Lexos Keeps Leveling Up

Bi-coastal DJ, artist, and musician Lexos is starting the year off with good energy and big plans.

In December 2020, Lexos, real name Alexis Chang, was bored at home during the pandemic when she decided to download Virtual DJ, a software program that allows you to DJ from your computer. Lexos had been playing guitar and making beats for years, but DJing was new and different.

Soon enough, on an after school trip to Sam Ash Music Store in Lexos’ hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, Lexos and her best friend Kaila Spearman found a Numark Mixtrack DJ controller for half off. 

Kaila, a singer and musician herself, encouraged Lexos to buy the controller and take her DJ game to the next level.

“You can only go so far by DJing on your laptop, because you can only press one thing at a time,” Lexos said. “Whereas on a controller you can be cross-fading, while you're filtering out, while you're adjusting the equalizer (EQ) – you could do a lot of different stuff at once.”

Now, in 2024, Lexos is booked and busy. As a bi-coastal DJ and musician, you can usually find Lexos zooming from gig to gig on her signature electric scooter with her “DJ duffle bag” thrown over her shoulder. 

Lexos has spent the past three years building up her DJ resumé, playing events at The Sultan Room, The Brooklyn Museum, Littlefield, The Lodge Room, and Station1640 Hollywood to name a few. 

Although Lexos had performed in New Haven and LA, she began DJing in New York in the summer of 2023. In June she began “AirBnB hopping” in Brooklyn, taking the MetroNorth train from New Haven on weekends, and staying with friends and family in the city. 

“My first set in Brooklyn was at this Caribbean Asian restaurant [LA’MODE BK] right below this place where I was staying in Crown Heights,”  Lexos said. “Event space is really important for curating vibes.”

As Lexos continued to perform in New York, she became more involved in the tight-knit, queer nightlife community in NYC. 

“I just love the queer nightlife community in New York City,” Lexos said. “I moved there on a whim, not knowing many people, so I’m grateful to have found friends and community that welcomed me with open arms.”

Recently, Lexos’ DJed one of her favorite gigs ever at Starr Bar in Brooklyn for “Zodiac Aphrodisiac,” a monthly queer dance party presented by her friend DJ Zoobiana featuring DJs with certain zodiac signs only playing artists that share their sign. New and old friends in New York came out to support Lexos’ set. 

“Different events allow me to connect with more people and reconnect with more people,” Lexos said. “One of my friends from high school, who I haven't talked to in a couple of years, lives right next to [Starr Bar]. It was just cool to be able to have a space be more accessible to people that I haven't been able to see in a while.”

When comparing her two cities, Lexos feels like DJs in NYC are more approachable, often playing in smaller spaces or at tables where you can strike up a conversation. After the summer ended, Lexos was anxious that she wouldn’t feel the same way when she headed back to school in LA. 

“I was really nervous to go from going out in New York City, when I had to leave at the end of the summer, I was like, ‘Dang, am I gonna be able to find this when I go back to school?’” Lexos said. “I want to be able to find the same community, because every time I go out in LA, the DJs would be alright, it would just be kind of sweaty.”

Taking matters into her own hands, Lexos started hosting her own events in LA, with the most recent one being held at The Friend Bar. 

“Before, throwing an event sounded super overwhelming to me because I didn't even know how to do it,” Lexos said. “But doing it at this time in my life, I'm ready for it.” 

The first event Lexos ever hosted was on her 22nd birthday in Downtown LA with her friend PDOT, a photographer and DJ.

“I was really nervous,” Lexos said. “I've realized with DJing, no matter how much prep [you do], there's room for technical difficulties or issues. Literally, nothing went wrong. Everything went so smoothly.”

Lexos’ friends and members of the LA music scene came out to support the event, helping out with bartending, setup, and hyping up the DJs.  

“I'm a very community-based person, I love to bring people together,” Lexos said. “Everybody was really willing to help create a great night.”

Lexos hopes to continue throwing events and curating spaces that make her and her community feel good. 

“I want to make an event with good music, good people, good vibes and good energy,” Lexos said. “That's what I'm hoping to do over the course of this year.”

After releasing mixes with Virtual DJ, the event marked PDOT’s first official DJ gig. Lexos said she wants her events to provide new opportunities to DJs who haven’t been able to perform publicly yet. 

“We also did something called ‘back to back,’ which is when he plays one track, and I play another and we both basically go back to back,” Lexos said. “I didn't learn to do ‘back to back’ until this year, which is my third year DJing, and [PDOT] did it in three days. He learned how to use a controller and everything. He's just a very fast learner.”

Aside from throwing her own events, Lexos is warming up to new spaces and parties in LA. 

