's my favorite.
How does that work in Brooklyn now?
I feel like that's been my DJ style since I started DJing in, what, 2018. So, somehow I've made it work, especially when I started my party, HARDCORSET, that was just a vibe and it just was a space for me and my friends to play like whatever the fuck we wanted and it went crazy every time.
I was never super tapped into the Brooklyn techno scene, but I gotta assume that at some point the musical programming opened up a bit.
Oh yeah. I mean, I feel grateful that I was a part of that, especially with Frankie from Discwoman and Dweller, especially when she started programming at Bossa [Nova Civic Club], that really took it there.
What's your number one Baltimore track to play in that context? Some of those records are so minimal that they almost feel like they could work with techno, but then other ones are almost like pop songs or rap songs.
Yeah, definitely. I would say K-Swift “Slide To The Left.” Definitely. I've been listening to that shit literally since I was a little girl and it still never gets told.
Even back in the day, some of that Baltimore music felt old fashioned, because so much of it was sampling oldies or whatever. When you're making music, do you feel like you're making retro music or making something that's almost an homage, or are you trying to push this music into a different place?
I guess just a mix of an homage and just trying to be timeless, because it feels timeless to me, you know? I just love timeless music all around, so that's my goal.
I almost got a Ron Browz feeling from “Shake It.”
Oh yeah, I love that. Thank you, that's a huge compliment.
I remember T-Pain used to talk shit about Ron Browz because he said he didn't know how to properly use Auto-Tune.
The Auto-Tune wars.
But the way Ron Browz used Auto-Tune is way more relevant to how music sounds now.
I love it. I love how saturated it sounds.
Did you produce this track yourself, too?
I actually produced it with Nico.
And what was that process like?
It was pretty much me starting a melody and a drum pattern on a synth and then we put it into Ableton and he's a fucking wizard. He knows how to do everything in Ableton. He can play every single fucking instrument. He's a huge music nerd like me, so he freaked it in Ableton and then I started writing.
The song has an energy of, like, this is a first song—in a great way. Have you been making more stuff now?
Oh yeah. I'm really eager to put more shit out. But I’m just trying to finish some stuff up. I think I'm gonna release two more tracks this summer and then I'm working on a mixtape.
What’s the mixtape going to be like?
I'm kind of all over the place when it comes to music, so I definitely want to get more R&B influences in there, just a mix of it all, clubby vibes.
Are you gonna go crazy with the drops?
Yeah, yeah.
Do you have a favorite drop? What's your opinion on airhorns in 2025?
I love airhorns. I feel like especially because I want it to be proper mixtape vibes, I just want to go all the way with the headassery.
Are you going to make CDs?
Oh yeah, definitely.
And you were just in Europe?
I had l my first mini DJ tour, it was three stops. I did Unearth in Copenhagen, Benzene in Paris, and then I did a festival in Greece called Nature Loves Courage.
Baltimore club has a confusing narrative overseas, because it was super popular in Europe almost 20 years ago now. These styles kind of ebb and flow with European dance music snobs. Are they into it now?
Yeah, people were into it, people were fucking going crazy, which was really sick to see, honestly.
Did you make the cover art for the “Shake It” single?
Yeah.
It feels like a callback to a different era of the internet, for you to put “world premiere” text on the actual cover.
Yes, thank you for noticing that.
Were you on Myspace?
Yes, I was, on the last tail end of it when I was in middle school, but when I was in seventh, eighth grade, I remember being on there the whole time.
What was your profile song?
I was probably changing that shit like once a day. Ron Browz was definitely on there. Fucking, like, “We Fly High,” I remember that being on there. Definitely Soulja Boy’s shit. I love Soulja Boy, and it feels like, swag era, everyone’s really into that again. I think he’s on a tour called the Swag Tour, and Justin Bieber's Swag album.
Is any of this music going to have a dancehall influence? Where did you spend time in Jamaica?
Definitely. So both my parents are from there, I would spend time in St. Ann where my dad's from, and my mom is from St. Thomas, so I would spend like a month every summer, splitting my time between those two parishes.
Do you play dancehall in your DJ sets?
I've had some straight dancehall nights, I did one like two months ago in LA and then actually I'm doing one next month at Bossa for Jamaica's Independence Day.
Dancehall seems like it's in a confusing place.
It is in a confusing place right now, yeah. I only play the old shit because, I mean, new shit—it's not giving proper dancehall beats, it’s giving more, like, drill beats.
I’ve talked to a friend about this. Seems like there is a market for classic dancehall music.
Maybe I should slide into that.
You have a professional photography practice. How does that inform how you style and document the visual side of the project?
I love love love making portraits of people, inanimate objects, and self portraits. I feel like my shooting style is pretty cohesive with my personal style. Raw, moody, non-linear, avant garde vibes. Throw all that shit together and that’s just me.
This is a funny interview because you only have one song out.
I was literally thinking that, because I was going through your blog, I saw some homies that you interviewed, like Kilbourne and Certified Trapper, and all of them got albums out.
It can be the one of the most interesting parts of an artist's career, this early period of just fucking around. Do you still feel like you're still figuring some stuff out?
Totally, but in a good way, it's just this burning excitement, I just want to put these next two singles out. I'm working on the artwork for them right now, getting the masters back, but I'm just excited.
Dime on Instagram, SoundCloud, and Nina