Lady Waks

One of Russia's best and most well-known DJs, Alexandra Waks was born in St Petersburg but lived in Germany between the ages of 12 and 17. She got into electronic music through breakdancing and hip-hop parties, and after returning to St Petersburg she scored a hip-hop radio show on Russia's biggest radio station. She also started putting on the InBeatWeTrust nights with hip-hop in the main room and electronic music in the other. Simultaneously she worked at the big events company Contrforce that staged huge festivals like Soundtropolis, May Day and the World Of DNB.

At her IBWT nights she started doing the warm-up DJ slots herself, and her love of broken rhythms led to Waks and her "In Beat We Trust" nights becoming synonymous with the growth of breakbeat in Russia. Based in St-Petersburg, IBWT has done nights and festivals all over Russia. They put on the world's first breakbeat festival in the mid-noughties, and hosted stages at events like the huge "MAYDAY" parties in Russia and the wild, legendary Kazantip Republic in the nearby Ukraine where Waks has booked stage line-ups for the past five years.

Having perfected her DJ skills and become a cracking DJ herself, Waks started touring the world — playing everywhere from China to Australia, Spain to Miami, Germany to Siberia. She started producing too, releasing tracks on renowned labels such as "West", "Bass Planet" and Deekline's "Rat Records". Her joke track with Hardy Hard on "MENUmusic", 'Minimal', caused a stir right across Europe as it gently lampooned the low-key simplistic form of techno that was in-vogue at the time, and she started "In Beat We Trust" Music to feed more music by herself and others back into the scene.

Waks is now established as one of the principal DJs in the international beats & bass music scene, right up there alongside Stanton Warriors, Krafty Kuts and Leeroy Thornhill (ex-Prodigy) — playing everywhere from Love Parade in Berlin to top clubs like Fabric in London. She's received a fistful of Breakspoll nominations in recent years — for Best DJ, Best Radio Show, Best Producer etc — and has recently been touring a lot with German rave legend Westbam under the "Electric Kingdom" banner.

Her weekly radio show on Radio Record — the biggest radio station in Russia — continues to reach 84 cities in this fast-growing, huge market for electronic dance music, and — with a keen eye for art, design and photography — Alex has also recently launched her own clothing line and hosted an exhibition of her innovative design work. All the designs for IBWT — flyers, posters, stickers and logos — are done by Alex herself.

An amazing DJ, a multi-talented one-woman industry — is there nothing this diminutive powerhouse can't do?