It’s 4AM in NYC
“New York is not here to make you happy, it does not care about you. You have to get out there every day and claim it”. How does one survive and thrive in the city that never sleeps? Creating nights filled with romance and possibility in spite of it all; this is the story of the DJ, producer and educator known as 4AM NYC.
All photos by Geoffrey Leung for Nouveau York
NOUVEAU YORK: “Hi, are you from New York?” asks Nicole in the opening of her song “New York Eyes". Your answer is complicated, isn’t it?
4AM NYC: Ha. Yeah... My mom is Italian American. She was born and raised in Brooklyn – Borough Park to be specific. My dad is English. They met in New York on a blind date. A year later they were married and my mom relocated to London to be with him. So that's where I was born and educated. I've been a dual citizen since birth; going back and forth between the two cities all my life. I moved to NYC 13 years ago and so when new people ask me where I'm from I tell them I'm from New York. There are folks out there who would fight me on it but honestly at this point I don't need to prove shit to anyone. Got better things to do.
NY: You were raised between New York and London, before moving to NYC. Tell us about your early memories of NYC as a kid and how it has influenced your vision or your fantasy of the city.
4AM: Oh my god. Are you trying to make me cry? OK fine – earliest memory... I mean the very earliest were of Christmas at my grandparents house. They're all hazy. I have trouble recalling things from before age 7/8 accurately. But the overall mood board of memories from those Christmas's are all so happy and warm and bright and magical. They include snow and wrapping paper and tiny lights and comforting spiced smells and oreos with milk. And stuffed animals. And living room furniture covered in plastic. And the dishware that my grandma used all the time – it had autumnal fruits and flowers on it and gold trim. The back door to their apartment was one of those classic swinging doors with the silhouette of the horse and carriage on it. They had ceiling fans in every bedroom and I remember going to sleep on Christmas eve staring up at it and being lulled by the gentle hum... comforting. They had a little table in their hallway with a telephone and an address book on it. One of those ones that you move a slider down to the letter of the alphabet you want to look up, and then press a button and the lid snaps up to that exact part of the booklet. I would play with that for hours. My mom and my grandma would take me with them on shopping trips to the city. Macy's. Bergdorf's. We'd go and see the tree at Rockefeller center. My parents took me to Radio City one time to see the Nutcracker and the Rockets. Red velvet theater seats, ice cream and popcorn, golden lighting, anticipation. Magic. Promise. I was lucky.
“New York is the place where I found my calling. I've made my best art here, I've become a full person, and continue to evolve.”
NY: When moving back to Brooklyn, you said that your life took a new path and you got sober. One might think NYC is the worst place to be sober, for a lot of different reasons. Is it a cliché?
4AM: If you need to get sober you can do it and you will do it anywhere. I've met people who have been bartenders before they got sober, stayed sober whilst tending bar, and still work in that industry to this day. Completely sober. For an alcoholic, anywhere is a good place for a drink – suburban town in middle America; a tiny village town in the upper Hebrides; a tent in the middle of a desert. Doesn't matter. Everywhere is 'New York' to you if you wanna drink that badly. And, as much as there's plenty of tempation and endless excuses to get fucked up in this city, there's also so much support and so many resources at your finger tips if you don't. I feel very lucky to have been living here when I decided that I needed to make that crucial transition. Ironically it is one of the best places in the world to get sober.
NY: You were studying fashion and going out to clubs in London. Fashion and nightclubs are probably the two things for which London might outsmart New York, right? Why did you decide to leave London for NYC then? Was New York calling you?
4AM: You could say that. More practically though, I graduated from college just before the recession hit. I had a job secured before I left school, but my entire department was axed once the housing crisis reared its ugly head over the U.S. economy and ripped through everything else like wildfire. I was unemployed for months – couldn't even get a retail job because everything was so scarce. The best offer I got was for a 3 week placement at a 'designer brand' in New York that I didn't even like that much. And the role was completely computer-based even though I was a tailor and a pattern maker! But the money was good, and for personal reasons I wanted a change of scene so I packed up and left London pretty suddenly. I left quickly so that there wasn't time to think about it too much. I knew I would figure everything out. It did also feel like I was going home, kinda. Even though my brick and mortar home was in London... Physical shit matters less and less to me as the years roll by. Familiar feelings remain...
NY: When did you start considering yourself a “New Yorker”? How did that happen?
4AM: Hmmm... This is hard. It depends on what day it is as to whether I consider myself a New Yorker, to be honest. My experience of living here has been so extreme and unwelcoming at times. A lot of the time! I can't emphasize that enough. It has fucked me up beyond belief – I've met the cruelest people here. It's not a place that instills a sense of belonging – even for someone like me who has family and generational bonds to the city. Equally though, New York is the place where I found my calling. I've made my best art here, I've become a full person and continue to evolve. As hard as it is, I know I have the best shot of truly Becoming here. I've found my family of choice in the city. As well as mentors, friends, sisters, lovers. It's just always up and down. I never feel truly safe or stable.
