Of all the weekends to end up in Brooklyn playing a string of shows, San Antonio DJ Sue Problema couldn’t have picked more of a banger.
In a twist of fate, she lined up a three-show tour that spanned June 5-8, the peak of last month’s riveting Knicks-Spurs championship series. It wasn’t planned — she’d had the first gig booked five months ago — but it ended up turning into a musical reunion for expat San Antonians while giving her an unexpected jolt of exposure.
Rebecca Gonzales took on the handle Sue Problema when she was a zine-maker in the late ’90s. Since then, she’s built a reputation for spinning deep-cut selections in genre-hopping sets — an approach bolstered by her day job as an archivist for Bexar County.
Gonzales’ New York jaunt allowed her to do more than show off her crate-digging skills. At one point she ended up spinning for a “sleeper cell” of Spurs fans gathered at Doris, a Brooklyn bar co-owned by her friend from home, Jessica Warner.
The New York Times even featured the party in a story about Spurs fans across the city’s five boroughs cheering on their team’s first Finals run since 2014.
“We had no idea the Spurs would be playing, but as we were getting closer and closer, we realized we’d be rooting for the Spurs in New York,” Gonzales said of her set at Doris. “We put our jerseys on inside. I brought an H-E-B bag, and everyone loved it. It was a great experience.”
Because of the timing, Gonzales said she briefly worried about performing as a San Antonio DJ on the Knicks’ home turf.
“With the playoffs, I was like, ‘Oof, how is this going to land?’ The flyers all said San Antonio,” she said. “But nobody gave me a hard time. It actually felt really good to represent San Antonio.”
Indeed, Knicks fans more than tolerated Gonzales’ special appearance. She said the trip was a great opportunity to expand her music network and meet more people like those who made her tour possible in the first place.
“It was really through friends, music friends, connecting me with other people,” she said. “The tour ended up being a great way to meet folks in New York, too.”
To be sure, the trek allowed her to jump between music scenes and subgenres. At the club Cassette in Queens, she served up a night of boogie and disco. At Mama Tried, a divey Brooklyn spot, she played the record release show for Skirting, a longtime friend’s band.
And at Barbès, a legendary venue known for bringing in international talent, she closed out the trip with a cumbia set alongside Milagro Verde, a Bushwick-based Peruvian chicha band.
“Every country has its own interpretation of cumbia,” Gonzales said. “Peru has chicha. Ecuador has synthesizers. Mexico leans Colombian. I love tracing those histories.”
Another fortuitous highlight came when she landed a set at The Lot Radio, the Brooklyn‑based online station that’s become a coveted stop for DJs worldwide. The opportunity came through San Antonio-raised Andy Beta, a music writer she met while attending high school.
Beta, who now lives in New York, holds a residency at the station and is the author of Cosmic Music: The Life, Art, and Transcendence of Alice Coltrane, a critically acclaimed biography released this spring.
“When I told [Beta] I was coming to New York, he asked if I wanted him to see about getting me on The Lot,” Gonzales said. “I ended up with a one‑hour recorded set — a huge deal for DJs — and it wasn’t even part of the original tour plan. Just a really nice surprise.”
While Gonzales’ trip to New York allowed her to catch up with friends and bask in plenty of SA vibes, music ultimately drove the visit. She arrived with a suitcase lined in cardboard and packed almost entirely with records.
“I brought some shirts, two pairs of pants, an extra pair of shoes — and then just records,” she said. “Music is my obsession. I go down rabbit holes for hours.”
Indeed, Gonzales’ residencies back home also reflect a DJ who treats vinyl records less like collector’s items and more like a living archive.
In addition to disco nights at Little Death, locals can find her behind the decks at the Summer Vinyl Series at cocktail bar Jue Let in the Pearl District. The DJ runs the latter through ¡Viaje! World Vibrations, the global-music venture she co-owns with DJ Rambo Salinas.
“[Jue Let] has been a good new home. We’ve been searching for a place that feels like home and has a good sound. That’s really important to us,” Gonzales said.
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