Dannah's Mask Off Mix
It’s about that time. The sun’s coming out, the birds are chirping and the CDC declared that those who are fully vaccinated can begin to peel the mask off. When we asked Dannah to do this mix for us a few weeks ago, she preemptively called it the “Mask Off Mix”, manifesting this news for all of us. Shout out to Dannah.
Dannah Gottlieb is a hard person to pin down. Raised in Atlanta, but currently based in New York, she spent years doing the freelance photographer & producer hustle, using her talents to get her in rooms she otherwise wouldn’t have been able to access. Her skill behind the lens landed her in TIME Magazine’s “Top 100 Photos of the Year,” as well as working on projects for FKA twigs, Megan Thee Stallion and Gunna, to mention a few. She knew from an early stage she wanted to work with performers — musicians especially — which led her to her current role on the creative team at Universal Music Group. Your favorite superstar calls her team to help build their visual identity, and dream up crazy ideas that function alongside the music. When she’s not running the books for a six-digit music video, she likes to watch movies, go for walks in the park and eat mediterranean food.
Dannah’s Mask Off Mix is now streaming on Post Up Radio
Continue reading for our interview with Dannah, some photos of her work and a full track list for her mix.
You’re from Atlanta, home of the sound of modern pop music. What do you love about the music from there, and how did it inform your taste growing up?
Atlanta’s creative scene is interesting because it’s a lot more experimental than you actually think. Consider OutKast and Young Thug. How many people have taken André 3000, Young Thug or Playboi Carti and turned that into the blueprint for pop music?
Your taste in film has a wide range, from heart wrenching dramas to oddball films like Gummo. What informed your taste in film growing up?
I was really interested in photographers like Danny Lyon and Larry Clark, but also obsessed with the YouTube channel Soft White Underbelly. I loved reading, watching and learning about stories of people with really interesting lives. Movies like Gummo or Tangerine are portraits of little pockets of America in which there are characters that you didn’t know existed. There’s something interesting about individualism in America and how personalities come from that. I was also very drawn to films that showed a different perspective on life than the one I had.
A lot of your work features women and performers as the subjects, what makes them your primary focus?
Between Atlanta and New York I’ve befriended a lot of women who were really different than me, and there’s something about performers specifically that make them the most interesting people in the world. You’re either born with it or you aren’t. I’m always very attracted to photographing natural born performers. This is one of the things that led me to do a series with the sex workers at Magic City, which I’m keeping on ice for the next 10 years or so.
You have a large collection of film stills and negatives that you want to release later in time as a book. Can you tell us about the relationship you work has with time?
I have a bag of random rolls of film of casual street photos that I’ve taken that I never got developed. There’s something interesting about the way time marinates photos, so that’s why I’m interested in publishing a book later on. You never know where people will end up, and having an archive of thousands of pictures of your friend who winds up doing great things, it’s time that made that photo more interesting. The subject of the book would be time, and you can’t simulate that process.
How do you feel about people who work in creative industries being boxed in to a certain title?
No matter what you specialize in, people always want to put you in a box of “you’re this” or “you’re that.” I don’t necessarily know how to define myself, but no matter what I do, there’s some sort of creative process in everything. Creativity is not just limited to someone who’s physically making art. There are people who work in tech, but the number one skill that’s required out of them is creativity. All I’ve ever really done is try a bunch of different things, and figure out which one is the most useful way to utilize my skill set. It can range from physically making art, developing a strategy, producing or organizing projects for others. Regardless, it’s all part of the creative process. People are allowed to traverse the different sides of their creativity, and each place will lead you to the next. Every move and experience has a purpose. When I was a freelance photographer, I always took an interest in strategy, and wanted to be in the position of the people who were handing down assignments to me. I wanted to build the direction and vision for projects.
As a photographer, you love working with new mediums and processes. What do you look for when you’re experimenting?
Creativity in general is like alchemy, everything in our brains is a chemical reaction. There’s something interesting about art that speaks in relation to the entropy of chemistry. So much about the creative process has to do with diving in head first to something. The journey of creating is what you’re learning the most from. Working with chemistry allows you to slow down and focus on having fun in the process, rather than trying to achieve a perfect final result. You could try a million times to do something, but sometimes there’s a divine moment where you have a happy accident that results in a unique piece, and you can replicate that ever again. It’s a very beautiful idea to me. Any time I’ve made a body of work I always plan it in a way that the final result isn’t ever what I’d initially imagined. Everything throughout the process of making the work informs what the final result will end up being.
Music to cook to: Jorge Ben Jor - Samba Esquema Novo
Music to drive to: Frank Ocean - Blonde or The Velvet Underground - Loaded
Music to work out to: Young Thug - Slime Season 3 or Future - DS2
Music for a cocktail hour: Frank Sinatra - “I’ve Got The World On A String”
Music that’s a guilty pleasure: Justin Bieber - “All That Matters”
Music to Post Up to: Enumclaw - Jimbo Demos or BadBadNotGood - IV
Dannah’s Mask Off Mix Track List:
Rich Boy feat. Polow Da Don - Throw Some D’s
Logic1000 - DJ Logic Please Forgive Me
Jayda G - Are U Down (Kootenay Klub Mix)
Tirzah - Make It Up (Club Edit)
Stereolab - Doubt
Daphni - Carry On
DJ Planet Express - More Than You’d Ever Wanna Know
Eris Drew & Octo Octa - Trans Love Vibration (Eris Goes To Church)
Daft Punk feat. Pharrell Williams - Lose Yourself To Dance
Against All Logic - Cityfade
Gunna - Speed It Up
Ojerime - Give It Up 2 Me
Anika - In The City
Larry Heard - Can You Feel It
Erika De Casier - Intimate
Future - Stick Talk
Mojave 3 - Love Songs On The Radio