“Nothing about [New York] is gentle or forgiving. But fuck me it's FUN. ”
NY: “It has fucked me up beyond belief – I've met the cruelest people here.” That’s one of the toughest description of NYC I heard.
4AM: New York is not here to make you happy. It doesn't care about you. You have to get out there every day and claim it. You have to fight for what you want in all areas of life. Nothing about this place is gentle or forgiving. But fuck me it's FUN. And there's something about rising from the ashes it drags you down into over and over again that is so addictive and life affirming. I'm not done here just yet. I think a big part of me is stubborn about it too - like I don't want to leave coz i don't want to feel like it's chased me out or it's 'won'. My therapist would have a fuckin FIELD day with this answer [Laughs].
NY: Do you consider New York being your final, ultimate home base?
4AM: Oh god. No. I can't say that I do. I want to. I really do. But not at this stage of my life. Nor this level of income, to be perfectly frank. In order to be able to relax and enjoy this city as a homebase I would need to be able to comfortably afford to live here without the compromises and sacrifices to my lifestyle that I am making now. And I think that is hard to afford below a certain number. Taxes are crazy. The cost of living is wild. Need I go on? But the fantasy answer is yes. Yes I do. It would be amazing to be able to live here at the standard I deserve, and to be able to travel to visit my family in the UK, and also tour the world with my art. I can allow myself to continue working towards that goal, for now.
NY: Do you feel New York is a place where people feel lonely? Is it a NY paradox?
4AM: Of course. People talk about this phenomenon constantly because it is true – it is their lived experience: to feel completely alone in a city of millions. It doesn't matter how busy this place is or how many folks are around you – if you are not keeping up with the city you will fall by the wayside. And that is a lonely place to be. The pressure of this city is real. The way most people have to hustle and live leaves them with all kinds of problems to deal with – myself included. Anxiety, depression, debt, mental illness, physical pain, alienation. It's only become worse in 2022. I don't see these things getting better any time soon. Perhaps we will all get better at dealing with them though. On the bright side though – those records you mention have the opposite effect of the subject matter they draw from when played out. They have created countless experiences for me and others which are full of love, connection and pure joy. You have to find ways out of the loneliness. It is inevitable, but the prolonged suffering within it is not.
“The perfect 4AM in NYC can be many things but it MUST be romantic, hot, and full of possibility no matter what.
NY: You changed your name as an artist from The Duchess, to 4AM NYC, which is a pretty good name, because it really opens up the imagination… Please let us know what’s your perfect 4AM in NYC?
4AM: The fantasy is always me with a person I love. Walking through the city when it's quiet and it's oppressively hot out. And the entire city holds you both. Time always seems to move slower between 4am and 5am – have you noticed that? It's a stolen hour. It's a witching hour. It's the time when the veil between worlds is at its thinnest. Anything could happen. I've found myself riding in a car across the Brooklyn Bridge on my way to meet a lover... that was a good one... I've been with a group of friends eating scallion pancakes at Wei's after playing a great party... another great one... Making out with someone on the West side by the river... another good one... slow dancing with a new crush under the mirrorball to the last song of a party at Cielo one time... that was nice. Oh – entering [Brooklyn private loft party] Joy for the first time literally at 4:30am and feeling breathless and beyond excited by the lights and balloons and the sparkles and the shadows and the sounds and the smells. The perfect 4AM in NYC can be many things but it MUST be romantic and hot and full of possibility no matter what.
NY: How did you come up with switching to that new appellation?
4AM: In the winter of 2020, I was back at my parent's house in London and experiencing a round of depression that I had not previously known before. I had given up live streaming and organizing online events after an exhausting and pretty thankless year of doing so. I felt incredibly alienated from my friends and the industry overall. The pandemic was still very much in full swing. I didn't think I would ever DJ again and I couldn't bring myself to listen to my records because they just brought back memories. I was also suffering from crazy insomnia and would stay up til 4/5/6am sometimes. The new year was looming ahead and instead of feeling inspired and excited, I was just angry. I didn't feel like I had any control over my life or art anymore. I yearned for the city, the club, the night. I would have dreams and flashbacks of so many different functions spent dancing, DJing, hosting. Additionally, I was leaning harder on the legacy of DJs I come from – drawing from their strength and presence to get me through my every day in quarantine. The New York Underground culture and sound through which I was birthed is unapologetic, fantastical, extreme. It gives no fucks, has no regrets, lives for the moment. It doesn't seek outside validation. It comes from a time and a place in the past, the present and the future that is special, carefully guarded by our ancestors, not easily understood or accessible by all. It is sacred. The name came to me through the mental haze of all of that. I close my eyes and make a wish – where am I? New York, at 4am, in the middle of everything worth living for. 4AM NYC completely captures the reality of who I am as an artist today, the history I represent, and how I intend to strengthen the Underground moving forward.
