In July 2019, at one of Australia’s biggest music festivals, Splendour in the Grass, Ipswich girl Damelia Thompson danced in the crowd with hundreds of thousands of people.  

Dressed head to toe in a lime green outfit, you wouldn’t have been able to tell just by looking at the 24-year-old that hours earlier she had been the one on stage.  

Although she’d only been mixing music for four years, Ms Thompson who performs as Dameeeela, landed a spot on the Splendour 2019 line up.  

She admits playing at a sold-out festival with a 42,500-person capacity was a huge moment in her career, but said what’s even crazier to her is the songs blasting through the speakers were ones she grew up listening to in her hometown of Ipswich. 

“I lived in probably 13 homes in Ipswich by the time I was six,” she said. 

“My mum and I lived in a shelter for a little bit, we lived in Booval, Redbank, Bundamba, Raceview, all over the place.

“It’s come full circle, I would play these tapes in my mum’s car driving through Ipswich. 

“I just remember driving up and down these big hills playing these tapes and it’s literally the same music I mix with now.

“It’s about nostalgia, my mum could be at one of my sets now and think it’s the greatest. 

“The music that I listened to growing up in Ipswich like Tupac and TLC and all of that is so prominent there, everyone I know from Ipswich would listen to that and that’s why I still play it now.” 

In a culture redefined by streaming and social media, Damelia remembers when other kids would come to her for music recommendations in high school. 

“In grade 10 people used to ask me what was the best new music,” she said. 

“Every week I’d post five songs on Myspace and be like ‘here’s the five songs I found this week’.

“But being able to mix those songs and playing live came later.” 

Damelia was 19 when she packed her bags to travel Europe and when she returned she was determined to begin her future career. 

“When I was in Europe I met a bunch of DJ’s and I was watching them and thought, they’re just doing what I’m doing, listening to music, finding good stuff and then I would watch them play it to a crowd and I thought that looks so fun,” she said. 

“I came home and bought myself a little mixer and just started watching YouTube videos. 

“When I first started to play, I just knew people who would DJ at clubs so I would go out with them and they would let me pick songs and they would do the mixing. 

“And then it led to me doing the mixing and then I was covering for people and doing my own thing and it just grew from there.” 

And grow it did.

Damelia has supported popular artists A$AP Rocky, Anderson.Paak, Charli XCX, and played for crowds of thousands at huge festivals such as Listen Out, Splendour in the Grass, Dark Mofo, Fish Lane Festival and has featured on radio giant Triple J. She now has her own radio show on 4ZZZ Right here, Right now. 

The first time she played on a festival stage was at the RNA Brisbane showgrounds in 2018. She was playing for the Listen Out crowd. 

“It was so scary but also so exciting,” she said. 

“Being one little person on such a massive stage, you just kind of go into shock.  

“I didn’t even feel like it was as big as it was but now looking back I was like wow, I was a tiny little DJ that had never DJ’d like that before alone on this huge stage.” 

As an Indigenous Yuggera woman, Damelia said while playing at sold out festivals was exhilarating, her proudest moments were those surrounded by other aboriginal artists. 

“The way I see the Ipswich community is very indigenous and very person-of-colour based because that’s what I grew up around, so the music I play is so heavily related to that,” she said. 

“My proudest times are playing events that are run by indigenous people like Fempress which is an event by Hannah Bronte who’s a really talented aboriginal artist in Brisbane and she runs events at the museum.

“When I play there most of the other people I’m playing with are indigenous and women so those are my proudest moments, I’m so appreciative to be surrounded with people who are just like me, it feels like a little family.” 

You’d know she was a DJ just by walking through her front door as decks and various mix boards decorate her apartment. 

During the height of Covid, Damelia played virtual live stream shows from her living room and while Covid has had a negative impact on the music industry in so many ways, she said it’s changed the way young people consume music. 

“Because of Covid, everyone is making do and doing their own thing,” she said. 

The age of Soundcloud, YouTube and Spotify changed the way people have access to music, gone are the days you need a label to push musicians to radio stations - more and more young artists are self-promoting and getting their start on their own.

Threading a needle of support for her hometown, Damelia was enthusiastic about emerging Ipswich group, Swish Music.  

“It is so exciting, there’s an Ipswich group that’s come together as a collective that’s called Swish Music and they have a whole bunch of artists under their group. 

“And they’re massive, they have massive plays on Spotify, hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube.” 

With almost a million views across Swish Music’s videos on their YouTube channel, she said it was a proud moment to see young artists to join her in putting Ipswich on the musical map. 

“It’s drill hip hop, but there’s also one member who plays acoustic guitar and sings and then there’s this girl rapper who’s just amazing, she’s like Ipswich’s Cardi B,” she said.

“And just hearing them refer to ‘The Switch’ [Ipswich] and hearing all the postcodes and all the suburbs is so weird to me, people I know listening don’t really think much of it but I’m like, it’s Ipswich it’s going crazy. 

“It also just looks like they’re having so much fun, they’ve got these really well developed videos, they’ve covered all bases.” 

Damelia said she’s planning on collaborating with Ipswich artists later this year.

“I’m planning to have Ipswich musicians on my radio show, where I have live artists perform and it’s streamed live, it’s a more stripped back performance. 

“I’m so proud of the Ipswich music scene, it’s such a community and there’s such a sense of understanding and whenever I hear ‘The Switch’ I’m instantly such a fan.”

“People who I know who aren’t from Ipswich don’t quite understand how overdue it is that more musicians from Ipswich break into the music scene. 

“Finally there’s some recognition and from here the more we own it the bigger it’s going to be. 

“From here the sky is the limit, just one breakout artist leads people to more musicians from that area.

“It’s an opportunity for people to listen to bands in Ipswich and the rap scene in Ipswich the more the light is on Ipswich the bigger range of music we’re going to hear from there.”