Ruby Rose is many things to many people: equality advocate, model, scene-stealing actress, and shit-hot DJ. And, for the most part, that skillset has cemented the Aussie export as one of 2016’s most en vogue pop-cult figures. Seriously. Girl is everywhere.
There seems to be one sticking point, though: her penchant for colliding bangers with one another has been placed under scrutiny by US DJ Josh Billings. In a clip posted on his Facebook earlier today, Billings dissects footage from 2015, purporting to show Rose doing… not much, while tracks seemingly fade in and out with little direct input.
In the clip, Billings draws attention to the ‘on-air’ lights on a pair of CDJs. As The Weeknd’s Often vocal line hovers above a beat, he says “okay, there’s two red lights on. Two faders are currently up. And that’s generally what would happen if you’re mixing two songs together.
But unless she’s dropping The Weeknd a capella separately from this beat, she’s not mixing anything right now. So I’m not even sure why she threw that fader up.”
A lil’ while after, after laying some appreciative snark on her dance moves, Billings says “I’m not saying she’s completely not DJing, but if you listen closely right now, there’s a mix happening… although none of the other channels are up. No red light.”
While it’s generally easy enough to tell when a guitarist or, God forbid, a singer is flubbing it on stage, the maelstrom of knobs and lights that sit before DJs are often unintelligible to your average punter. Still, Billings is pretty convinced the tunes on offer just ain’t matching the work done on stage.
Oh, but you better believe Rose had something to say about the accusations. In response, she straight up told the bloke to have a gander at her work IRL, and justified the alleged discrepancies by way of already-altered sounds.
Of course, this ain’t the first time she’s been labelled a faux DJ. Last year, she rallied against those accusations in an Insta post, saying she copped unfair scrutiny over the fact she’s a woman:
In any case, her next gig is in Minneapolis on June 24. At this point, we can probably assume more experts in the field will have their say then, too.
