Welcome to Universal DNA Playlist — a site that’s been more than a year in the making.

I’m excited to finally share it with the public, but I’m most excited to finally share it with the amazing strangers (my DNA relatives) who got a random message requesting their favorite song and actually responded.

You know how people say they couldn’t have done it without someone. In this case, it’s spot on—I literally could not have created a DNA playlist without the trust and contribution I got from the DNA relatives I met on 23andMe.com.

If you look at the playlist, every genre is represented and if you look at the people who submitted entries, they are as diverse as the songs themselves. This list includes a multitude of races, cultures, sexualities, genders and locations. There are entries from across the U.S., England, Germany and Spain.

Now that the playlist is live, I want to periodically update the site with stories from these DNA relatives, because that would be much more interesting than the spreadsheet with their names. This way they can shed a bit more light on who they are and why they chose the song the chose.

Now for some highlights from the playlist:

• The best new artist I discovered was an indie band called Beach House. Their song, Myth, was submitted by “D,” a 4^th cousin and it has now become a go-to.
• The most interesting song/video was submitted by Anthony, a 5^th It’s the video for the song, Papaoutai by Stromae. It’s in French (my classes finally paid off!), so you may not understand the words, but the video is worth a watch.
• The most popular artist/band showed up on the playlist five times and it’s *drum roll* Earth, Wind & Fire. Prince almost tied with Earth, Wind & Fire with 4 playlist entries.
• Not sure if the playlist got Rick-rolled or if Rick Astley’s “Never Gonna Give You Up” really is my 5th cousin, Allen, from Nashville’s favorite song.
• Ray Charles had a couple hits that weren’t on Spotify and so did Beyonce.

Be sure to subscribe to the site to get notified when we update the blog with stories from playlist contributors.