froots world music djs

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M e? A DJ? You’re having a laugh! I was relaxing on a sofa in the newly opened Darbucka basement bar in Farringdon and Ahmad, who runs the place, had just invited me to DJ there whenever I liked. I’ve never DJ’d before and logic should have told me to politely decline. But the meze and drinks were going down nicely and Darbucka, with its low lights, Bedouin tent décor and scent of shisha pipes, seems like such a relaxed place that I found myself say- ing “OK, I’ll give it a go” with the confi- dence of the truly ignorant. Deep down I’ve always wanted to DJ. Back in the 1980s I’d make up tapes for friends’ parties. But then their tastes became more mainstream and mine moved in the opposite direction. They wanted Phil Collins and all I had was Salif Keita, it was never going to work. That was why the discovery of club DJs Dave Hucker, Max Reinhardt, Rita Ray and Gerry Lyseight was such an inspiration. They played the music that I loved in clubs full of people who were going wild. It struck me that if I was to get anywhere as a DJ I needed to consult with the experts, find out what worked for them and use all this knowledge for my debut DJ appearance. After all, what was the worst thing that could happen? Well a whole evening of public shame and humiliation obviously, but I decided not to think about that. A few weeks later and I’m back at Darbucka to meet up with Karim (the resi- dent DJ) and receive my first lesson. Some- one’s booked a party there for tonight and he suggests that we can DJ it togeth- er. I start to feel nervous. “Don’t worry, it’s easy,” he says as he takes me through the technical side: how to fade things up and down, how to change the pitch and match beats, how to loop a break and sample it over a rhythm… no, I didn’t understand a word of it either. And with that he leaves me to demonstrate my (non-existent) DJ skills. My simple aim is to fade one tune out and another in without a gap in between. At first I struggle with the tech- nology. “What’s happening Jamie?” shouts Karim from across the (thankfully empty) bar as I leave another Pinteresque pause between tracks. “Hey DJ!” he yells encouragingly when I finally manage to segue Khaled straight into Ozomatli. Slowly the ratio of “Hey DJ!”s to “What’s happening Jamie?”s starts to go in my favour. Then the party arrives. It’s an advertising company’s annual office bash. They talk in loud voices, play a speed dat- ing game, have an advertising-based quiz and politely tolerate my global selection. “Usually you just play your set regard- less,” Karim tells me, “but when it’s a party like this you’ve got to give them what they want.” As I drag my bag of CDs up to street level, he’s giving them Michael Jackson’s Blame It On The Boogie and da joint is jumping! B ack in the early 1980s, Dave Hucker pioneered the whole idea of making club crowds dance to music from around the world (or at least “two conti- nents and assorted islands” as he puts it). He started spinning his tropical mix at Soho’s Sol y Sombra club back in ‘82. It burnt down four years later after one of Hucker’s sessions (“I knew I was hot that night, but not that hot!”) and he’s since hosted tropical and salsa nights in a vari- ety of London clubs (including a seven- nights-a-week salsa session upstairs at Ronnie Scott’s). “Stay true to what you want to play,” he advises me. “Don’t play music just because you think that’s what the punters want to hear. Reading what the crowd want is an art that has to be developed, not all DJs can do it.” For Dave, the key to becoming a successful DJ lies in understanding structure. “It’s like taking people on a rhythmical roller coaster ride. You sometimes go slow, have fast bits, that then go into twists and turns and surprises.” He’s pretty much hung up his head- phones nowadays. (“I paid my dues, had my ears battered for 22 years in smoky rooms!”) and concentrates on putting together compilation albums and acting as musical consultant for TV programmes. I wondered if he could recommend a dead cert floor-filling tune to play when all else fails. “Kataki’s Hula Hoop Jive.” Sorry? “It’s a ‘70s South African jive thing, with nutso violin and vocals urging us to do the Hoola Hoop! It never fails on the floor.” As Dave appears to be the only person on the planet who owns a copy, we’ll just have to take his word for it. Next I get some hot turntableist tips from Eric Soul, a West London-based DJ who specialises in bringing global beats to a young clubby crowd. Music runs in Eric’s family: his mother is the excellent Rwan- dan singer Cecile Kayirebwa and he grew up in Belgium surrounded by the Rwandan traditions of music and dance, which pro- vided his family with important links to their homeland. Young Eric was more interested in hip-hop, funk and soul (hence his nickname). “African music was what you heard at weddings, it was for the parents, I thought it was boring!”, the softly spoken Mr Soul tells me as we sit outside a Notting Hill bar. “When you’re young, you’re an African, you’re a refugee, you don’t have that sense of pride in who you are. That comes after, when you have more knowledge.” This knowledge came in 1996 when, having cut his DJ teeth playing every kind f44 AFAT chance Ever had a secret desire to be a top world music DJ and have the dance floor doing your bidding? Jamie Renton jumps in at the deep end… Jamie Renton Photo: Ahmad Tuba

