Key Takeaways

• HoneyLuv’s house music style blends soulful grooves with live energy inspired by DMV go-go culture.
• Her military background shaped a mindset of discipline and self-belief that fuels her creative journey.
• She’s using her platform to spotlight community, culture, and the legacy of Black women in electronic music.

Soundstorm is the kind of festival that makes even seasoned artists take a second and breathe it in. When HoneyLuv stepped foot on the grounds in Saudi Arabia, she didn’t try to turn the moment into a speech. She just said what it felt like: “It’s amazing.”

That simple reaction tracks with the version of HoneyLuv people are starting to understand in real time. She’s a rising DJ and producer whose sets lean into the part of house music that still feels human. Her approach to sounds are groove-first, vocal-friendly, and built for the kind of night where strangers turn into a crowd. Even when the stages get bigger, she doesn’t move like someone chasing a trend. She moves like someone chasing mastery.

And to really get who HoneyLuv is, you have to look past the big booking and into the places and experiences that shaped her ear, her discipline, and her sense of purpose. Some of that story lives in the Midwest, where she’s from. Some of it lives in the DMV, where she fell in love with live energy. And some of it lives in the self-work she carried out long before people started calling her “next.”

DMV go-go influence and live energy

The Cleveland-born talent’s music travels well because it’s grounded in scenes that taught her how to feel a room. When she talked about the DMV, she wasn’t reaching for a polished anecdote. She was reaching for the memory of something that changed how she understood music as a living thing.

“Honestly, the go-go music, I never knew about live instruments, just the lives of artists out there,” she said. For those truly unfamiliar, the iconic D.C. sound is effectively a lesson in pocket, stamina, and crowd participation. It’s the idea that rhythm is a language, and the audience isn’t passive. They’re part of the performance.

She didn’t pretend she remembered every name or every detail, but what she did remember told the story anyway: “It was on K Street. I can’t remember the name of it. But I was there every weekend.”

That “every weekend” is how taste gets built. Not through a highlight reel, but through repetition. Through showing up, learning what moves people, and noticing how certain rhythms pull a response out of a room. If you listen closely to HoneyLuv’s work (especially the way she favors grooves that feel soulful and direct), you can hear that understanding of live energy baked into her approach. She treats a set like a conversation. Not a flex.

Military mindset and self-work

HoneyLuv’s rise can look effortless from the outside, but the story underneath it is full of pivots and pressure. She’s spoken before about different chapters of her life before music became the main road. When our conversation drifted toward her military years, she didn’t make it dramatic. She framed it through what it did to her mind.

“All those books that I was reading in the military really helped me to change my mindset and how I think about things,” she said, adding that she also writes things down to help visualize the goal at hand.

In a past interview with DJ Mag, she spoke on the importance of mixing a position attitude with dedication to her craft: “I’ve always told myself anything is possible, as long as you work for it. I didn’t think this would go as far as it did, but in my mind I was like, ‘I’m going to try.’ Everything I said came true, it’s crazy.”

For those more aligned with Hip Hop and R&B vibes, the easiest way to understand her appeal is this: She makes house music that still feels like it has soul. Her records and sets lean into groove, into vocals, into emotion. It’s dance music that doesn’t feel sterile, because it’s not trying to be “perfect.” It’s trying to be alive.

That’s also why she fits naturally into this bigger cultural conversation about Black music and where it goes next. House has always had deep Black roots, and HoneyLuv is part of the generation pushing that lineage forward while still making music that travels. She’s not stuck in nostalgia, but she respects the DNA. She’s not chasing crossover, but her sound crosses over because it’s built on rhythm and feeling, two things that don’t need translation.

The breakout momentum and what comes next

Every rising artist has that record that helps define the stamp — the one that makes casual listeners stop scrolling and start paying attention. For HoneyLuv, “Your Tongue” sits in that turning-point space. It’s the kind of track that communicates her identity quickly with a confident groove, a vocal presence that cuts through, and a sense that the record knows what it’s doing.

HoneyLuv’s next moves have been about expansion without losing herself. She’s linked with Aluna on “Waymo,” a collaboration that makes sense because Aluna’s voice and history sit right at the intersection of dance culture and wider accessibility, and HoneyLuv knows how to build a groove that welcomes people in without sanding the edges off.

Then there’s “Euro Flow,” her collaboration with Idris Elba via Sound International. It was essentially a collaboration in the making, as she previously took part in B2Bs (which DJs share a single set) with the actor extraordinaire at hotspots like Coachella. It’s easy for outsiders to reduce that to celebrity, but the better read is alignment: A global-minded house platform and an artist whose story already crosses borders. The point isn’t the name. It’s what it signals about where HoneyLuv can go, and how seriously people with taste are taking her.

But the clearest sign that HoneyLuv is thinking past the moment is what she’s building beyond the booth. She’s been vocal about community and creating space, which shows up through her outlet, 4 Tha Luv. It’s a platform that shows she’s not only trying to win for herself. She’s trying to shape rooms, spotlight talent, and keep the culture connected to what made people fall in love with house in the first place.

That’s what makes a “rising DJ and producer” story worth reading even when the festival weekend ends. Soundstorm is the backdrop, but HoneyLuv is an artist with a real musical education, real discipline, and a sound that’s only getting bigger because the foundation is solid.