The rhythm within: chatting with DJ and graphic designer Lauren Tussey—aka tigermilk
Lauren Tussey, also known as tigermilk. Image credit: Luciana Salinas
Try telling Lauren Tussey she can’t do something, and she’ll give you a hundred reasons why she can.
“I wear so many hats, and I like that about myself,” says the Nebraska-born creative. “That’s a strength.”
Tussey, 30, speaks with the kind of confidence that lets you know she’s the real deal, but with the openness of a longtime friend or mentor.
Charismatic and determined, Tussey was destined to be an artist. The copywriter, graphic designer and DJ started performing in middle school—choir, theater camp, musicals, you name it—but eventually left it all back in Omaha when she came to Chicago to study journalism.
In college she landed a gig at the women’s cannabis magazine Broccoli by sending a cold email to the publication’s editor. Eight years and 20 whimsical issues later, Tussey still works at Broccoli as their editorial assistant, working on the publishing company’s namesake as well as the brand’s other projects like Catnip Magazine, Mushroom People Magazine, Calling All Horse Girls and Mildew.
By her twenties, Tussey had found herself a home away from home within Chicago’s electronic and queer communities. Recalling her old hobby of making burnt CDs and mixtapes for her friends in high school, Tussey eventually taught herself how to DJ and began booking shows around the city.
The DJ wears cerulean. Image credit: Luciana Salinas
“I feel like I figured out from a young age that if you don't see what's on the other side of the fear, you'll walk away and be like, ‘I wish I did that, or I wish I would have said yes to that person who wanted to hang out,’” Tussey says. “We’re meant to connect—you just have to allow yourself.”
Tussey’s first paid gig was just after St. Patrick’s Day at Burlington Bar in 2018. She built her set using only Spotify and made a “scrappy little flier” to promote her show. But people showed up, and they haven’t stopped since.
Soon after her debut, Tussey started teaching herself how to mix, and last year took classes at Miyagi Records in Hyde Park, learning how to DJ digitally and on vinyl.
Tussey on the decks as tigermilk at a DJ set. Image credit: The Kid From Pilsen
“It totally changed for me the more serious I took it,” Tussey says, who just released her first co-produced track with Chicago DJ and friend, Floor Supervisor.
The track, titled “Cerulean,” samples a biting speech from the 2006 film “The Devil Wears Prada,” commonly referred to online as the “Cerulean Monologue,” in which fashion magazine editor Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) bemoans the protagonist Andrea’s lack of taste.
“You go to your closet and you select that lumpy blue sweater, for instance, because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back,” Streep says. “But what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue. It's not turquoise. It's not lapis. It's actually cerulean.”
“The monologue is so good,” Tussey says, who wanted to remix Streep’s cutthroat words into a song primed for the dance floor. “It’s an iconic part.”
While Streep absolutely eviscerates Anne Hathaway’s character in the aforementioned scene, Tussey has little in common with the venomous Priestly save for her go-getter attitude. Like her music, Tussey is uplifting and positive, with a desire to bring people together with her memorable house-infused mixes.
“Rhythm is so within me,” Tussey says, who also writes poetry and works as a copywriter at her nine to five job. “Words and writing. It’s all these pieces of me and now I see how it all fits together. It all makes sense.”
Tussey is a graphic designer, copywriter and DJ in Chicago. Image credit: Luciana Salinas
Tussey cut her teeth playing at venues in Chicago’s queer community—“Those were spaces I was in already”—she says, but it wasn’t until she was “blessed” with the name tigermilk by her friend and Chicago DJ, Jenny Fox, that things really started taking off.
Right now, Tussey’s most excited for the sophomore edition of Adult Supervision, a new event hosted by her collaborator Floor Supervisor at the members-only non-profit social space, The Listening Club.
Tussey played the inaugural event in November, and she’ll be kicking off the evening when she opens Adult Supervision 2.0 on Saturday.
Catch tigermilk when she DJs this Saturday at Adult Supervision. Image credit: Luciana Salinas
Expect to hear “flavorful bops, sexy lyrics” and tracks with “unexpected sounds and patterns” from Tussey—spanning genres like deep house and Detroit techno to juke.
“That’s really been inspiring me, especially for the show I’m about to play,” she says.
From her career to her art, Tussey is serious but carefree; humble yet driven. Her devil-may-care attitude makes it seem nearly effortless—but behind her go-with-the-flow exterior is an artist that’s on a mission to make moves.
“It’s an unfolding of myself every set I play,” she says. “Having people around me that are excited about it too? It’s a beautiful exchange.”
Adult Supervision presents Embodied: A Night of House, Acid, Juke, Detroit Techno & Latin House. With tigermilk, Gaybash!, Cobra B and Floor Supervisor. Saturday, January 18, 10 p.m. to 4 a.m., The Listening Club. Address emailed to ticket-buyers only.
