DJ and multidisciplinary artist Yaxin Zong (aka Zong), with roots in Beijing and now based in New York, has been active in clubs and art spaces across China and the United States, directly experiencing both the differences and the unexpected connections in how audiences respond.
Recently, she introduced her self-published zine into several independent spaces in New York, including Academy Records, Village Works, and Wait A Second. The zine brings together her visual works and DJ mixes, guiding readers from the page to the dance floor. For Zong, it extends live sound into daily acts of reading and listening, creating a more immersive space.
With her sensitivity to sonic frequencies and her command of atmosphere, she now seeks to bridge cultural differences between East and West, uncovering new possibilities for resonance on a primal level.
Interview
Q1. Where have you been playing recently?
Zong: I’ve been playing in many different kinds of spaces, from small venues to natural environments. I want to continue exploring new possibilities and gathering inspiration. In recent years, I’ve felt a stronger desire to return to a more primal, elemental state of sound.
Q2. Are there particular settings that left a deep impression on you?
Zong: In the early days, I mainly played for dance floors in Chinese cities: Beijing’s Zhaodai, Wigwam, Solo, and Dada; Chengdu’s Tag; Shenzhen’s Oil; Shanghai’s All and Potent; Hangzhou’s Loopy; and Xi’an’s Jar. These venues formed the foundation of my career before I moved to New York.
More recently, I’ve been exploring contexts outside the club: restaurants, fashion shows, art events, and even natural settings. They’ve shown me that sound is a holistic experience, involving vision, smell, and bodily sensation. That’s why I love creating atmospheres in unexpected places.
Q3. When you play in very different cultural contexts, do you have concerns?
Zong: Not really. Each time I try to sense the energy of the place and let the music speak. Music came before language. It’s a form of communication that transcends culture and words, reaching directly into emotion.
Q4. How do you create resonance with an audience?
Zong: By being open to feeling. Once, I played a piece of shamanic chanting and people seemed to collectively enter a shared emotional state. At smaller gigs, passersby have even stepped in from the street to listen. That instinctive reaction is the power of sound.
Q5. Why do you choose this kind of music?
Zong: Because it doesn’t belong to a fixed system. Music works on a subconscious level. I’m drawn to sounds from different traditions; they feel very close to me.
When I travel, I find inspiration this way too. In Malaysia and Qatar, I heard the call to prayer every day. I didn’t understand the words, but I felt the emotion. That’s when I realized it’s not about which sound you choose, but whether it can trigger shared feelings.
Q6. What inspired you to seek out these primal sounds?
Zong: In New York’s Tompkins Square Park, I once saw people chanting the Hare Krishna mantra together. There was no audience; everyone was a participant. The repeated syllables acted like an inner cleansing, opening people into a shared field of energy.
It deepened my sense that music is truly a common language, carrying prayer, emotion, and memory, and binding people together.
Q7. Did that change how you think about music?
Zong: Yes. I often worry about how to express myself across cultures. That moment showed me you don’t need perfect language, just an open heart and a repeating melody. Music isn’t about announcing who you are, but about inviting people to let go of who they are and enter resonance together.
Q8. You often talk about sound as space. What do you mean?
Zong: For me, sound is the fastest way to construct space. The moment a sound arises, you are inside it.
In my sets, I use sounds not traditionally defined as music: the rush of a train, the murmuring of a crowd, ritual chants, conversations of elders. They don’t emphasize rhythm, but they carry spatial qualities and create a kind of field. In these moments, the audience is not just dancing, but entering a state of collective presence.
That’s why I use multilingual, multicultural sounds. Each carries its own code, capable of transporting people somewhere else. Sometimes the DJ’s task isn’t mixing or transition; it’s simply opening that door.
Closing
Through her practice, Zong has shifted her focus from rhythm to resonance, transforming her DJ work into a search for connection. By weaving together sound, visual art, and cultural memory, she builds spaces where cultural differences dissolve and a collective language emerges. For Zong, music is not about asserting identity, but about opening doors, inviting people to step into a shared field of emotion and presence.
Link: https://soundcloud.com/sloppydo
The post How Music Creates Cross-Cultural Resonance: An Interview with Zong appeared first on Magnetic Magazine.