An Omaha native has followed her adventurous spirit to become a pioneering, enterprising DJ and hype girl in Miami and beyond.
Branding herself DJ ReRe, this vivacious, visionary millennial thrives in a male-dominated field through her for-profit ReMixed Events that supply DJ and concierge services for elite weddings, corporate events, parties, fashion shows, cruises and more. Through her nonprofit, MixHer, she empowers females to assert their voice and showcase their talent on main stages.
“MixHer focuses on women in music,” she said. “We do that by creating these amazing parties that are female-centric. It’s putting female DJs on the main stage without asking for permission.”
Via her other nonprofit, First Spin DJ Bootcamp, she trains the next generation of DJs.
On occasional visits to her hometown, the Omaha North High graduate displays her talent for creating chill vibes. It was at school where she began producing beats and mixes. Over time, exposed to new environments and rhythms, her sounds have become more driving.
Last summer, she brought her enhanced game to a pair of Native Omaha Days events she hosted, including the Homecoming Dance at Level II. She has been a guest artist at the North Omaha Music and Arts NOMAFest. NOMA founder and executive director Dana Murray is impressed with everything she brings to the DJ booth, dance floor and classroom.
“She is not only great at her craft but also has a wonderful, warm personality. She went out of her way to learn more about NOMA while offering ideas on a DJing curriculum,” said Murray, whose nonprofit provides music lessons as well as a lab for producing beats in addition to being a live music venue and promoter.
ReRe is partnering to produce an all-women’s DJ fest in downtown’s Capitol District and a bootcamp for local teens as a way to bring her passion and mission back home, where her own DJ career stalled out before it ever really got started due to misogyny.
“Normally when you think of a DJ at a party you think of a guy,” she said. “It’s really rare for a female DJ to be in the spotlight. The point of the MixHer is to make us normal. It’s changing perceptions, trying to create a new normal, put more women on the microphone, support more women hype girls. We could do this if we were more visible, so I create those spaces for women and we connect DJs with artists in the community.”
MixHer is a mobile party series.
“I’ve done it not only in Miami but in Philly, in L.A. MixHer is going to be a tour eventually,” she said.
ReRe is intentionally not leaving Omaha and its female DJs out of the mix.
“I’ve got to get Omaha in there – bring DJs to Omaha and bring Omaha DJs to other places, so then they start coming on tour,” she said.
Money raised from MixHer goes to cover the cost of staging shows and to First Spin.
“We teach beginner DJs the very basics 101 of DJing in the hope they take what they learn to their lives,” she said at the immersive bootcamp. “We offer the DJ classes for free for ages 7 and up.”
She has gained a legion of followers and fans from hosting glamour events to posting clips of her fabulous, live-out-loud life on social media. She enjoys being both a celeb DJ and influencer. A tagline next to a photo of her all dolled up reads. “Is your DJ this cute?”
“People are drawn to me as this glittering unicorn,” she said. “They love the bling, they love my pink headphones and my pink vinyl records when I spin. They love how groovy and Black I am. They love my tattoos and piercings. It gives them the courage to be themselves. Every time I go out somewhere people stop and take pictures with me and give me hugs. People DM all the time. They say I’m their inspiration and that their family loves me.”
Experiences like these, she said, remind her that, “I really touch people. I’ve got fans all over the world. I make an impact on people’s lives. I am really honored and happy to be in people’s lives, to be that ray of glitter dust. I really like that.”
ReRe hasn’t always been appreciated for her DJing. Even in her hometown, she said, she was derided for being too out there and for daring to be a woman in a man’s domain.
“Some people in Omaha were not very supportive,” she recalled. “There weren’t a lot of female DJs at the time. A lot of these guys were not having it with me. I was getting blackballed. It was really hard.
“Things have changed. People say, ‘Hey, this girl is really out here doing it, she’s been true, look at her go.’ Now people back in Omaha are like, ‘Okay, we see you.’”
When disrespected, she remained authentically herself rather than aiming to please others.
“I never switched up. That’s one thing I encourage everybody – stay true to you, because that’s the best thing you can possibly do… Just be you,” she said.
What gave her the courage to stand her ground?
