Welcome to the Club by DJ Paulette

Welcome to the Club, the debut book from DJ Paulette – contemporary of David Guetta, Bob Sinclair, Craig Charles – is subtitled The Life and Lessons of a Black Woman DJ. Told with wit and honesty that celebrates the struggle, it is a look back on thirty years behind the decks of some of the world’s most prestigious spaces in electronic music, as well as behind the scenes of the likes of magazines like MixMag, record label Mercury Records and the early days of Channel 4.

Paulette started as a resident DJ at Flesh, a weekly night at Manchester’s Haçienda. The club went on to be one of the most highly mythologised in the world, yet the LGBTQ+ night that flew in the face of Section 28 (the legislation that fueled the homophobic AIDS campaign in the early nineties) is finally more than a footnote. 

This is one of those books whose absence from the canon of musical history goes largely unnoticed until it is written. It exposes the space given to the megastars of the industry versus the constant battling having to be done by those propping it up in overlooked roles or underground spaces. Some of those battles are with the prejudices of people of course, as she travels from London to Paris to Ibiza. But it’s the ones Paulette never saw coming (divorce, homesickness, menopause) that endear her to us the most.

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Manchester University Press, 23 Jan