MIAMI — Grammy-winning DJ Tracy Young returned home to Miami this week after a two-month world tour with Cyndi Lauper, reflecting on a career that has seen her remix some of music’s biggest stars.
Young, a native of Miami, has reworked tracks for Lady Gaga, Rihanna, Cher and many others. But it was a fateful meeting with Madonna that changed the trajectory of her career.
“To make a really long story short, I DJed a lot of private events for Madonna and then that led to remixing, which led to her wedding, which led it just kind of kept growing,” Young said during an interview at Wynwood’s Dante’s Hi Fi, a vinyl listening bar.
She became the first woman to be nominated in the Grammy’s Best Remixed Recording category since the award’s inception more than 25 years ago.
“The way this happened was I wanted to remix the song ‘I Rise,’ I heard it as a pride anthem,” she said. “And it wasn’t a single. It became a single because we, we worked it together just the two of us.”
Many call Young the “queen of the remix.” She has racked up more than 60 No. 1 hits on the U.S. Billboard Dance Chart in an industry traditionally dominated by men.
“When I was told no a lot and actually club owners told me ‘you need to find something else to do, girls don’t do this,’ I just put it in the hard drive as I call the memory bank,” she said. “And I was on a mission.”
Young will perform her first all-vinyl set in years at Dante’s Hi Fi this Sunday at 9 p.m.
She continues to remix with the greats, most recently working with Madonna’s iconic background vocalists Niki Haris and Donna Dolore on a new version of Chaka Khan’s classic “I Know You, I Live You.”
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