“To be honest,” she said, “I think it’s harder to be somebody you’re not. It’s hard to keep up with the lies.”
ReRe is glad she showed resilience rather than go along to get along.
“I don’t know what it’s like to give into societal pressures because I don’t,” she said. “If I would have given into pressures I would have seven babies, be divorced, be depressed. I would have been like those people who made fun of me, and I didn’t want that at all.”
Instead of giving in, ReRe just kept going. Now she said people tell her how much they admire her,
“They’re like, ‘Dang, this girl is going against the grain and she is doing her thing.”
Being an outlier has been her life story.
“I was doing stuff no Black women did then.”
It started in elementary school, where she played violin. At North High she was the only girl in its music technology class.
“This was back in the early 2000s and we got to be producers,” she said. “It was crazy what we were doing. I’m really happy and lucky to have been exposed to that. That made me want to be a producer and from there I got into making music for house parties.”
She was also in color guard and played varsity tennis. Her curiosity and enthusiasm attracted opportunities.
“I was asked to do everything,” she said. “It wasn’t me dreaming of doing things, it was people saying, ‘We think you should try this.’ And since I don’t ever say no to anything, I was like, ‘Okay, I’ll try it, sure, why not,’ And then when I tried it I realized I actually liked it.”
Creativity does run in her extended family. Her late cousin Thomas Curry made a name for himself as an Omaha street photographer. He documented various local scenes and events, including the Native Omaha Days celebration she’s helped hype.
Being the first or only Black female in different spaces, she said, meant, “putting myself in uncomfortable situations, but if I didn’t do that then I wouldn’t have gotten those opportunities.”
ReRe has joined the growing ranks of Black women from Omaha to make their mark in media and entertainment, including Cathy Hughes, (Radio One/TV One), actresses Gabrielle Union, Yolanda Ross and Q. Smith, writer-performer Amber Ruffin, entrepreneur, content creator and influencer Trishonna Helm, journalists Victoria Benning (Bloomburg News), LaShara Bunting (Online News Association), and Brittany Jones-Cooper, (Yahoo Lifestyle) and political commentator Symone Sanders (MSNBC).
Though ReRe admires these women, some of whom she personally knows, “There was nobody I looked up to or studied.”
True to form, she’s about doing her own thing and going her own way.
Her journey has been unique. ReRe left home at 17 after being accepted at Iowa State University, where she studied broadcast journalism after learning it could get her on the air as a TV weathercaster – a goal of hers since childhood. While at ISU she also worked in public radio news, filled a disc jockey slot on the campus radio station and spun vinyl at house parties. Her radio gig helped build a local fan base.
“People were listening, calling in, and that was a cool way for me to promote my house parties,” ReRe said.
Always up for a new adventure, she spent a semester studying abroad in Mexico.
“I was determined to learn Spanish and I was told the best way to learn was to go there, and that’s exactly what I did. In those days people that look like me weren’t really doing these things. I got a lot of backlash – ‘Girl, why are you doing that? Why you going over there? It’s unsafe.’ I didn’t want to be talked out of it because of the unknown. I’m one of those people who’s like, If it don’t work, it don’t work. But if it works it’s probably going to work really well.”
Though not without challenges, the experience proved formative for the “hugely independent” seeker.
“I lived with a family in Cuernavaca. They didn’t speak any English. I had to eat the food they gave me, I had to get myself to school somehow because they weren’t driving me. It was insane what I had to go through. That’s probably one of the wildest things I’ve done. But I met people. You find your tribe after a while. We traveled the whole of Mexico together. We went to crazy little towns, pueblos. I played on a volleyball team there. I went dancing every Wednesday at this club. I went to house parties. They taught me new music and the music I experienced I brought it back with me.”
She still stays in touch with a family she met there.
After graduating college, she returned home, but resistance to her on the DJ scene got to be too much.
“I said, okay, I can’t keep doing this. I moved to Virginia for about a year,” she recalled. “I worked for a network TV affiliate as an associate producer and production assistant. I was writing, I was doing a lot. It was a whole other adventure. But I didn’t like Virginia.”
Music was the one constant in her life.
“I was always a DJ through all these journeys in my life,” ReRe said.
