Blond:ish—an international DJ, producer, environmental activist, and Web3 entrepreneur—wants one word to come to mind when people hear her name: Energy.
Her kinetic sets have been performed everywhere from Madrid to Miami, falling under the banner of Abracadabra, her music label and female-led event brand that features shows that are both in-person and streamed live on Twitch. Her goal is to make direct, meaningful connections with her fans.
She tells Penta she “wants to be relatable to people,” sharing with others that she’s going through the same journey of life everyone else is on, full of twists, turns, and unexpected deviations. Blond:ish, whose real name is Vivie-Ann Bakos, adds that she “is a shepherd,” aiming to bring escapism and community to those who follow her.
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The DJ was raised in Canada, studied computer science at McGill University in Quebec, and fully embraced her passion for music while playing sets in Montreal in 2007. From there, she’s played at every major music festival and even collaborated with Madonna on the reimagining of her hit single “Sorry” this year.
Beyond her music, she wants to put the Blond:ish brand behind environmental causes, founding her nonprofit Bye Bye Plastic in 2018 with the goal of eradicating plastic waste from festivals and music venues. The charity has salvaged about 5.7 tons of plastic from the environment. It has recruited 1,500 other DJs to join its #PlasticFreeParty movement.
Bakos says her desire to release a plastic-free biodegradable vinyl album last April was born partly out of online trolls who looked skeptically at her eco-activism.
“We’d talk about removing plastics from parties and they would say, ‘so what about CDs and vinyl?’ They’re made from plastic, too, ” she recalls. “So, we went from there and decided to take it a step further and make a record out of PHA, a bioplastic that comes from bacteria. If humans disappear tomorrow, this vinyl will break down naturally in a bacterial environment.”
At the end of the day, she says she wants people to join her in her “happy happy world.”
“Yes, I’m a DJ, but for me, it’s really important at every one of my shows to make as much eye contact as I can, give as many hugs as I can,” Bakos says. “I like to hold the space for people.”
She speaks with Penta about some of her favorite things.
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One thing that gets me up every morning is… My morning routine. My pranayama meditation practice. Ever since I came back from Thailand, I’m waking up at 5 a.m. [to meditate], I love it.
One place I’ve traveled to that I would love to revisit is… My trip to Thailand where I stayed at Chiva-Som, a wellness resort. It was heaven. Basically, no phone for two weeks, I put it away—I locked it away. No gluten, no dairy, no caffeine. I cleansed. You have hundreds of different treatments. This body you have, you can basically work on every layer of your body, you can exercise, you do physiotherapy, you can get a message. You can work on your energy body with chakra cleansing and craniosacral therapy. … I ate well, it was amazing.
The best book I’ve read recently is… Brain Wash [by David and Austin Perlmutter]. It’s by a father and son, a neurologist and a physician, and they went deep on how to connect all the problems with the world with the brain, and how we’re all in the amygdala brain, we’re all in survival mode and everything in society, every single thing from what you eat to just how you function all day, the news you watch, is all meant to keep you in your amygdala brain. So, you’re always in flight or fight. We humans need to be in the prefrontal cortex, instead. So, this book just uses a different perspective on breaking down how we can beat the system.
One form of art that has changed the way I view the world is… NFTs have really changed things for me. In art, you usually don’t have a direct connection with the artist. Sometimes you do, but it still feels disconnected. With NFTs, when you own the art of the artist, a lot of times you have a personal connection. You have a direct link to that community because you can interact with all the token holders who also have the tokens and their art. So, you just feel more a part of a community.
When it comes to a favorite dish I like to prepare… Well, whenever I go in the kitchen, everyone tells me to get out. I forget to turn off the stove, it’s dangerous. I shouldn’t [laughs]. But, otherwise, it would be Vitamix—I make celery juice in the morning and Vitamix is great for that.
If I could own any piece of art in the world it would be… a Dustin Yellin, the 3-D human tree-looking one.
A place in the world that I really love is… Santa Teresa, Costa Rica.
One passion of mine lately is…That Thailand trip I mentioned really reset me. I really took advantage of being off my phone, and just focusing on myself for two weeks. I brought that energy back into my real reality. I’m so motivated and the passion I have right now is just to be the best I can be and I’m getting one percent better every day, I’m using my brain in different ways. I’m playing piano every morning, I’m playing paddle…One percent better every day— that’s my new passion.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity
