It’s a particularly opportune moment with CLASH spotlighting Amelie Lens. Three years ago, the Belgian DJ, producer and label head was at the very beginning of her motherhood journey; she and her husband, Sam Deliaert, announced they were expecting their daughter Kiki. Today, with a second daughter on the way, motherhood has introduced a new emotional dimension to the life Amelie has worked so hard to build.

“With my career and being a mum, I see them as intertwined. I want to show my children that you can work and still have a passion,” Amelie tells CLASH.

It’s a revealing admission from someone whose professional life is often presented in terms of scale: the size of the stages, the number of tickets sold, the speed of her ascent. Amelie began releasing records in the mid-2010s, and her rise accelerated quickly. Soon, she was playing increasingly prominent international shows, releasing music and establishing herself as one of the defining figures of a new wave of European techno.

Her story has a rags-to-riches narrative, but Lens isn’t interested in presenting it as a fairytale. She’s aware of what she’s achieved, and grateful for it, but her ambitions have always been tied to the work itself. When she began, the idea of playing the main stage at Tomorrowland would have seemed almost unimaginable.

“Ten years ago, I didn’t even feel there was space for techno at these mega festivals,” she says. “The techno stage was the smallest stage. And then it just grew so fast.”

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