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Article published in fRoots magazine. Written by Jaimie Renton

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: fRoots World Music DJs

Me? A DJ? You’re having alaugh! I was relaxing on asofa in the newly openedDarbucka basement bar inFarringdon and Ahmad, who

runs the place, had just invited me to DJthere whenever I liked. I’ve never DJ’dbefore and logic should have told me topolitely decline. But the meze and drinkswere going down nicely and Darbucka,with its low lights, Bedouin tent décorand scent of shisha pipes, seems like sucha relaxed place that I found myself say-ing “OK, I’ll give it a go” with the confi-dence of the truly ignorant.

Deep down I’ve always wanted to DJ.Back in the 1980s I’d make up tapes forfriends’ parties. But then their tastesbecame more mainstream and minemoved in the opposite direction. Theywanted Phil Collins and all I had was SalifKeita, it was never going to work. Thatwas why the discovery of club DJs DaveHucker, Max Reinhardt, Rita Ray andGerry Lyseight was such an inspiration.They played the music that I loved inclubs full of people who were going wild.It struck me that if I was to get anywhereas a DJ I needed to consult with theexperts, find out what worked for themand use all this knowledge for my debutDJ appearance. After all, what was theworst thing that could happen? Well awhole evening of public shame andhumiliation obviously, but I decided notto think about that.

A few weeks later and I’m back atDarbucka to meet up with Karim (the resi-dent DJ) and receive my first lesson. Some-one’s booked a party there for tonightand he suggests that we can DJ it togeth-er. I start to feel nervous. “Don’t worry, it’seasy,” he says as he takes me through thetechnical side: how to fade things up anddown, how to change the pitch and matchbeats, how to loop a break and sample itover a rhythm… no, I didn’t understand aword of it either. And with that he leavesme to demonstrate my (non-existent) DJskills. My simple aim is to fade one tuneout and another in without a gap inbetween. At first I struggle with the tech-nology. “What’s happening Jamie?”shouts Karim from across the (thankfullyempty) bar as I leave another Pinteresquepause between tracks. “Hey DJ!” he yellsencouragingly when I finally manage tosegue Khaled straight into Ozomatli.Slowly the ratio of “Hey DJ!”s to “What’shappening Jamie?”s starts to go in myfavour. Then the party arrives. It’s anadvertising company’s annual office bash.They talk in loud voices, play a speed dat-ing game, have an advertising-based quizand politely tolerate my global selection.“Usually you just play your set regard-less,” Karim tells me, “but when it’s aparty like this you’ve got to give themwhat they want.” As I drag my bag of CDsup to street level, he’s giving themMichael Jackson’s Blame It On The Boogieand da joint is jumping!

Back in the early 1980s, DaveHucker pioneered the wholeidea of making club crowdsdance to music from around theworld (or at least “two conti-

nents and assorted islands” as he puts it).He started spinning his tropical mix atSoho’s Sol y Sombra club back in ‘82. Itburnt down four years later after one ofHucker’s sessions (“I knew I was hot thatnight, but not that hot!”) and he’s sincehosted tropical and salsa nights in a vari-ety of London clubs (including a seven-nights-a-week salsa session upstairs atRonnie Scott’s). “Stay true to what youwant to play,” he advises me. “Don’t playmusic just because you think that’s whatthe punters want to hear. Reading whatthe crowd want is an art that has to bedeveloped, not all DJs can do it.” ForDave, the key to becoming a successful DJlies in understanding structure. “It’s liketaking people on a rhythmical rollercoaster ride. You sometimes go slow,have fast bits, that then go into twistsand turns and surprises.”

