Italian-Canadian DJ Teaches Women to Reclaim Power Now

From Toronto housewife expectations to Miami healer

There's something magnetic about Carmelinda Di Manno that transcends the typical DJ persona. Maybe it's the way she rubs her gold cross when talking about finding clarity through meditation and prayer. Maybe it's how she lights up describing a 50-year-old mother from King City who flew to Miami just to learn how to DJ. Or maybe it's the simple truth that radiates from every word: sometimes the most beautiful transformations happen when life completely falls apart.

"Those moments of what felt like complete devastation," she tells me from her Miami home, her voice carrying the weight of lived experience, "were pivotal in the development of my character. My life just got better after every kind of crisis. Honestly, it did."

This isn't your typical success story. This is something rawer, more honest, a testament to what happens when an Italian-Canadian woman refuses to shrink into the life everyone else planned for her.

THE UNRAVELING THAT LED TO EVERYTHING

Born and raised in North York's Wilson Heights, Carmelinda grew up in that perfect 50-50 balance of Italian and Jewish culture that shaped so many Toronto kids. Her parents, immigrants from Italian families, had done what immigrants do: they built safety through traditional structures. Marriage. Stability. The kind of life that looks good on paper.

For seventeen years, Carmelinda played that part. Then divorce. Then another long-term relationship that felt like building toward forever, until it ended "in a very surprising way."

"I was invited to come to the United States again," she recalls, referring to the third time life offered her a different path. From what started with a“go with the -

flow and give it a chance scenario” she came to realize quite quickly that “there is a use for me here” and tremendous opportunity and a feeling of unity with the community and culture.

That was almost three years ago. What started as temporary became permanent when she realized something profound: "There's a use for me here."

FROM CRISIS TO CALLING

The path from event planner to yoga teacher to DJ wasn't linear, it was survival. Ten years ago, feeling her marriage dissolve and needing "another outlet, someplace to put my energy," Carmelinda posted on Facebook asking for a DJ teacher.

"I thought DJing was just going to be another outlet. Another creative, expressive place for me," she explains. But something deeper was happening. In the mixing, the beat-matching, the alchemy of sound, she found more than expression, she found purpose, "I developed a passion, did it as consistently as possible to get better and better at it." Because she'd worked in Toronto's nightclub industry before, opportunities flowed. But this wasn't about parties. This was about transformation.

THE PHONE CALLS THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING

Here's where Carmelinda's story becomes something bigger than personal reinvention. Women started calling. Not twenty-somethings looking for weekend fun. Mothers. Wives. Women who'd spent decades caring for everyone else.

"I have had a number of women that have been housewives and moms for 30 years or 20 some odd years that call me and say, 'Please, can you help me learn how to DJ? Because I haven't done anything for myself.'"

One woman traveled from King City to Miami. King City to Miami. Let that sink in.

"Now their kids are a little bit older, they're feeling more liberated," Carmelinda continues. "The world is a bit more gentle on the subject, and they're feeling like it's time for them to finally explore something for themselves."

She's not just teaching women to DJ. She's teaching them She's not just teaching women to DJ. She's teaching them to reclaim parts of themselves they'd buried under years of everyone else's needs.

SOUL REVIVAL IN ACTION

This is where the healing happens. Carmelinda's "Soul Revival Prana Parties" aren't your typical raves. They're community gatherings built around movement, music, and what she calls "activating energy."

"Prana is a Sanskrit word for energy," she explains, "and I'm a huge believer that we are energy. So the title soul revival to me means like coming back to life through doing things that activate your energy."

Picture this: large groups moving together to live DJs, whether poolside in Miami sun or in art galleries where culture meets beats. "There's some component of movement, music, community, and culture."

It's church for the unchurched. Therapy for the skeptical. Permission to be fully alive in your body, regardless of age or how long it's been since you danced.

THE AUTHENTICITY THAT HEALS

When I ask about her latest single "On My Own," Carmelinda's guard drops completely. "It's a story about a person who recognizes finally that their ability to live well, to live happy, to be in their truth is possible without whatever they thought they were attached to."

