Kaitlin Hawayek Takes DJ Talents to Formula 1 Grand Prix Party

Kaitlin Hawayek has gotten something very special out of her figure skating career.
 
Besides, of course, six U.S. Championships medals and a trip to the 2022 Olympic Winter Games in Beijing. 

It's through her time as an ice dancer that she developed a passion for music that she's turned into a blossoming DJ career.
 
"I always had appreciation for music," Hawayek said, "It's always been my favorite part of skating, is getting that enjoyment and attachment to the different sounds and the way that you can move your body to music."
 
Five or six years ago, with the goal of helping to edit the music she and her skating partner Jean-Luc Baker would compete to, Hawayek got a base-level DJ controller and began playing around with it.
 
"I worked on that, and at the same time I started creating my own mixes, and from there, I would post them on Soundcloud," she said. "It just kind of started out that way. It was very relaxed. There wasn't much of a vision behind it. It was more something for enjoyment."
 
Just a few short years later, Hawayek was one of the openers for Diplo at the Maxim Grand Prix Party at the Formula 1 Grand Prix du Canada in Montreal.
 
Not bad for a side hustle.
 
But who knows what would've happened if it hadn't been for, ironically, the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown.
 
With all sorts of time on her hands, Hawayek began mixing, doing virtual DJ sessions and hosting virtual parties with friends. When she got back to Montreal that summer as things began to open back up, she started doing some outdoor gigs at restaurants in the area that wanted to liven up their outdoor spaces.
 
"Once I started doing more gigs, I really enjoyed playing live and not just creating something within the four walls of my apartment room and putting it online," Hawayek said. "I enjoyed the human interaction. It's very similar to skating and performing, when you have something like that where you can practice it as much as you want, but the act of performing brings another level of enjoyment because you're interacting with a crowd. I found that the same way with DJing."
 
As Hawayek's love of live gigs grew, she began pursuing it a bit more. She credits close friend Julian Chan of VOSS Water with extending her opportunities thanks to his connections in the music industry, and she has gladly taken advantage of as many of them as she can.

Last summer, she and some other skaters based in Montreal went to the Grand Prix Party as guests, invited as influencers in the sports domain. When the event approached this year, Chan reached out and said he wanted to pitch her as an opener for the headliner, Diplo.
 
"I was like, 'Whoa, whoa. Diplo?'" Hawayek said. "He's one of the biggest DJs in the world right now. So I was like, okay, I'm not going to get my hopes up. The chances of this happening are pretty low, in my opinion."
 
But two weeks later, Hawayek and Chan were sending in her resume and mixes, and it wasn't long before she was being invited to DJ on the biggest stage of her career thus far.
 
"I was like, 'You're joking me, for sure,'" Hawayek said with a laugh. "And he's like, 'No, I'm not joking you! I'm dead serious!' So that was a cool surprise."
 
And it turns out that opening for one of the biggest DJs in the world can produce some Olympic-level nerves.
 
"I thought that competing at the Olympics would be the most nervous that I got. And it still is, don't get me wrong. I think competing at the Olympics takes the cake," Hawayek said. "But I was kind of anticipating that other things wouldn't feel as nerve-wracking in the future, and it felt not quite as nerve-wracking, but on a very, very similar level. I definitely got nervous, but in a good way, where it was like those butterflies, those pre-performance butterflies, and it was definitely a positive experience."
 
Hawayek was scheduled to play for 40 minutes, but ended up onstage for more than an hour when the act following her was late.
 
"The set was great," she said. "I got to play a lot longer, and by that time of the party, it was really starting to fill up with guests, so I got to experience some of that main-time-of-the-night energy, and it was a lot of fun."
 
Last year, Hawayek said in an interview that if she could open for any DJ, it would be Diplo. Stepping onstage and seeing their names on the same setlist was an unforgettable experience, one that Hawayek says lived up to all expectations.
 
"I didn't expect this quickly to be able to do something like that," she said. "When I said that in an interview last year, it kind of seemed more of a pipe dream, in a way. So the fact that I was actually able to open for such a big-name DJ so early on in my DJing career was very exciting for me."
 
When it comes to the future, Hawayek is much more relaxed with DJing than she is with figure skating. She always had the Olympic Games as her ultimate skating goal, but with music, she doesn't necessarily have a vision. In the next few years, she'd like to continue to open for big-name DJs, get a residency, play in other cities, learn how to produce her own songs and play at Picnic Electronic in Montreal.
 
"Other than that, I'm just excited to see where it can take me," Hawayek said.