We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Rebecca Nguyen a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Rebecca thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.
My dad immigrated from Vietnam after the war and went to high school in the US, where he listened to a lot of music that was popular in America, including artists like The Beatles and Elvis Presley. He traveled extensively in his early 20s before meeting my mom in China while pursuing his passion for martial arts. He was someone who knew how to follow his heart, and did it with relentless determination.
When I was a kid, I remember that I received a lot of pressure from some members of my family to become a doctor or a lawyer when I grew up. My Chinese mom played out that stereotypical trope many first generation Asian Americans faced in the 90s. One day when I asked my dad what he wanted me to be, he told me to “do what makes you happy.” That really stuck with me. Even though I was a rebellious child and often did the opposite of what I was told I “had” to do, it was cathartic hearing that my own father wanted me to have autonomy over my future.
Since then, I’ve tried to fit into different jobs that left me stressed and unfulfilled. It wasn’t until I remembered to think of my own happiness that I left a retail job to pursue music full time in 2018. I started letting my heart be my guide like my dad did a generation ago.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
My name is Rebecca Nguyen, I am a professional DJ and music producer who goes by the artist name Deitii. Prior to being a DJ, I was a full time Reiki healer and meditation guide working at MDtitate Studio in Newport Beach prior to the pandemic. My supplemental skills include web design, event production, social media management, and graphic design, which I also offer as services.
I started DJing full time after getting into a car accident in 2018. At the time I was working at an unfulfilling retail job with poor management, unpleasant employees, and disrespectful customers. I realized that life was too short to remain in an environment that treated me like a number on a spreadsheet, so I quit to start my own mobile DJ business.
Much of my previous experience as a meditation guide and retail employee informs how I approach my services and my music. Before working at MDtitate I was a freelance meditation guide and Reiki healer between 2012-2020. During those years I had to learn how to market and host my own events and workshops. I was a one-woman show – from client outreach to content creation and social media management. Through this I developed the professional integrity and attention to detail that informs everything I do.
My retail job gave me valuable insight on what to do and what not to do when it came to customer relations and managing expectations. I observed how failure in communication and lack of follow through on promises created unnecessary chaos and tension within the company. With my own clients and performances, I make sure to be highly communicative, asking the right logistical questions and relaying all the information they would need to ensure a successful event or show.
In an increasingly transactional society that values profits over people, that is something I am most proud of: I treat clients like people, not like a number on a spreadsheet.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
One lesson I am currently unlearning is the idea that because I am a woman that I will have to work twice as hard to achieve half the results. I’ve dealt with pain from my monthly cycle that would force me to stop everything that I was doing, and the momentum would stop on all of my projects. I started hating my body, thinking that being born a woman was a curse. That kind of victim mentality created frustration inside me – and that energy could have been directed toward actually playing more shows and signing tracks. I used to try to push harder against my body in order to meet my goals, but that only made me feel worse. This year, I tried a different approach and began focusing more on my health first.
I started reading a life-changing book by Alissa Vitti that’s been helping me understand how my female biology actually works and deprogramming the idea that I have to grind every day in order to meet my goals. Learning how to love myself and how to support my cycles has been helping me in nearly aspect of my life. I’ve learned to slow down to be more embodied and less in my head, and as a result I don’t feel that sense of urgency that I am constantly behind. The best part is that I’ve actually been meeting all my goals while feeling less stressed and more inspired!
To summarize, the lesson I unlearned is this: You can sustainably meet your goals by working as hard as you can, This is simply untrue. Great change happens from the inside out, and our bodies must come first.
What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?
I feel that artists have a sort of responsibility in what they are putting out there. A long time ago, music was used to express the sacred, and many early musicians made chants and hymns to honor the gods. Music and sound itself is such a powerful tool for transformation and has the ability to evoke emotions and shift our states of being. The reverence for music, as with many things that used to be sacred, like communion for meals, is lost.
I think that many of us live in a fast paced society where we are so focused on doing everything quicker, cheaper, and more efficiently, that we lose the concept of the sacred. Fast food and drive throughs replace home cooked meals from the community garden. Likewise, fast and popular music with “junk food” lyrics are being pumped into our airways. For me, songs should provide meaning or catharsis through word choice, instrumentation, and overall rhythm and flow.
What’s driving my creative journey is the desire to reconnect my listeners to their personal form of divinity. I incorporate elements of meditation and medicine songs into my DJ sets to offer a more intentional performance that nourishes the soul.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.deitii.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/djdeitii/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/djdeitii/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@deitii
- Other: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7hSUgxQ9XA77zMweZ0xIU5 https://soundcloud.com/djdeitii/tracks