‘I Feel Free’: Celebrating Change, Beauty and Music with DJ and...

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‘I Feel Free’: Celebrating Change, Beauty and Music with DJ and Producer Tragik

To see more of Tragik’s life in and outside of music, check out @tragik on Instagram. For more music stories, head to @music.

Life is a celebration, music is a message and entertainment is an opportunity to make the world a better place. That’s how DJ and producer Tragik (@tragik) sees it.

“Janis Joplin, the Beatles, John Lennon — they all took some sort of stance or positive change in this world,” says the artist, who identifies as gender fluid. (Instead of “he” or “she,” Tragik uses the pronoun “they.”) “I feel like this generation is putting more emphasis on aesthetics and on the dream rather than meaning and substance, and I think that’s where we’re getting lost. I think that’s where music is getting lost, because music started to become really mundane. I’m not really relating to a lot of artists anymore.”

In stark contrast to the super-sleek, overly produced DJs and pop stars with which Tragik shares the Los Angeles streets, the Argentinian-born musician is unabashedly outspoken. In the booth or on the dance floor, behind the camera or in front of it, Tragik is dedicated to capturing and sharing the world’s good side — playing what they want to hear, be it ‘90s trance or turn-of-the-century house and R&B. Through photography, they document the most unique and inspiring facets of friends, family and selfhood.

“When it comes to my friends, I always put spotlights on them, because I think they’re all so beautiful in their own individual ways,” says Tragik. “I love helping other people feel beautiful about themselves. Whatever their insecurities are, I want to help them.”

Self-love and acceptance are issues figuratively and literally close to Tragik’s heart. It’s been two years since the San Francisco Bay Area-raised DJ found the courage to have their breasts removed, and Tragik has never felt freer. While they do not identify as a male or as trans, they champion the cause.

“I was so insecure about my body and my chest, I never wanted to go out,” says Tragik. “I was always home, and being insecure really reflects on your attitude and your personality. I was just a very sad person, and now I’m like a hundred thousand times a different person. I can go out and be free. I feel free. It feels like you’re a bird in a cage, and you just got released.”

Tragik’s openness on social media, in conversation and in life, attracts fans to the DJ’s music, videos, clothes and overall positive platforms. Tragik gets notes from teens in small American towns who say they are gay and on the verge of suicide, but thank the artist for providing hope and strength.

There are critics and slanderers, though.

“I get told all the time that I shouldn’t put up pictures of my top surgery or that I shouldn’t be so vocal about the queer community, anything about things that are reflective of my personal opinion or thought,” they say. “I was not put on this earth to be this quiet, empty shell. However many followers, that’s not my path. That’s not my journey. Even if I only have 10 people who follow me, in some way or another we create some kind of community, and we impact some kind of change and positivity and love into this world. I feel like that’s way more impactful than having a million followers and nothing to say.”

—Kat Bein for Instagram @music

by via Instagram Blog