DJ SoulSister

Melissa Weber was born in New Orleans in 1975 and began collecting records at age six, when her father brought her to a tent sale at a Metairie record store. She became a crate digger before she knew the term — borrowing her father’s records, hunting garage sales every Saturday through high school, building a library of 1970s and early-80s R&B, funk, soul, rare groove, underground disco, and jazz fusion that most radio stations had long since abandoned.

She began volunteering at WWOZ-FM in 1994 as a college freshman, and her Soul Power show — which airs every Saturday night — became the longest-running rare groove radio show in the United States. In 1997, a ten-minute crash course in DJing launched her live career. The Hustle! party she founded became one of the most beloved nightlife institutions in New Orleans, running for over two decades. She was the first DJ to win New Orleans’ prestigious Big Easy Entertainment Award for Best DJ.

DJ Soul Sister performs vinyl-only, mixing entirely by ear in a style rooted not in technique but in deep love for the music. She has opened for George Clinton and Parliament-Funkadelic, The Roots, Bootsy Collins, Maceo Parker, and Tower of Power. She is a recognized authority on music history, a university instructor, a writer, and a candidate for a master’s degree in musicology at Tulane University.