Author: Sara Bright Topic: DJ Tinzo – real name, music style, inclusivity focus, career trajectory Internal links: LGBTQIA+ representation in electronic music, Book Club Radio manifesto explained
Her real name is Christina Lorenzo. The stage name is Tinzo. The distinction matters, because the Brooklyn-based DJ and producer has built a career on stripping away pretence – both her own and the industry’s.
Tinzo is a Queer Filipino-American artist whose sound sits at the intersection of house, electro, indie dance, and soul. She is one half of the sibling duo behind Book Club Radio, a New York-based YouTube channel and invite-only party series that has grown from house parties among friends into a sold-out touring operation and a two-day festival at Industry City in Brooklyn.
From Minneapolis to Brooklyn
Tinzo and her brother Josef “Jojo” Lorenzo were born and raised in Minneapolis. Their father introduced them to disco, soul, and funk; their mother brought post-punk, new wave, show tunes, and jazz. An older brother, Fino, is also a musician. The household ran on music.
Tinzo studied arts and entertainment management at Pace University. While working at Sounds of Brazil (SOB) in SoHo, she was recruited by Bresh, a party collective from Buenos Aires that had expanded into New York. Bresh trained her as a DJ. Within a year, she was practising the genres that would define her style: house, electro, and the soulful edges of indie dance.
The Sound
Tinzo’s sets pull on nostalgia, soul, and what she calls “that element of excitement and passion.” Her signature is eclectic – she mixes deep house with melodic techno, weaves in trance, and draws from 80s and 90s pop and hip-hop. The goal is a specific emotional response: music that makes people move.
Her Spotify catalogue features over 16,000 monthly listeners, with her most-played track surpassing 888,000 streams. Collaborations with bad tuner, Gilligan Moss, and Mindchatter anchor her releases alongside a 2021 album and singles from 2023 to 2025. Her tracks are lyrically honest and sonically direct, built around intimacy rather than spectacle.
Book Club Radio and the Manifesto
The party started as a group chat. Tinzo, Jojo, their partner Kevin, and friends Claudia and Carlie would plan weekly dance outings in New York. They called it Book Club Radio. When they began hosting free house parties in Brooklyn, the name stuck.
Jojo penned the Book Club Radio Manifesto after a frustrating clubbing experience. The seven rules are printed at every event and enforced by a figure known as “the Librarian”:
1. Come for the music. 2. Be open to unfamiliar music and sounds. 3. Respect one another. 4. Face each other instead of the DJ. 5. No phones allowed on the dance floor. 6. Dress to express yourself. 7. Dance your heart out.
The no-phones rule is the most visible. At touring shows – including the 2026 Dial Up Tour across US cities like Minneapolis, Seattle, Austin, and Denver – attendees receive stickers for their outward-facing cameras. The policy isn’t performative. At Book Club meetings, the DJ booth is placed flush against a wall, eliminating the space for a crowd to form in front of the decks. The audience faces each other.
“We want Book Club to feel like a party scene out of a movie,” Tinzo told interviewers. “When you watch sets on YouTube, it doesn’t really feel like that because everyone is facing the DJ.”
The format has scaled. Book Club Radio’s YouTube channel has accumulated millions of views across its meeting series. Meeting #4 – Tinzo’s solo set – surpassed 20 million views. The first Book Club Radio Festival, held at Industry City in October 2025, featured three dance floors, two warehouses, and over 25 house music artists. A second festival is scheduled for October 2026.
Touring and Venues
Tinzo performs solo and alongside Jojo. Her touring footprint spans continents – Village Underground and Night Tales in London, Colour Factory in London, Jackies Open Air Festival in Barcelona, Movement Detroit, recurring residencies at Elsewhere Rooftop in Brooklyn, plus dates at The Ground at Club Space (Miami), The Glass House (Pomona), Quartyard (San Diego), and Club Vinyl Rooftop (Denver).
The 2026 Dial Up Tour brought the Manifesto to Minneapolis, Seattle, Austin, Denver, Santa Fe, Boston, Nashville, and Portland. “Normally I’d play this down,” Jojo told the press, “but I’m so proud and so happy with how this has gone because we’ve put so much work into this.”
Inclusivity as Infrastructure
Tinzo’s identity as a Queer Filipino-American is not incidental to her work – it is structural. Book Club Radio partners with PLUS1, donating $1 from each ticket sale to Trans Lifeline, a peer-support hotline connecting trans people to community resources. The events prioritise safe spaces for community and expression.
Her influence reflects a broader cultural shift in electronic music. The genre’s origins in Black, Latinx, and queer communities have been well documented, but mainstream house and techno have often sidelined those communities. Tinzo’s approach – centreing queerness, banning phones, removing the DJ-as-focal-point – reclaims the dance floor as a space for collective experience rather than individual performance.
What Comes Next
Tinzo’s 2026 schedule includes RiverBeat in Memphis, Movement Detroit, and Book Club Radio Festival #2 in Brooklyn. She headlines Night Tales in London on 27 June, bringing the Manifesto to UK audiences for the third time.
The trajectory is clear. From a group chat to sold-out venues across three continents, from a YouTube channel to a two-day festival, from a Manifesto taped to a wall to a global touring operation – Christina Lorenzo, performing as Tinzo, has built a space that is inclusive by design, not by decree.
This article is part of Creativity’s UK coverage of contemporary culture and the arts.
