Editor's Note:

We continue to be thrilled by the response to our Wobble Women series. The Untz absolutely loves spotlighting exemplary women rocking it behind-the-scenes in this industry. If you have a suggestion of who we should profile next, please drop us a line at support@theuntz.com or post them up in The Untztoppable Facebook group.

By: Heather Hodder

Rebecca “Becca Sou” Drylie-Perkins, 31, hails from Medford, New Jersey, a suburb outside the Philadelphia metropolitan area. A graduate of Drexel University, she focused on marketing and public relations with a specialty in event planning. Now she lives on the other side of the country in San Francisco, California and is the majority owner and operator of Street Ritual.

Street Ritual a multi-faceted West Coast flavored conscious bass music, art, and culture machine, founded by Knowa Lusion (formerly Knowa Knowone), a pioneering glitch-hop talent. Ten years into its endeavor, Street Ritual includes a record label, a talent agency for music, performing, and visual artists, blog, and an online fashion merchandiser for wearable art.

Who is Becca Sou? As director of the Street Ritual Booking Agency and the record label, she is extremely organized thanks in no small part to her impeccable multi-tasking skills. Not only is she a psybass DJ best known by her moniker, spacegeishA, she additionally coaches girls sports, works in event planning consultation, and coordinates events at restaurants in the Bay Area—all of which has definitely come in handy in the lead up to Street Ritual’s 10 Year Showcase this Friday November 9th, at The Black Box in Denver, Colorado.

The event will feature a very special super secret guest, along with the already stellar lineup, including Duffrey, Bricksquash, Ovoid, and Drylie-Perkins gets to do a special B2B set with Dela Moontribe.

For anyone not able to make it down to the black box and prefer to party from the couch, Street Ritual will be broadcasting a livestream of the show through a link on their Facebook page.

Becca Drylie-Perkins started working at Street Ritual in 2012. In her 6 years there, the company has grown immensely. “When I came on we only had 22 releases, and we’re up to 150 now. I’ve really put in a lot of work and most of the content percentage-wise has been scouted and developed by me,” explained Drylie-Perkins.

“What inspires me is just seeing other record labels, booking agents, producers, and DJs just living their best lives and living their dreams,” said Drylie-Perkins, adding “I’m a very competitive person, however success of other people in our niche community of electronic music, that inspires me, it makes me feel constantly like ‘I can get there too!’ One day you wake up and ask yourself‘Am I there?’ but at some point I feel like you never really know if you’re ‘there’ or not, it’s really all relative on the person whose perspective it is.”

The music is a constant source of inspiration for Drylie-Perkins. “It’s like a root system,” she explained, “It starts with sound, but from there it goes to the community and the people and the experiences...and from there it can go to different genres, shows, album releases, festivals—there’s so many different branches to this underground music community.”

“I listen to all different styles of music, it’s interesting because I spend a lot of time listening to things that people wouldn’t expect. My first love in electronic music was dubstep.” Becca also listens to psytrance, drum and bass, world music, and jazz. “I spend a lot of time listening to things that aren’t very good. That’s the nature of my job and also the nature of being a good DJ is digging for hours online for music, you’re going to end up listening to some things that aren’t good. As a DJ, I spend a lot of time digging for music until I find exactly what I’m looking for.”

What advice does spacegeishA have for women who want to break into the music industry?

Exude confidence. “This is without a doubt a male dominated industry. Something like over 70% of festival lineups are predominantly male across the nation. As women we already are going against the grain as to what people expect and are ready to welcome from a business perspective. So when women come in with amazing tracks, I think we are programmed to respond, ‘Wow! This is a badass girl making music right now!’ Which is great but I think we want to recognize women—but we don’t wont to over-do it. We want it to be‘the norm.’ I don’t want it to be surprising that there is a really sick female producer, we want it to be a normal thing.”

Any more advice? “Confidence is the number one thing,” Drylie-Perkins emphasized, “You have to be ready to be surrounded by men all of the time. I also work as a stage manager. The looks I would get when I was setting up equipment on the stage, or running a wire off the stage—the looks can say a thousand words. I’ve been told as a DJ going to set up, someone will come over and say “oh, you need help with that honey?” ...we need to not be doted on. The “sweetheart” and “honey” comments, that really gets to me.”

Drylie-Perkins has spoken on panels before regarding women in the music industry, including a workshop at Lightning in a Bottle in 2017. What did she and the other panelists think would get more women interested in leadership roles in the music industry? “This question came up, and what we came to a consensus on was that reaching to younger girls and being role models as DJs and singers and band mates, so they could see it happening more, first of all,” said Drylie-Perkins, and that women can be harsh critics of themselves: “Women just need to try it more. Download Ableton and make a beat...don’t be scared to just try it, share it, get back feedback, and have confidence. Like men do, when they make one shitty beat.”

So the next time you complete a beat or a song, anything, share it! Whether or not it is good or bad, constructive criticism is the first step to growth and development. As a writer I vouch for this completely, criticism is tough but without it we would never get to where we want to be.

This Friday, November 9 join Becca at one of her favorite places in the country, The Black Box in Denver, Colorado. Arrive early, because this lineup is stacked. For more information check out the event on Facebook. Or check there for the live stream link if you can’t make it there.

What’s next on the agenda of the amazingly busy Becca Sou? Keep your eyes peeled for the Ten Year Compilation from Street Ritual. spacegeishA will be on a tour of the East Coast, dates and locations of which are yet to be announced, but expect some coveted locations and perhaps some international dates, as well.