New Year’s Resolution: A DJ Gets Back on the Mic

At the end of 2014, we asked for your creative New Year’s resolutions, and we’ll pick several people to follow throughout 2015. More than one hundred people got in touch, including Maria Thornton. She fell in love with reggae music in her youth, moved to St. Croix, and became a part of the music scene, DJing and performing with bands. All that feels very far away, now that she’s a mother of three living in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Recently, Thornton was listening to a reggae station on Pandora and was surprised to hear herself, singing backup on Ras Shaggai’s track “Work Together.” She decided that 2015 would be the year she’d get back in the game.

Thornton admits that she has some work to do on her skills. “People are doing all kinds of stuff these days,” she tells Kurt Andersen. “I feel like I’m a little bit of a dinosaur. When I was DJing in college, I was mixing with two CD decks and one turntable.” She hopes her work will culminate in a reggae New Year’s Eve street party.

In 2015, she says, “the world needs more positivity. Now more than ever.”