He’s pretty much hung up his head-phones nowadays. (“I paid my dues, hadmy ears battered for 22 years in smokyrooms!”) and concentrates on puttingtogether compilation albums and actingas musical consultant for TV programmes.I wondered if he could recommend adead cert floor-filling tune to play whenall else fails. “Kataki’s Hula Hoop Jive.”Sorry? “It’s a ‘70s South African jive thing,with nutso violin and vocals urging us todo the Hoola Hoop! It never fails on thefloor.” As Dave appears to be the onlyperson on the planet who owns a copy,we’ll just have to take his word for it.

Next I get some hot turntableist tipsfrom Eric Soul, a West London-based DJwho specialises in bringing global beats toa young clubby crowd. Music runs in Eric’sfamily: his mother is the excellent Rwan-dan singer Cecile Kayirebwa and he grewup in Belgium surrounded by the Rwandantraditions of music and dance, which pro-vided his family with important links totheir homeland. Young Eric was moreinterested in hip-hop, funk and soul(hence his nickname). “African music waswhat you heard at weddings, it was for theparents, I thought it was boring!”, thesoftly spoken Mr Soul tells me as we sitoutside a Notting Hill bar. “When you’reyoung, you’re an African, you’re arefugee, you don’t have that sense ofpride in who you are. That comes after,when you have more knowledge.”

This knowledge came in 1996 when,having cut his DJ teeth playing every kind

f 44

AFAT chanceEver had a secret desire to be a top world music

DJ and have the dance floor doing your bidding?

Jamie Renton jumps in at the deep end…

Jamie Renton

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of music in an all-night Brussels club, Ericwas invited to DJ over in Rwanda. “Thatwas where everything clicked together. Ihad a spiritual wake-up call.” A fewmonths later he moved to London andlanded a gig at Brixton’s Bug Bar. “Bynow I’d created my own style which I call‘Groov ‘n’ Bass’. It’s the whole spectrumof black music: past, present andbeyond!” Since then he’s DJ’d everywherefrom underground clubs to celebrity par-ties. “You must do it with your heart,” ishis advice. “Be progressive, don’t try totake them from one place to another tooabruptly. Choose tracks that go together.It can be the sound, the tempo, the voiceor just an instrument that makes the con-nection.” And when all else fails, Eric rec-ommends anything by Senegalese rap-pers Positive Black Soul or Latin-houselegends Masters At Work.

In the late 1980s, it looked asthough the emerging dance musicscene would be a window of oppor-tunity for world music. Suddenlylyrics weren’t important, it was

rhythm that counted and the rhythms ofthe world appeared to be grabbing theears of the mainstream DJ fraternity whowere queuing up to say how much theyloved ‘global beats’. In reality this oftenamounted to little more than a passingacquaintance with Mory Kante’s YekeYeke and Coldcut’s Ofra Haza remix.Dance music has become increasingly insu-lar over the years with only a handful ofheroes keeping their ears sharp and theirminds open to the best beats from every-where. Recently, however, global musichas started to infiltrate the mainstream,not in its own right, but as an insidiousinfluence – with Latin house, African-stylepercussion samples, bhangra’s influenceon hip-hop and the plundering of Arabicsounds by the likes of Missy Elliott. Nowa-days everybody’s dancing to a little bit ofworld music without even knowing it. Ericreckons that this was inevitable. “Hip-hopand R&B have always dug into the 1960s’and 70s’ funk/ soul catalogue. I’d hear thesame sound on and on and just thinkthey’re gonna run out of inspiration, thenwhere they gonna go? They’re gonna goLatin, Arabic and to Africa.”