She's talking about a universal truth wrapped in a personal confession: "Sometimes it takes sticky times, but I do believe, especially for women, that they always come to the awareness of what is true for them. When a woman knows her boundaries are set, she's done."

The song isn't just music, it's a declaration. A love letter to every woman who's ever had to choose herself over everyone else's expectations.

BREAKING THE BEAUTIFUL MESS MYTH

In a world obsessed with Instagram perfection, and Miami's notorious image culture, Carmelinda offers something radical: permission to be beautifully imperfect.

"A person who's holding space for themselves when they're navigating a challenging time with authenticity, doing their best to still show up for life, that's a beautiful mess to me," she says. "You don't have to be perfectly refined all the time."

She produced most of her records "processing something." Pain became art. Crisis became calling. Devastation became transformation.

"Beautiful things come out of pain. You can use that energy and do something good with it."

THE ITALIAN PARENTS WHO LEARNED TO LOVE DIFFERENTLY

Perhaps the most moving part of Carmelinda's story is how her traditional Italian parents navigated their daughter's unconventional choices. The divorce was hard. The move to America was harder. But watching their daughter thrive taught them something profound.

"I think them seeing me healthy and happy has taught them to expand their perspective on what individuals need, and what is truly a person's purpose and destiny," she reflects. "It's not always the mainstream."

She learned to see them not as parents who weren't supporting her "the way I wanted them to," but as humans. Immigrants who'd navigated impossible circumstances to build stability in a country where they didn't speak the language.

"They must have been in so much fear and anxiety and stress for so much of their life that of course they projected it onto me. They didn't have the resources we have."

Compassion became the bridge between generations, between expectations and acceptance.

WHAT SHE WANTS TO BE REMEMBERED FOR

When I ask about legacy, Carmelinda's answer is immediate and heartfelt: "That people felt like they could really be themselves around me, and that they feel seen and heard."

It's not about the music, the parties, or even the transformation. It's about presence. About creating space for people to exist fully, messily, authentically.

"You don't need a stage to leave a mark," she adds. "Everyone has the opportunity to influence the way other people feel, and the way other people feel about themselves."

THE MUSIC THAT MOVES SOULS

Carmelinda's sound is impossible to box into one genre, and that's exactly the point. Her latest tracks blend Afro rhythms with soulful vocals, house beats with spiritual undertones. It's music that doesn't just make you dance; it makes you remember who you are when nobody's watching.

"I love all of it," she says about her influences, rattling off everyone from Bob Marley to Fleetwood Mac to Pearl Jam. "Some of my favorite sets are when DJs are playing a kick-ass tech house song, and then all of a sudden they'll bring in some freestyle. I genuinely go off to that."

You can hear this eclectic foundation in her work, tracks that take you on journeys through different emotional landscapes, never predictable, always authentic. Whether she's playing poolside in Miami or in an intimate art gallery setting, Carmelinda creates sonic experiences that activate what she calls "prana", pure energy.

Her music isn't background noise for your Instagram story. It's foreground feeling for your actual life.

“You don’t need a stage to leave a mark.”

THE INVITATION

As our conversation winds down, I'm struck by how Carmelinda embodies everything Between the Covers stands for: the messy beauty of being human, the power of authentic transformation, the radical act of showing up imperfectly but wholeheartedly.

She's teaching women to DJ, yes. But really, she's teaching them something more fundamental: that it's never too late to reclaim your voice, your power, your right to take up space in the world.

Whether you're 25 or 75, whether you're in Toronto or Miami, whether you know the difference between house and techno or couldn't care less, Carmelinda's message is universal:

Your authentic self is not a beautiful mess. Your authentic self is just beautiful. Full stop.

 Find Carmelinda Di Manno on Instagram, Spotify, SoundCloud, and YouTube. Her latest single "On My Own" is available wherever you stream music.

Joseph Tito is the Editor-in-Chief of Between the Covers and author of "Random Thoughts: The Sh*t We Don't Talk About," available wherever books are sold.