I Was in a Coma and Now I'm a DJ

When I first spotted twenty-year-old Arielle Marra, she was spinning to an empty room at six P.M. at the indoor dancefloor at Club Fifty, a space on—naturally—the 50th floor of the Viceroy building in Miami. Most of the action was occurring outside. Max Vangeli was spinning to a group of rolling partiers at a pool overlooking downtown Miami. Arielle was decked out in a white shirt filled with little Bieber heads and a maroon jacket with metal studs. It was a striking look. Despite playing to a vacant room, she was drinking her comped champagnes and enjoying herself.

When she stopped grooving I decided I needed to figure out her deal. I was wearing a shirt filled with pizzas and pepperonis that she enjoyed and I responded in kind about her sartorial choices. During our conversation she a revealed that she only started DJing a year and a half ago, right after getting out of a coma from a car accident. She was born in Staten Island, and was living there at the time. Now she in the 305 and goes by the handle of DJ Disable. The dot above the eye is the wheelchair dude from the disabled parking slots. I caught up with her recently so she could tell her story.

Noisey: So how did you get into a car accident?
DJ Disable: My friend was driving, and I don’t really know exactly how it happened as I don’t remember it, and I wound up in the hospital for three months. I was in a coma.

How long were you in a coma for?
Only about two and a half or three days.

Do you remember anything about it?
No. I don’t even remember the beginning of that night really. I had several injuries to my head, my hands my face, both my feet, my neck and my spine. My clavicle broke in half. The doctors told me that I was never going to walk again. So when I was released from the hospital, I was in my wheelchair with nothing to do, and house music got me through my time at the hospital. So I thought, why not teach myself how to DJ? So I did that, and then I also kind of felt like…I was able to walk…so I trained myself how to strengthen my legs again, and I used those surgical legs, and I used crutches to support myself. Once doctors could see that; they were like “Oh shit! Get her back into surgery!”

Why?
Well I wasn’t supposed to be walking. There were a bunch of crushed bones in my foot to the point where most of it was metal. The doctors said I shouldn't walk again because they didn't prepare me and the plate in my foot would have snapped. So they had to take that out, and then once I had that surgery and they took that plate out I started going to physical therapy. Then I could walk again!

What kind of equipment did you have in the hospital?
It was only my last month in the hospital and I thought that I would try to occupy myself. ‘Cause I was always alone. I tried to start producing, because I had a laptop and my headphones and I had Ableton but I didn’t really know how to do it. Since I had a head injury, it was kind of hard for me to focus on things at the time so I gave up on producing. I was like, “Nah, I’m not gonna do that.” Then when I got out of the hospital and I was in my wheelchair, I thought that I should just try DJing, and that’s how it started. I’m only starting to learn how to produce now.

What kind of music do you like to play?
My main thing is electro, progressive, and big room house.

What condition are you in now, physically?
I still have some permanent damage in places, but it’s not that noticeable. I can walk well, but I can’t run. I could skip a little. I can’t jump. It doesn’t hurt…sometimes it does. I’m just not physically capable of doing it. Living in Miami right now helps me a lot more than if I were still living in New York with the cold weather. I’d probably be limping if I was there (laughs). For my arthritis, it’s a lot more helpful to live in warm weather. I have a bad spine, and my neck is terrible and it’s always going to hurt me. I’m a righty, and I can’t really write anymore. Whenever I try to write or sign my name or something it’s just a bunch of (makes scribbling gesture with hand). I’m able to hold a pen or cup in one hand but I have to switch hands after a little because it cramps up. It doesn’t bother me. I get over it.

So you told me a story before about how you broke up with your boyfriend at the time, the day before you got into the hospital, but then when you got out of your coma you didn’t remember it…
Right! So that happened. I woke up and my family told me that he was saying he was done with me. I broke up with him the day before my accident, but we were still talking. But when I woke up, my family had no idea that I had broken up with him. I didn’t really communicate with them about my relationship. But they told me that he said that he’s “officially done with me”! So I’m like “WHAT?!” I didn’t realize what was going on. So I texted him and I fought with him and everything. It ends up he broke up with me because I was in a car with a guy when the accident happened. And I had been friends with this guy for longer than I had even been going out with my boyfriend. So he broke up with me…while I wasn’t even alive. He didn’t even visit me in the hospital either, which I thought was pretty messed up. But, I’m glad that all happened because it was just easier for me to move on.

What were you doing in New York before the accident?
I was in school for communications. I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to do but I always knew I wanted to do something in production with TV or music or movies. I used to be really into video editing in college. It was pretty amateur stuff. I used to try to make remixes of stuff in garageband (laughs). So I always liked making my own things and being creative.

Talk about how you feel being a woman in the DJ world.
I feel like a lot of women…it’s either one way or another. People take them as a joke, and go “Oh they’re hot, whatever” or they actually actually admire them and realize that they have talent. I feel like it’s really hard to determine which is which with women DJ’s for fans. Personally, I don’t look into a lot of women DJ’s because a lot of them do use their sexuality as a tool for networking and things of that nature.

And you don’t?
I mean obviously that’s helping me, but that’s not what I want! I want people to know my story and to know the power of music and how it can get you through anything. So that’s my whole thing.

If someone were to say to you “She’s using this disabled thing as a marketing ploy,” how would you respond to that?
Absolutely not. I started DJing as a hobby, and I was never going to make anything out of it. But then people really responded to it. And people told me that I should play my music and tell my story, so that was really encouraging. That’s one of the things that got me through. I mean, I was sitting home every single day with nothing to do. So I just wanted to teach myself something new and I realized I loved being creative. So that’s my dream now. Not only to play music and make music, and to inspire people with my story.

You want to know what’s really weird?

What?
I’m hungry right now. I think talking a lot makes me really hungry.

Jonathan Peltz is Noisey's reluctant Miami nightlife reporter. We sent him to Cam'ron's very sad birthday party, made him pal around with Afrojack, and had him interview NBA star-cum-DJ Roney Seikaly.