Like Eric, Martin Morales came to theUK from another country and his DJing istied in with his identity. “Being from a bi-cultural, bilingual background,” explainsthe Anglo-Peruvian DJ, “I feel as thoughI’m on a mission to tell the story of peoplefrom other places through their music.Firstly it was my own Latin American cul-ture but I soon moved on.” Studying in

Leeds, Martin soon went from presentinguniversity radio to playing Latin sounds atlocal clubs. Even at this early stage hewanted to reach out. “It’s not about teach-ing the already converted, it’s about bring-ing in new people. Working in big danceclubs, I learnt how to entertain, but alsoeducate by stealth. Just relating to normalpeople and finding those cultural sign-posts that they can feel comfortablewith.” He emphasises the importance ofusing mood as a way of linking tracks.“Celebratory moods for example can befound everywhere, in foro, Balkan Gypsymusic, salsa and Brazilian batucada.”

Martin currently hosts two regularclub nights: the self-explanatory FuturoFlamenco, and Differente, where he andco-host John Armstrong play all kinds ofworld and dance sounds to a Friday nightWest End crowd. So what’s his sure-firefloor-filling tune? “A good magician neverreveals his tricks,” he chuckles, “but, OK,there is one tune: Amigos by WickedLester always does the trick.”

Next up I get some advice from RussJones who, along with Michael ‘Cliffy’ Clif-ford, DJs as Future World Funk. Russ start-ed out on the early 1990s funk scene, thendiscovered global sounds via Brazilianmusic, having helped to set up the special-ist Far Out label. It was while workingthere that he met Cliffy and in 1998 thepair started FWF, a regular world beatnight at the Notting Hill Arts Club. Neitherclaimed to be experts but, having roped insome dance music producers to remix tradi-tional Brazilian tunes for Far Out, theywere willing to explore similar work inother tropical areas. “We play good dancemusic from anywhere. Even five years back,dance sounds from outside of Western cul-ture all sounded dated. But now the stuffthat’s coming through is really fresh andreally cool. The technology is easier andcheaper to get hold of and everyone’s get-ting exposed to the latest sounds via theInternet. Dance music originally came fromthe motherland, Western culture took itup, added something and it’s now goingback to all these cultures where it originat-ed anyway!” But surely there’s a dangerthat this increase in technology willsqueeze out the individual character ofthese regional sounds. And interestinglyFWF are finding increasing room in theirset for ancient highlife and African rhumbatunes. “You’ll get something that’s maybe40 years old but you can play it alongsidemodern dance music and it really works.”

They’ve spread the FWF message allover the world, played at numerous festi-vals (including Womad) and released four

impressive compilation albums. So what’sthe secret of their success? “There’s noplan, that would take all the fun out of it.The whole idea is that it’s a free-flowingmusical journey around the world.” Russ iskeen to place FWF on the cooler end ofthe global beat club scene. “Whateveryou may think, the tag ‘world music’ isseen as negative and we want to do some-thing people can buy into without wear-ing sandals and woolly jumpers!” Sartorialwarnings aside, he advises me to keep myfeet on the ground. “Remember you’renot an artist, you’re an entertainer. Ifyou’re really enjoying yourself thenthere’s a good chance that the crowd aregonna be as well. But don’t play just toyourself and keep persevering. Sometimesit can take half an hour before you findthe tune that sets the crowd off, but juststick with it until you get it!” Russ sug-gests any of the first three tracks from theElectric Gypsyland compilation as the per-fect way to hit that floor-filling moment.

Afew nights later I meet SimonEmmerson at the Afro Celts stu-dio in North London. Simon’s DJset at the fRoots 25th birthdayparty was a recent inspiration for

wanting to try my own hand on the decks.“Oh that wasn’t DJing,” he explains, “thatwas just playing CDs.” Eh?… I thoughtthat was what DJing was. But apparently,if you do it properly, there’s a lot more toit than that.

