Sumiko Iwamura is proving that it’s never too late to discover your passion. Guinness World Records has named the 83-year-old Japanese woman the world’s oldest professional club DJ.
By day, Iwamura runs a Chinese food restaurant, but by night, she’s DJ Sumirock. She discovered she had a knack for the profession once she started attending DJ school when she was 77 years old. Now, not only does she have a regular DJ slot at Decabar Z in Shinjuku, Tokyo, she travels around the world for gigs too.
But Iwamura says that DJing and running a restaurant aren’t that different – it’s all about customer feedback. “If you’re playing tracks and they don’t like it, they’ll leave the floor and start drinking at the bar,” she explains. “Restaurant customers are the same – if it tastes good, then they look happy, and they’ll tell me they like it.”