Sara Landry schooled those claiming she’s an industry plant by posting a ten-minute video on TikTok detailing the path she’s taken in the scene to reach the success she’s seen in recent years.
Claims that certain artists are “industry plants” have been flying around for well over a decade. The term, which is used to describe an artist who has achieved manufactured success through nepotism, wealth, or connections instead of their talent, has roots in the hip-hop scene but has since found its way into other genres, including electronic music. These conspiracy theories, which have typically been misogynistic, have surfaced for years surrounding many DJs, and Sara Landry is one of the latest to be attacked.
Sara Landry emerged swinging after the dust settled from the pandemic and quickly rose to become one of the hottest names in the techno scene. She’s seen significant success on a global scale, releasing jaw-dropping tracks, racking up massive headline shows, and playing festivals like Tomorrowland, EDC Las Vegas, and more. Yet ignorant claims have consistently swirled that this success was all manufactured—and she’s finally had enough of hearing them.
Yesterday, Sara Landry took to TikTok and posted a ten-minute video to dispel those misconceived claims by telling the story of her career from when she started learning to DJ in 2014 until today. “Yall pissed me off so now you get to hear me yap,” the caption reads. “I ran out of time so this doesn’t cover my production work too much or my teaching and beta testing for Ableton, but this is my DJ story. Leave me out of your misogynistic nonsense. Save that smoke for people who don’t make their own music.”
In the video, Sara Landry begins by digging into her earliest days when she was teaching herself how to DJ while living in New York City. She recalled the moment she decided she wanted to learn, which led to spending two more years practicing, making mixes, and more. Once her time in NYC ended and she moved back home to Austin, it opened the doors for her to focus more on DJing and producing.
“I was doing a full corporate job, and then every single day after that job, I would come home and sit in front of my computer, and I would struggle and be frustrated and try to figure out how Ableton works by myself,” she shared. Eventually, she did a sound design course with Francis Preve, who would mentor her and other friends she made in Austin. Her first gig came in 2016 during SXSW, where she played to a small crowd.
This would continue before she locked in her first residency in 2017, but after clubs closed and bookings were hard to come by, she decided to start throwing warehouse raves herself in 2019. At the time, she was playing more of a “big room techno,” Drumcode-styled sound, but that changed when she went to ADE later that year and fell in love with the industrial side of the spectrum.
After returning from Europe, she was laid off from her corporate gig but continued to press on with her career. She was booked to play the Yuma Tent at Coachella in 2020 before it was canceled due to the pandemic, but even that didn’t stop her from continuing to push on. Sara Landry streamed regularly during the pandemic, which can still be found on YouTube, and released a number of tunes on European labels.
“I had built enough hype with my releases, my mixes, and those streams that I had gotten a small agent in the US who was able to get me booked outside of Texas,” Sara Landry said. “That was my 6AM show in LA, the first one that I did there. Then I did some shows in South America and some shows in Europe. They went super well, and it really started to catapult my popularity, so a few months later, I moved to Berlin in April 2022 and started touring Europe.” After becoming a more prominent name in the industrial, hard techno scene in Europe, her career took off from there.
“Now, after years and years and years of work, here I am, doing Tomorrowland Main Stage and playing for Insomniac,” she closed with. “So no, not an industry plant, not an overnight success. 11 years of grinding, and don’t you fucking forget it.”
Sara Landry is set to continue her dominating path in 2025 with the announcement of her ETERNALISM tour that has stops in Europe and NYC, along with appearances at festivals like EDC Mexico, Coachella, Electric Forest, Parookaville, EXIT Festival, and more. Follow her on social media to stay informed about what she’s up to next.
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Editor’s Note: Quotes in this piece have been edited for clarity.
