Uploaded August 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago

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Inside Wax World, Rosa Garcia’s South Minneapolis record store, the DJ known as Madre Rosa reflects on DJ-U, a program built from turntables, community, and care. After losing its funding, the free program that trained more than 100 non-binary artists of color may be coming to an end.

Unicorn Riot spoke with Garcia and DJ-U alum Makeda at Wax World about the program’s history, its impact and what could be lost if it ends. See our full special here: https://unicornriot.ninja/2026/dj-u-creating-a-network-of-non-binary-people-of-color/

Piloted in 2016 at the queer underground space Madame of the Arts, and officially started in 2018, Garcia described DJ-U as a “reparations program” created to “repair that bridge that somewhere had gotten broken.”

DJ-U has been outlined as a “skill-sharing/support community for Black/Indigenous women, queer, femme, and non-binary people of color.” The program’s mission is “to create a network of aspiring and experienced self-identified femme, non-binary people of color that have a shared passion for music and community.”

Through the program, artists are supported and empowered by mentors while being given access to DJ equipment, instructions, and connections to local venues and institutions “to ensure success and long term impact.”

With grant funding, DJ-U has been offered as a free program. The money from the grants goes straight to the DJs who are paid for teaching classes. Garcia said she’s “trying to continue to keep the dollars flowing in our community. If I’m going to get a grant, I want to help us build money, shared power, community, space.”

“There are hundreds of people every weekend that are hearing music that might have been touched by this program.” Rosa Garcia (DJ Madre Rosa)

Recalling her experience eight years ago in DJ-U’s first program after its pilot, Makeda said the biggest gift from the program was being around “such cool and creative” people like fellow DJ-U alums Yonci Jameson and Dua Saleh, and meeting “ambitious Black women and Black queer people my age.” “The ambition,” she says, is “the hardest thing to come by.”

With the loss of funding Garcia said DJ-U is accepting donations.

Full special: https://unicornriot.ninja/dju

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