This Pharmacist Will Keep NYC's Pride Festival Dancing

NEW YORK, NY — Corey Craig moved to New York City just in time for the 2001 LGBT Pride festivities. He'd come from Dallas to pursue his career as a pharmacist, but that weekend inspired him to dig into another passion: DJing.

"I go to this party and put it out there in the universe that I want to do this one day," said Craig, a Midtown resident.

During the week, Craig works as as a nuclear pharmacist in NewYork-Presbyterian's Columbia University Irving Medical Center, handling doses of radioactive drugs that help doctors diagnose cancer and other conditions.

But on the weekends, he takes to the turntables to DJ pulsating parties. The work has taken him as far away as Sydney, Australia, but he'll be closer to home when he opens Sunday's sold-out Pride Island concert in Hudson River Park.

It won't be Craig's first time performing in the Pride festival, but it's a special show because it coincides with his return about two months ago to the nuclear pharmacy field, which he first studied in college.

"In both aspects I can say I’ve come back home to what I’ve always loved to do," said Craig, who is gay.

Craig had an eclectic taste in music growing up in Oklahoma City. "I always had some affinity towards music because it was always playing in the house," he said. He took an interest in DJ equipment owned by his uncle, who showed him how to use turntables and make mixtapes.

Childhood experiences similarly pushed Craig into his profession. A pharmacist, not a doctor, was the first person his mother took him to see when he got sick, he said.

"I saw that something this man told my mom worked on me and it made me feel better, so it made me want to do the same thing," Craig said.

Craig developed his musical proclivity in pharmacy school at the University of Oklahoma, picking the soundtracks for parties and creating mixtapes and CDs for friends. While in school, he took an interest in nuclear pharmacy as a way to set himself apart.

After moving to New York, Craig started making music podcasts in 2005 before landing his first job with NewYork-Presbyterian as a chemotherapy pharmacist in 2006.

The same year, he filmed an audition video for a job as a DJ on Ellen DeGeneres' TV talk show. He didn't get it, but he made connections through the video that got him DJ gigs in Manhattan and on Fire Island. He made his first NYC Pride appearance in 2009, performing in the closing sunset slot.

"It’s been a 10-year journey, but slowly but surely the audiences grow," he said.

Craig now does as many as 10 shows a month and often travels to gigs in cities such as Toronto, San Diego and Atlanta.

He currently favors genres he grew up listening to such as disco and house, which he said are now "coming back into the forefront." He describes himself as "a British DJ trapped in an American body" with an affinity for music that's hot in the United Kingdom.

On Sunday he'll open for the Australian-British pop star Kylie Minogue on the second day of Pride Island, a music festival coinciding with the 49th annual LGBT Pride March.

"It’s showing that the music that the LGBT community listens to is very diverse," Craig said. "You can’t just put everything this community listens to in one little box."

Craig moved into his nuclear pharmacy job at NewYork-Presbyterian — which sponsors the NYC Pride festivities — about two months ago. The position at the Washington Heights hospital gives him the flexibility to keep up his DJ career and pursue his doctorate remotely through the University of Colorado. He's set to finish the program in December.

The schedule keeps Craig busy, but his musical passion is important to him.

"You will never enjoy your life if all you do is punch a clock," he said. "If you have another talent you should investigate it."

(Lead image: Corey Craig is a nuclear pharmacist and a DJ who will perform at Sunday's Pride Island concert. Photo courtesy of NewYork-Presbyterian)