The allure of electronic bass music and learning to trust life’s journey bring out the best in Jessica Jacobs, also known as DJ Sejika in the crazy, evolving underground scene.

During the opening moments of a set, a vivacious smile is the first indicator that it’s go-time for the 5-foot-11 spinstress. After establishing a groove, whether it be up-tempo or ultragrimy, she feels an urgency to move, no matter who’s watching.

"I think I am guilty of (being) the cheerleader and the fist-pumper. I will straight up dance as much as I can manage in the DJ booth," she said.

Jacobs’ contagious enthusiasm and passion for DJ’ing will be on display as she gets her Republik debut Friday, opening for New York-based DJ and producer Photay. It’s a rite of passage for performers trying to cut their teeth in Honolulu’s entertainment scene.

It’s taken time and practice for the 32-year-old DJ to feel ready for this moment. She said she spent her early years of spinning confined in her comfy bedroom battling self-doubt. Bartending jobs at venues that catered to electronic beats kept her close enough to the action to learn the responsibilities of DJs. Grooving to beats while slinging drinks was one of the biggest perks of the job.

"After years of hemming and hawing, turning down gigs because I ‘wasn’t ready,’ I finally broke down and accepted an opening slot," she said, remembering her first live gig at the now defunct Mercury Lounge in 2009. "I thought it was going to be super slow and no one would be there yet, but it turned out being pretty busy and having a great crowd on the dance floor."

Jacobs was born and raised on a U.S. military base on Kwajalein, an atoll in the Marshall Islands. She took a liking to electronic dance music in her preteen years, after she and her family moved to Raleigh, N.C.

College radio led to her first exposure to drum and bass and southern breaks, and the rave scene further solidified her devotion to heavy bass tunes. It reached a point where no other sound could provide her the same rush of pure satisfaction.

Since that first gig in 2009, she’s spun at clubs like Hawaiian Brian’s, The Fix, Eleven44 and Lotus Soundbar, and built a following underground. Life came full circle when she became the host of the Friday Dub Crawl on the University of Hawaii-Manoa radio station, KTUH.

"It was so wonderful when I got involved with KTUH out here because I am able to share this music in exactly the same way I first heard it," said the Moiliili resident.

In her opinion, Honolulu DJs get away with using familiarity to get the crowd’s dance reflexes going. Lost is the desire to take listeners into uncharted territory.

She has come to grips with the notion of audiences being easy to please, yet it still leaves her puzzled.

"Listen, you came out to this club for a reason; you tuned in to college radio for a reason. Was it really to hear the same 10 songs you got on your phone?" she said. "In today’s digital world, there is really no excuse why people cannot go out and discover new tunes. Nobody needs to hold their hand and guide them, and there’s really exciting things going on (online)."

Jacobs has a bachelor’s degree in meteorology from UH and has her sights set on an audio engineering technology degree in the Music and Entertainment Learning Experience Program at Honolulu Community College. To her, providing eclectic tunes that range from dub reggae to jungle every Aloha Friday afternoon on KTUH has been equally fulfilling as her education.

"Music and math are said to be the universal languages, right? I appreciate and respect anything that can connect us on a baser level," she said. "With drum and bass I can have extremely visceral reactions to tracks; frisson so profound your heart aches, you know? (It’s) something about songs in E major specifically."

Jacobs recently added Star 101.9 to her DJ gigs, and provides daily news reports on KSSK-FM, KHVH-AM and KIKI-AM, plus weather reports for the iHeartRadio group.

She said her position at KTUH and being in front of a club crowd both allow her to freely share her outside-the-mainstream music tendencies. While she would much rather go behind the surface, the depth of what she plays often comes down to what the venue or patrons allow her to get away with.

"A lot of people say (Hawaii) is a good six months behind mainland clubs and years behind Europe," she said. "I try to use my KTUH show and gigs to play stuff the listeners haven’t heard before or that the dance floor wasn’t expecting."

"I still got a lot of ears to win over," she said. "When you are in the KTUH (studio), it’s hard to visualize the people who are listening.

"I hope I never get to the point where DJ’ing becomes a task for me. It’s really sad when you see a DJ ‘phoning it in’ at gigs. For sure, DJs can care too deeply, but I think the other extreme is worse."