“Why be an artist if we can’t enjoy the things we create?” It’s a question that summarises the viral Substack “everyone wants to be a DJ, no one wants to dance”, written by Dani Offline. As we sit down in anticipation of her debut LP, out now, it’s clear that enjoyment through participation in art is central to her creative philosophy.

A self-produced, self-sustained artist, Dani Offline is a cultural polyglot. Her music expresses a broader artistic worldview that traverses music, her 'offline soul' Substack, and her PhD in Comparative Literature. An early musical enthusiast, kindergarten piano classes planted a nascent love.

Despite her admission that “I wasn’t always the best student”, she would continue to study piano throughout high school. Engagement in the jazz program at Princeton University further sharpened her musical identity. “I had some classical training in choirs growing up, but studying jazz really opened my eyes to what it could look like to create music and improvise,” she explains. “I think my taste and style have really been shaped by that experience, as well as the music my parents played in the car growing up. A lot of jazz, 70s soul, classic R&B, that sort of thing.”

Fast forward a few years, and we return to the aforementioned question. For Dani Offline, there’s no contradiction. Whilst finalising the songwriting for , incidentally a process that culminated shortly before she wrote her viral Substack post, the artist was steadfast in her determination to remain grounded in her love of music. She elaborates, “When I was in the process of songwriting, I had to think really deeply about my relationship with music, my insecurities, and the love I feel for creating. Writing out those thoughts is how I worked through all of it. Listening to music is why I love making music in the first place, and I think I needed to remember that”.

’s Discourse finds aesthetic inspiration in the 70s quiet storm; a sensual, smooth subgenre of R&B that takes root in the work of soul pioneer Smokey Robinson. The project’s intellectual lead is taken from Roland Barthes’ A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, an exploration of the internal monologues we navigate in love. Funky single lead “ouch!” is accompanied by a playful music video, inspired by , a -esque game show that aired in the 60s and 70s. Dani Offline plays the contestant, a slew of prospective male lovers, and the show’s host. Describing this creative decision, “I wanted to play with the idea of being someone’s type, so I cast myself as the girl, all the men who are the love interests, and the host too. We’re all born naked, and the rest is drag!”

One of the potential lovers, a modern-day performative male (with an appropriately performative matcha latte), holds a copy of bell hooks’ All About Love: New Visions. The book challenges the idea of love as a passive feeling, advocating for the practice of intentional, repetitive affection. Its appearance in the video speaks to Dani Offline’s philosophy on love, and, with a nod and a wink, pokes fun at the modern pandemic of the performative lover boy. He’s educated, socially conscious, he reads bell hooks and he’ll still leave you heartbroken. It’s a blink-and-you-miss-it Easter egg that underscores the track's cultural literacy.

predates a tour that will see Dani Offline take Portland, San Francisco, LA, and London. If the tour is anything like the album, we’ll see her as both DJ and dancer, participant and spectator in musical consumption. Her skill lies in a dual capacity: the ability to be both a historian and innovator of art. is grounded in Black musical heritage, and yet, it avoids feeling outdated. It’s an intentionally current take on an age-old puzzle: what do we mean when we say ?

Conscious of the album’s historical roots, particularly Barthes’ A Lover's Discourse: Fragments, I ask Dani Offline about the universality of love. Whether her lived experience as a black woman in the 21st century led her to different conclusions than those reached by Barthes, a white man in the 20th. She keeps her reply short and sweet:

“Honestly? Listen to “ouch!” and tell me if a white man could write that song. I don’t think so…”

Enough said.