On Sunday, members of the San Francisco DJ Collective played what they claim is the world’s first-ever two-person DJ set inside a self-driving car. In a video posted to Instagram, DJs Moonvvater and Biluminati can be seen wearing black T-shirts and sunglasses, grooving with equipment on their laps, mugging for the camera and periodically vaping.
The 22-mile ride took them from Biluminati’s house in the Mission to the Embarcadero Center, the Marina, the Great Highway and back, lasting an hour and 50 minutes. “Luckily, Waymo allows up to four stops in one ride,” Biluminati said.
The point wasn’t to host a party for passersby but to capture a full set on video from within the robotaxi. The cost to drive around in a big circle? A cool $77.91.
There’s been a huge resurgence of electronic dance music across San Francisco this summer and fall. And while a DJ named Oleksandr claims to have executed the first live DJ mix in the back of a Waymo in 2023, Biluminati believes this was the first time the cramped rear seat of an autonomous vehicle has hosted a “B2B” — or back-to-back — set, in which the DJs trade off every few tracks.
“It was definitely the trickiest set, in terms of beat-matching and looking at a screen in a moving car,” he said. A software developer who started DJing in earnest in 2022, Biluminati said he plays “pretty much anywhere that will have us, with the goal of spreading love and positivity” — like Asiento and an Outside Lands afterparty with Shiba San.
On YouTube, the Waymo set runs to just under an hour. It’s heavy on tech house, with contemporary club tracks like Matroda’s “No Sleep (6AM)” cut with more mainstream songs like Sean Paul’s 2002 reggaeton megahit “Get Busy” and a remix of Stevie Nicks’ eternal banger “Edge of Seventeen.”
Cramming everything into the Waymo required careful planning. The friends had to fit two batteries, two studio monitors, and a full deck, plus a laptop that started burning Biluminati’s thighs. “We had a GoPro suction-cupped to the rear passenger window and a DSLR [camera] mounted to the ceiling,” he said. “The whole thing is glass, so at least that was easy.”
Waymo, he added, appeared to be cool with it — mostly. Once a car arrives, passengers have five minutes to get in, but loading all that equipment took a full eight, even with a friend helping. “Customer support called us twice,” Biluminati said, referring to Waymo agents who monitor rides and bark at anyone who dares break the rules.
When the friend unbuckled the driver’s seatbelt to insert a studio monitor, an angry voice of God came over the speakers. “They were like, ‘What are you doing? You touched the driver controls!’” the DJ recalled. “We were freaking out that they would see the gear and say, ‘You guys can’t have batteries and put the SFDJ Collective banner flag on the backseat.’ But luckily, they didn’t.”
Encouragingly, Biluminati added, Waymo’s social media team liked his Instagram story. He hasn’t been booted from the platform.
The company did not respond to a request for comment by publication time.
A 94-degree day may not have been the best timing for a rolling renegade set. But the peak of a heat wave it had to be.
“We had [Moonvvater’s] window down, but my window was up ’cause of the suction cups,” Biluminati said. “We were both sweaty, and our backs hurt by the end.”
But as Sean Paul sings on “Get Busy,” sometimes the party starts when you get in the car.