A Hoe Lotta Love - The Berliner

Attend a Hoe_mies party once and it’s bound to stay on your Berlin rotation. The parties are pure electricity: a dancefloor alive with community and genre-bending sounds, whilst centring FLINTA* voices at every turn. Since its conception in 2017, founder Gizem Adiyaman, aka DJ Meg10, and her crew have championed female, BiPOC and gender-minority DJs while throwing one of the city’s most joyfully unpredictable nights.

From Tokyo to Lisbon to London, you’ve taken Hoe_mies worldwide. How do Berlin’s parties stack up against the rest?

In regards to clubbing, Berlin is, in many aspects, pretty avant-garde. You can have sex on the dance floor; the parties go on till whenever and stuff like that. That‘s not a given in any other part of the world. Having awareness teams is not a standard for every event. In Berlin, that also wasn’t standard at the beginning. I used to have to pay for them myself, and clubs were not keen on taking them on board. Now, some clubs even require it.

Sonically in Berlin we have this musical hierarchy, with techno at the top – you don‘t have this in other countries. Sonically, I’d say the sound at Hoe_mies is more aligned with what you hear in London, or even Melbourne, where people celebrate club music more than just techno.

Let’s rewind. How did Hoe_mies begin?

It all began in 2017 when I was still a student. I had just returned from a foreign exchange programme in Mexico, where I had been studying gender. I was feeling pretty politicised and was very sensitive to gender issues and providing opportunities for women. Then I saw there was this party called R’n’She that featured music I loved and was centred on women. I went to the party and then realised it was run by four men, which kind of bummed me out. I had a chat with them and said, ‘Couldn’t you at least involve one woman in your collective?’ They said that if I didn’t like what they do, then I should start my own thing – and they were right. That‘s where the idea came from to start a club night that was by women, for women.

I started it with my best friend, Lucia Lucianom [aka DJ Lucia Lu]. She reminded me that we should also not neglect the queer community, who were also marginalised, especially within the hip hop scene, which is what we were [focusing on at that time].

Our first party was in May 2017 at Beate Uwe. It was difficult at the time because no one really trusted women with their event spaces. You didn’t see a lot of female DJs back then either. There weren’t even big female rappers either; Nicki Minaj and Cardi B would pop up later.

The party was a total hit, and we had a lot of interest from the media at the time as well. We were quite sensationalised. Lucia left in 2022. I took over from there and kept it going.

We love to play music that makes women and queer people feel fierce about themselves, and we don’t take ourselves too seriously.

You mentioned hip hop was the early focus. How has the sound of Hoe_mies evolved over time?

We’re now more focused on club music. We play global bass, breakbeat and some techno. We love to play music that makes women and queer people feel fierce about themselves, and we don‘t take ourselves too seriously; from laying down Beyonce to voguing on the dance floor, all these things happen at Hoe_Mies.

We’ve always been outspoken, want to educate our listeners and be a part of this whole genre which is really niche in the club scene. Berlin is a competitive DJ market, and around 80% of it is techno, so I think it‘s nice to have spaces that not only celebrate techno but have a variety of other genres.

With your success, how do you manage to maintain diversity on the dance floor?

The parties have about 70% women and queer folk. To maintain that integrity has been a challenge. To focus on who you want at the party and who you feel comfortable with, you have to take the necessary steps to get there, which means having an awareness team. We have our team at the door, which has been the same team since 2022. I always call them the ‘vibe curators’. Aesthetics also plays a big role, as we have sexual freedom vibes, [and] that plays on the “hoe” part of the name. So far, we’ve been mainly doing events at Oxi. I love Oxi; pretty much everyone who works there is queer and very understanding and they’re great to work with.

It is a challenge. I struggled with this the most when Hoe_mies started to blow up with success before the pandemic. It was [during] this time when we had our Spotify Originals podcast, which brought lots of popularity with it.

Since 2017, how have you seen representation for women, BiPOC and queer DJs evolve?

I don‘t know if it‘s my filter, but I see so many more female and gender-queer DJs today. In the beginning, I was scraping together the same four female DJs we had in the city for our events. This has changed, and I now have a plethora of options.

Now my focus has changed from representation to doing something that goes deeper: to actually improving the conditions of women and gender-minority people in the industry, to give them a seat at the table and not just to be there for the optics.

That should reflect how we’re being compensated and the ownership of the scene. It‘s still unfortunate to say, but everyone that I deal with who has an ownership aspect of the nightlife industry is male. There are very few female club owners, or club owners of colour.

I‘ve seen people put on their booking contracts that there have to be people of colour on the lineup in order for them to play.

What more needs to change?

There have been plenty of DJ workshops for women and gender minorities. That has had a big impact on the club scene here. I look at Femme Bass Mafia, who invested a lot of time bringing about the next generation of DJs. But [progress isn’t] going in that direction at the moment. Maybe because people feel like we’ve hit a certain tipping point? Culture just seems to be something that is becoming an afterthought again.

What we need is more ownership: clubs like Colour Factory in London are giving me hope that another future is possible. We don‘t have a space like that here. Colour Factory is a Black-owned club that has been receiving prizes for their curations, and it‘s always been a pleasant experience playing there. I wish we had a place like that in the city. The only place I know that‘s like that here, which is partly Black owned is Maaya, and that‘s only been a recent thing. We definitely need more spaces where we don‘t have to make concessions.

We’ve come a long way from the days of clubs branded as ‘Black music’ venues, but there are still challenges. Do you think that label still exists today, and how does it affect the scene?

We have come a long way, but there are still clubs [in Berlin] that still say they play ‘Black music’. It always feels like when something is not tailored towards a mainstream white audience, then it‘s still considered edgy and different. We’re so naturally part of society, so why try to single us out and alienate us from the mainstream?

What role do you think the media plays in promoting diversity in music, and where does it fall short?

Most radio nowadays has terrible programming. I feel like they all just play Dua Lipa every hour. I like COSMO, it’s the only public radio that I listen to in my car because they play music that the other radio stations don’t.

Hoe_mies has already gone international. How do you plan to take continue taking over?

We’re continuing the tours and shows around the world and collaborating with collectives in the respective cities. Hoe_mies soft launched as a label in 2024 with an online compilation, and we donated the proceeds to Doctors Without Borders for their efforts in Gaza. I definitely want to put out another compilation. I love bringing people together and really want to take Hoe_mies to the next level.