For close to 15 years, Tijana T has been a key part of Serbia’s music scene. Now a full time DJ, Tijana T is overtaking on the inside fast lane to global stardom. Her mastery of an acid-dominant techno style with elements of breakbeat, house, electro and trance has turned ears all across the globe. This lethal dancefloor style has propelled her to become one of the busiest and most durable DJs on the tour circuit. Over 500 shows in over 60 countries in six continents in the last few years only tells its own story. Spinning coldwave at dawn in Antarctica? Surely not far off.

Unlike other breakthroughs in the game, Tijana T has put in the hard hours. As this burst of activity shows, she was completely ready to make the leap and break out of Belgrade when the time came. Now, she does it all. Whether opening or closing, on Ibizan terraces or in smokey basements, soundtracking the sunrise for a few hundred or headlining festival stages to tens of thousands, the details are immaterial. What happens when she plays is empathy with the audience, selecting music to expand their hunger, as well as satisfy their pleasure-center core. This is why everyone from Berghain to Circoloco, and Beats In Space to Boiler Room and Hör have called upon Tijana T. She holds residency at Belgrade’s finest Drugstore club, as well as playing regularly at Blitz, Robert Johnson, Panorama Bar to name a few.

Tijana T’s sound as a DJ has a variety of shades. A rogue streak began at a young age with family exposure to EBM, synths and left-field electronics. That carried through to being booted off state TV for pushing the limits of her eclectic curated VJ show a little too hard (although a public-sector dismissal over the band Add N To X is a pretty tremendous badge of honour). To this day, eclecticism is the word. Techno is predominant: sometimes sharp and spiky jack attacks flecked with breakbeat shrapnel, other times dubby and warm. Yet Tijana T’s range goes far beyond the techno sphere: you’ll hear electro, house, IDM, wave, rave, vocal cuts, and the shimmy of pop when the mood calls for it.

The most common weapon of all wielded on dancefloors is the TB-303. Her defining imprint is the froth and gurgle of acid, deployed not as a cudgel of brute force but something malleable. Tijana T has mastered it as a quality that can act as a foil, or lead from the front. You’ll find it writhing around underneath a clammy disco cut, wrapped around a tribal stomper, or memorably melted down into Björk and Radiohead classics, which occurred in as showstopper finales at Dekmantel Festival and on Boiler Room.

Belgrade is where the artist born Tijana Todorovic first made her name, moving from heavy presence on local TV and radio to marathon slots across town, specifically the world-renowned Drugstore and Klub 20/44. Now the tables have turned: in the late 2010s, she is making Belgrade’s name. Tijana T has become a global ambassador for the city, tirelessly exporting its culture. As her reputation has travelled, so has she. Negative preconceptions about Serbia are falling, replaced by the squelch of a 303, a touch of class behind the booth, and more and more people admiring this fiercely determined talent.