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It all begins with a beat.The sound that moves a huge crowd, from the hundreds to thousands, living for the moment that makes you forget you’re an individual in the crowd. All the while accepting that you’re a part of a bigger movement – the union of souls being brought together by the sounds of a beat.

Bringing the masses together behind the turntables is Christina Petre, a 20-year-old communications major who is also known by her stage name, DJ Pinke.

“There’s a relationship between the DJs and the dancers and it’s kind of like an energy sort of thing and they give it back,” said Petre “You’re doing everything you can to get something out of them and they give a reaction and you feed off of each other and that’s always interested me.”

Petre became a DJ about two years ago when she met fellow classmate, DJ Super Mario, as he helped her find her place in the music world.

“I had the basics down before I met him, but he really helped me take it to the next level and give me a lot of guidance as to what I should do professionally,” Petre said.

“‘Cause there’s the skill element and how you choose to manage yourself and you choose what you really want to do with it,” she said.

Petre’s artistry and unique ability to spin separate her from other DJs as she feels the experience people get when she’s on stage will never be the same as someone else who spins on any given night.

“You can take me and another DJ, give us the exact same songs, and we’ll play them in the exact same order, and its going to sound different,” she said.

Petre has always been passionate about music as she has been a drummer since the young age of eight years old. Twelve years later, she still has her drum set, but remembers the day when she almost took home another instrument.

She wanted to play the saxophone when she was younger, so she took a trip to an instrument store. On her way to the brass section, she saw a man sitting in the drum room and her focus suddenly changed from brass to percussion.

“He was probably like 65 or something like that, and he was playing on this set and I was like ‘Saxa-what?’ I just started watching him and I was like ‘that’s incredible. I never even thought of anything after that.”

Her passion for music translates onto her turntables as she is always open to experiment with various music genres.

“I’m not afraid of cross-genre mixing. I’ll throw a reggae track in the middle of everything and let everyone sort of deal with it,” Petre said.

She also understands the relationship she has with the crowd as she has to prepare them for something different.

“They got to be like ‘I know you’re going somewhere with this, so I’m going to let you get away with it’ sort of a thing,” she said.

“Petre gets her music from all sorts of different places and feels that DJing has evolved since the art’s early days as MP3s have made it easier for music to be carried around.

Back in the day, DJs hand-picked certain vinyl records from their collection and carry them around in a crate and with MP3s, they can carry around thousands and thousands of records wherever they go.

DJs also exchange various tracks and they also go online to check out various music blogs to expand their collection.

“That’s sort of like the modern day crate digging I think it’s blog digging. You’ll poke around and you have your favorite blogs like you’d have your favorite record stores, ’cause you know they’re going to have the stuff that you like,” she said.

The most important element in Petre’s artistic persona is that it doesn’t deviate from who she is. DJ Pinke is simply an extension of Christina Petre.

Christina Petre, aka DJ Pinke, sorts through the vinyl section at Penny Lane on Colorado Boulevard, across the street from PCC. (Alfredo Aleman)

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