“I've found more events and DJs here that I really like that have more accessible energy,” Lexos said. “There’s this DJ I follow named KENE O and he DJs at this flea market in LA called Black Market Flea, which is a pretty popular flea market. He also throws this event called “Play by Ear” at the Ace Hotel. That event is the best energy ever.”

As a proudly self-taught DJ, Lexos is a regular student of what she refers to as “YouTube University.”

“I just love to learn things. I really like to expand on past things that I learned before. I definitely love YouTube University,” Lexos said. “The more I learn with or the more I am able to elevate in my skills, the more expressive I'm able to be in my music because I do stuff that sounds exactly like what I hear in my head.”

Beyond the music, Lexos handles the business side of her art and has even established an LLC for her events, DJ services, custom beats, and DJ tutoring. This past year, Lexos focused on mastering CDJs, which are club standard controllers that many venues use. 

“Someone told me about this place called Pirate Studios, and they have CDJs that you can go to a studio and practice on, and so I finally learned to do it. Now, that opens up a whole different direction of DJing,” Lexos said. “There are some [venues] that don’t let you bring your own equipment because they already have a setup and it will make everything more complicated. I can play those places now because I know how to use the CDJs.”

Being a music production major also helps Lexos apply music theory to create impactful dynamics and song structures to her DJ sets. 

“With DJing, I definitely had to learn timing and transitioning,” Lexos said. “When I'm transitioning out the chorus of the first song, knowing when to bring in the intro the second song and have everything lined up. I feel like my music theory classes have definitely helped with that.”

Producer Isaiah Jeannot, one of Lexos’ closest friends and frequent hype man, said he has enjoyed seeing Lexos grow from DJing backyard college parties to some of the higher profile venues in LA.

“The environment changes and her surroundings change, but she's always been great,” Isaiah said. “I know that a big opportunity is going to come with a lot more people, and she's going to absolutely do amazing when an opportunity is presented to her. And then, the rest will be history.”

Isaiah and Lexos initially bonded after a five-hour conversation in her dorm room about music and their creative goals. 

“It was really inspiring to find another person that was just as dedicated to music as me,” Isaiah said. “She has such a big heart and love for music, and love for creating a good time for people that I haven't really met in any other person before.”

Lexos describes her DJ style as versatile, as she specializes in mixing genres and letting the energy of the space lead the way. 

“I'm an open format DJ, so I play all genres,” Lexos said. “I have a very diverse music background when I play, which I definitely take a lot of pride in. When I first started DJing, I was mainly playing old 90s R&B or hip-hop because they all had very similar [beats per minute] so they were easy to practice mixing with. But then I was like, ‘I really want to start bringing in other genres,’ and then have been doing that as I've gone on.”

Outside of DJing, Lexos also records music and continues to play guitar. In May, Lexos released a cover of Planet Giza’s “Limb” on Spotify after developing a strong connection with the song.

“I was going through a lot of emotional turmoil [in May] for a lot of different reasons, and I found that song on Spotify radio, and I literally did not turn it off for the remainder of the month,” Lexos said. “I was working on a random beat where I was trying to mix Afrobeats with R&B. Then, as I was playing guitar over it and freestyling melodies for my own song, I started to sing the lyrics of ‘Limb’ over it and realized it sounded really good.”

In the next year, Lexos hopes to make more original music, but is still warming up to the idea of sharing her inner thoughts and feelings with the world. 

“Sometimes releasing music can definitely feel like putting pages of my journal on a billboard,” Lexos said. “I also really like to freestyle, so I'll just make a beat, and then just play the beat and freestyle melodies, and then write [on] them after.”

Today, Kaila and Lexos are still best friends and each other's biggest fans. Kaila talks to Lexos about everything from singing over her beats to social media promotion, as they serve as creative sounding boards for each others’ paths.  

“We're always working together, always,” Kaila said. “We're always thinking of content ideas for each other, helping each other just in general with the business side of stuff and posting. We're always talking about how to better ourselves.”

For Lexos, 2024 is her “execution year,” as she is set on bringing her goals, both big and small, to fruition.

“In the past, I've been like, ‘I really want to do that, but I don't know if I'm ready to be able to do something like that,’” Lexos said. “But then this year, I was like, ‘I don't even know how to do all that yet, but I'm just gonna do it because I have to do it at some point.’”

More events are on her horizon as well as a potential album dropping in 2025. 

“I​​ definitely have big goals of where I want to play. Black Market Flea is one of them. I’m really manifesting playing there. Manifesting playing with DJ KENE O,” Lexos said. “I'm a huge believer in divine timing: stuff happening when it's supposed to happen.”

You can find Lexos on Instagram at @lexooozzz and listen to her mixes on Soundcloud here. You can also book a DJ class with Lexos here.  

Photos are courtesy of Alexis Chang.

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