She traces her love of music to her family.
“You can blame it all on my dad,” she said. “He would play music and tell me stories about the songs as if you were actually there.”
Though she had already lived in various places, settling in Miami involved a culture shock.
“Oh, that was a wakeup call,” she said. “Miami is completely different from any place in the world.”
She stands by that statement even after touring to Bahrain, the Caribbean, the British Isles, Southeast Asia and playing in London and Paris.
Miami was not a dream destination, but it has become home.
“I moved there because my homegirl suggested it,” ReRe said. “At the time her and I were doing very similar things in life. We were very out front, having fun, we didn’t want to be tied down to no job or anything. We worked jobs to make us money and then we would have fun, go out to dance, to eat, just being young 20-somethings.”
The businesswoman in ReRe was practical enough to save money and buy a house. Less than a year after starting a new job she got laid off. With the stress of adjusting to a new culture, needing work to pay her mortgage and licking her wounds after broken relationships, she poured her energy into DJing.
Content-creator and social media influencer Alyssa Castillo of Miami said that upon meeting ReRe in 2012, “It was clear she had something special.”
“The industry, especially the club scene, wasn’t easy to navigate as a woman,” Castillo said. “There weren’t many female promoters or DJs at the time, and breaking through those barriers took more than talent, it took resilience, grace and vision. Miami became the place where we both grew and found our footing. ReRe’s growth since those early days has been incredible to watch. She’s proven that women don’t just belong in the entertainment industry, we redefine it.”
The way Castillo sees it, women make that entertainment space their own, and ReRe is a leader in that movement.
“Female DJs bring a unique energy, emotional intelligence and creativity that elevate the culture. ReRe has shown what happens when talent meets determination,” Castillo said. “She didn’t just adapt to the scene, she helped shape it. I’m truly proud of how far she’s come and the legacy she continues to build for women in music and beyond.”
With Castillo’s help setting up her first photo shoot, shaping her image and building her portfolio, ReRe put herself out there. She fared well in Power 96’s Mixmaster DJ Competition at The Clevelander on South Beach, earning a residency there, and in the JLab Audio Dj competition in Oceanside, California. Bookings near and far followed, including Carnival Cruise Lines, Virgin Voyages, Princess Cruises and Royal Caribbean Cruises.
She played festivals such as Rolling Loud and Superfest headlined by Cardi B and Migos. She made Djanemag.com’s Top 100 Female DJs.
Along the way she earned a Public Administration master’s from Bellevue University as a challenge and skills enhancement opportunity.
“I applied, got accepted and actually graduated. I’m so proud of myself because it was not easy,” she said. “Shout out to Bellevue University – they have a really good program. I got my masters while I was working on a cruise ship.”
Between Remixed Events gigs, MixHers, bootcamps and touring, she said it’s hard to catch her in place for long As it did for many, COVID-19 made her do a reset.
“The pandemic definitely sat my ass down a lot,” ReRe said. “It really made me focus on more business aspects of what I’m doing.”
Working with purpose, she’s built an impressive client list of Nike, iHeartRadio, Barbie, Champs Sports, Formula 1, Miami Grand Prix, ESPN and many other brand names. Spinning and hyping is great but it’s a transient thrill and she has bigger, more sustainable, even legacy goals in mind. She has her own merch line,
“When you make it a business and you make an empire out of it, it’s a completely different thing,” she said. “I’ve made it into a very profitable business. I’m at the stage where it’s not about me, it’s about a bigger thing than me. I’m at the point where I’m teaching and allowing others after me to flourish and have opportunities that I never actually got.”
Now that she has made her passion into a two-decade career and oversees three entities, she’s all about paying forward what she’s accomplished.
“You can’t keep all this stuff for yourself, and you can’t do it all by yourself,” she said. “You have to have the community. To have all this stuff die with me, that’s stupid.”
Culture, community and sisterhood, she said, are bound to be her calling cards as she expands her career and brand. She makes her presence felt increasingly with an eye towards passing on a legacy so that the next generation of women won’t have to fight the same battles she did for respect and acceptance.
Fans can follow her busy life and career on her Instagram and Facebook pages.