Like how some people find solace in church, Thanushka Yakupitiyagea, a multi-hyphenate artist and organizer known as Ushka, finds it in the club.

The queer, Thailand-born Sri Lankan DJ became involved with nightlife over a decade ago, around the same time she started working in immigration rights. Having immigrated herself at 18 years old, the dance floor became a sanctuary amidst the challenges of her intense work.

Last December, at a Brooklyn party hosted by the music collective No Nazar, Ushka went viral for a clip of her spinning a Syrian song while proudly waving the Palestinian keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestine solidarity.

Ushka tells Reckon her advocacy on behalf of Palestine predates the Israeli military’s violent retaliation to Hamas’ attack on Oct. 7 that killed 1,400 people. Israel has now killed over 33,000 Palestinians at the time of publication—two-thirds estimated to be women and children.

Ushka is one of many LGBTQ DJs revolutionizing the dance floor and spinning for a free Palestine.

In 2012, Ushka deejayed at the Lincoln Center Out of Doors festival shortly after the Israeli military attacked Gaza. Both she and her former DJ partner, DJ Ripley, wore their keffiyehs, intertwining performance with their political values.

“Nightlife is about worldbuilding and creating a portal to be able to live the kind of joyous existence that we deserve,” she said, referencing the history of artists speaking out against apartheid, including during the South African era. “It’s not just about entertaining crowds; it’s about creating a sacred space where we are very, very clear about our values.”

For Ushka, the act of deejaying is a form of worldbuilding in itself, blending genres and cultures from Philadelphia with South Asian music or Afro Beats. She believes it goes hand-in-hand with activism, as both grant a DJ the power to shape the context of a dance floor.

One of her DJ partners is Sara Skolnick, who goes by the stage name Riobamba. She is an Ecuadorian-Jewish sound artist and a death doula. Riobamba, who began DJing over 14 years ago while working as a community organizer in Boston, tells Reckon that music and organizing both help process rage, grief and joy.

As an anti-Zionist Jew, Riobamba feels a responsibility to speak the truth: “This means naming that Jewish grief has been weaponized and exploited by Zionism to further supremacist violence, and to disrupt the narrative that Israel and Israel-backed apartheid is a Jewish project. While yes, there are deep wells of loss and grief that need to be tended to in the Jewish community, perpetuating harm unto others will never, ever heal the pain that we ourselves carry.”

Last month, while DJing at The Whitney Museum Biennial opening in a crowd full of funders and artists, Riobamba played Black songwriter, poet and actor Saul Williams’s infamous 2003 speech titled “Not In Our Name.”

As DJs, Riobamba believes they have a duty to disrupt “until there is a ceasefire and an end to the occupation—there is no business as usual while a genocide is happening. It’s time we remember that the dance floor can be a space to channel grief toward collective action—so find your place, and let’s get to work.”

Visual and sound artist Arshia Fatima Haq, an Indian Muslim in diaspora, is the founder of Discostan. With a deep understanding of how scarce queer spaces can be, Haq has dedicated Discostan to be deeply inclusive of LGBTQ people. The project started as a radio show in 2011, becoming a club experience and now a label, pioneering South and West Asian and North African (SWANA) parties with queer spaces.

“The project is really devoted to exploring what can be done in the club space that might not be possible in a more traditional art space, like a white-wall space,” she said. Mutual aid is central to Discostan, and Palestinian solidarity is no exception – their first fundraiser for the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund was in 2014.

“Our space, historically, has provided a counter narrative to the constant stream of violence and destruction against our people in the news,” she explains. “So, to play Iraqi, Syrian, Afghan, Pakistani music loudly in the middle of an American metropolis like L.A. is a statement, and that’s something we’ve been doing since we began.”

DJ Abby, a Maryland-based queer DJ, similarly sees the dance floor as an opportunity to make political noise. Pivoting from parties to radio during the COVID-19 pandemic, she uses her platform on WPFW 89.3fm, to uplift Palestinian voices, especially queer and feminist artists.

“At a time when the mainstream media is minimizing the genocide in Gaza, I do consider it my responsibility to use my platform to uplift the voices of Palestinian people—particularly queer or feminist Palestinian musicians like Bashar Murad and Yusor Hamed,” said Abby, who also says being queer has ties to her solidarity with Palestine: confronting injustice, rejecting binaries and building the world in which she wants to live.

On the radio, DJ Abby takes listeners through a musical exploration of cultural resistance and delves them into what she calls spiritual aspects of sound, such as music for strengthening, music for release, music for sorrow and joy and music for action.

“It’s absolutely true that right now, we must insert Palestine into everything we do,” she said. “While the U.S. government is funding the genocide of Palestinians, it is our duty as artists and queer people to resist our fascist government that refuses to acknowledge the will of the people.”

Haq agrees. To her, Discostan’s solidarity with Palestine is about standing up for humanity and recognizing the dangerous precedent that the violence in Gaza sets for injustices globally.

Several weeks after Oct. 7, artists throughout the world banded to establish an Artists Against Apartheid collective, releasing a public letter denouncing Israel’s attack on Gaza. Initial signees included queer celebrity artists like Kehlani and Mykki Blanco. On Feb. 22, a subcommunity of the group established DJs Against Apartheid, which includes DJs, producers, collectives, parties, clubs, festivals, radio stations, and overall nightlife artists.

Yonah Zeitz, a community organizer and one of its founders, emphasizes its connection to queer, trans and nonbinary communities and the influence of LGBTQ people of color who shaped nightlife culture, fighting to hold safe and comfortable spaces to be themselves in.

“It’s a no-brainer that folks that engage in nightlife and underground dance music would want to care about Palestine, because the struggles in Palestine are the same struggles that we’re facing here in the U.S. against white supremacy and transphobia.”

For Ushka, her stance on Palestine is about accountability to her artistry. It’s a pivotal moment with the potential to transform how we live.

“We live in an interconnected diasporic world where anything one community does affects the other. I really DJs to see that they have a role no matter what kind of context you’re DJing in—whether it’s a small bar or a large venue.”