NY: Let’s talk about another one of your fantasies about the city. In your New York record selection, you’re talking about this “rosy, 80’s, city-lights kinda romance still left somewhere in this place”. It’s about a romance of New York, right? Can you describe it? Tell us where it comes from?
4AM: Oh. God. It comes from the deep recesses of my subconscious. A mixture of fuzz-filtered 80s movies about New York... and dreams of what meeting someone and falling in love would be like here... a lot of unrealistic/old hetero stuff in there for sure [Laughs]. Some of it comes from memories of the decor in my grandparents home in Florida... Some of it comes from going through my mom's closet with her as a kid when she would try to decide what to wear on a night out with my dad. And then there's just the aural fantasy of that Nicole record itself. And not just that record – all of the greats from that time. Frankie Knuckles, Fleetwood Mac, Madonna, Pet Shop Boys, Bill Wolfer, The Quick, Stephanie Mills, Kashif. It's something I can't describe because I can't tell you about it in words. I'd have to invent another language or method of communication, and even then, when we were both using that our brains would open up and understand each other on a completely different plane than the one we're on now – me writing this at my computer and you reading it from your device. That's why we have music though – it really says it all. You can't SAY the things to the person you love that are in your favorite love songs – but you can dedicate the songs themselves to them on the radio. (Another 80s fantasy!)
“There will always be something to grieve in a city that is constantly changing like this.”
NY: You spent the 2010’s in New York. How would you describe that decade in New York, for music, nightlife and beyond? What do you remember about it?
4AM: Those were particularly special years for me because of all of the changes happening in my life at the time. I was newly sober, making money in a new way that was physically demanding and involved so many different people and personalities, and I was living outside of a corporate 9-5 structure and so I got to have experiences at different times of the day and night in ways I never had done before. That of course included music, nightlife and underground club culture throughout the city. I remember working with I Love Vinyl and trading promotion work for vinyl lessons from my mentor DJ Scribe. I remember running to the subway to get to Output on time for Q Tips Wednesday night residency 'Offline'. And I remember nights at Le Bain with Theo, Ge-ology, Maurice Fulton. Dope Jams parties at Good Room with Slow To Speak. Seeing Toshi at A1 and having him show me what was worth looking at from the wall and the new release bins. My first gigs at Doris and Sisters. Spinning at Starvue with my all femme dj crew Four On The Floor. House dance classes at EXPG. The residencies I eventually held down at Jupiter Disco and Good Room with my party series Spiritual Mental Physical. So much running around. A lot of hours spent in dusty record bins. Watching myself and my peers come up... start to get known, recognized, respected, booked for legit events. I also remember a lot of things dying and closing. That was already in the air when I first started to come around. It never ends though – there will always be something to grieve in a city that is constantly changing like this.
NY: What’s your biggest expectation for the summer 2022 in the city?
4AM: Expectations create inevitable disappointment. So, I hope for sun. And clear water. And warm breezes. And romance. And block parties that my friends are throwing. And spending time with my students and mentees. I have met so many fantastic people who I'm now teaching and guiding through their own journeys with music and that shit makes me so so happy. I get to pass on the magic that was given to me and watch them make mistakes, correct, thrive, and very soon surpass me in all ways. Or just come into their own glory. There's nothing like it.
NY: What’s your definition of making it in New York? Being a resident DJ at your own club The Lonely?
4AM: Ha. Well actually yes. I wanted my own venue back in 2015 and I almost went into business with an old boss of mine. The election in 2016 made us all take a backseat though... It is still a dream of mine. But to really make it in New York? In 2022? To achieve financial freedom. To enjoy autonomy in my art and the work that I do with it. To be a respected part of the Underground community here. To be able to call in favors when I need them. To be able to easily help others and make shit happen where and when it counts. To live in my own apartment. To eat well, drink well, sleep well. I'm not failing miserably at any of these, not by a long shot – but there is always room for improvement. I suspect that when I do finally achieve all of these goals, it will be time to leave and find another place to fight in.
4AM NYC
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4AM NYC share five of her New York classic records HERE.
About the photo shoot with Geoffrey Leung: “It was hard for me to pick a place in New York to shoot that was meaningful because there's nowhere in the city that feels truly mine. That's what makes my relationship to New York unique: the fact that I haven't ever felt truly welcome here, and have had to fight to stay over and over again in spite of that. So I ended up choosing the pedestrian bridge that connects Scott Ave over the traintracks in Bushwick as a location because it is a no-mans-land. It isn't a destination, it is a means to an end. You don't stay in it, you have to keep moving through it. Which is exactly what New York is like for me, and vice versa.”