“Right,” says Simon matter-of-factly.“I’m going to teach you how to beat mix.”He sets up his custom-built decks and mymind boggles at the alarming array of but-tons and levers. Beat mixing, for the unini-tiated, is switching from one track toanother whilst staying on the beat and itappears to involve the use of every singlebit of scary-looking technology on show.He presses, flicks and fiddles, explaining tome what he’s doing as he goes along. Iconcentrate hard and manage to take inapproximately none of it. “Now you havea go,” he says cheerily. Resisting the urgeto run screaming into the cold Islingtonnight, I give it a try and don’t do too badlyas long as Simon tells me exactly what todo at each step of the way. “Beat mixing’sfucking hard,” he concedes. “That’s whyyou get all those DJs nodding their heads.They’re not being trendy, they’re just try-ing to pick up on the beat. You need towork at it for a year or so before you reallyget it.” I decide to give the beat mixinglark a miss for my DJ debut.

“I was a crap DJ for years and years,”Simon confides. He started out in the 1980sjust down the road in Upper Street at the

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Club Sandino Nicaragua Solidarity Cam-paign benefit nights. Back in those earlydays, Simon’s DJ heroes were Paul Murphy,who played Latin dance at the Electric Ball-room in Camden and Dave Hucker. He reck-ons he only got good when he formed theAfro Celts, which started life as a sound sys-tem with musicians playing over the top.Through this he acquired some decks andbegan to work with beats and samples.Nowadays he fits in his DJ work aroundband commitments, usually managing acouple of DJ gigs a month, either on hisown or in the Outernationalists DJ duo he’sformed with writer Phil Meadley.

“For world music clubs you can playanything,” he tells me. “You just have toknow your intros and outros. Worldmusic DJs often think that they can plonkdown their tunes in any old order, butyou soon learn that you can’t do that. It’sall about mood and vibe. It’s all abouttelling a story.” At Club Sandino, musicjournalists would occasionally do guestspots on the decks. “They just couldn’tfucking DJ,” he recalls, laughing. “Theyhad no idea of how to programme a setor run tracks together.” Oh well, at leastI’ll be a part of a tradition then.

Simon believes that club cultureand the power of the groovehave had a positive influence onall areas of music making,although he’s aware that there

are drawbacks. “It’s generally lowest com-mon denominator music. When a track’sblaring out in a club, it’s the bass, thetopline and the groove that count and itcan produce very flat, monotonal musicwith every track sounding the same. A lotof DJ mixes sound awful when you playthem quietly.”

Simon emphasises the importance ofhaving a good DJ name. His is ‘DJ Dad’. “Mywife once suggested to my teenage sonthat he might like to go and hear me DJ. Hewas like ‘Duh, no way mum! The worstthing in the world is to go and see DJ Dad!’So we started thinking up the most embar-rassing things I could say if he was in thecrowd, like ‘DJ Dad in the area, make somenoise!… but only after you’ve done yourhomework’; and ‘I want you all to go men-tal!… but I don’t want to come down in themorning and find the place in a mess’.”Given my uncoordinated efforts on thedecks so far, I decide to call myself ‘DJ AFAT’(All Fingers And Thumbs). Simon’s choicefor guaranteed floor-filler is the Hard FloorRemix of Mory Kante’s Yeke Yeke. “You can

play that anywhere from the dodgiest wed-ding through to your hardcore goatee-beard-stroking world music crowd atWomad and it works every time.”

The following evening I go out tohear Weird MC at the Spitz. Eric Soul isthe DJ and rather than just enjoying themusic as I normally would, I find myselfthinking things like, ‘Aha, he used thatVirginia Rodrigues tune as a bridgebetween the gnawa track that precededit and the latin hip-hop thing that fol-lowed. Very clever!’ I don’t nod my headthough (well not much anyway).

What I need is an antidote to all thistechnical talk, someone who takes anenthusiastic amateur’s approach to clubDJing. Fortunately, Andy Kershaw is on theend of the phone. Andy was only invitedto play in clubs after he became a radiopresenter. “My first gig was at the Univer-sity Of London,” he remembers. “I had toconvince the people on the door that Ireally was the DJ for the night beforethey’d let me in. Then I was shown into aroom behind the stage and handed myrider: a Scotch egg and a bag of crisps. Ithought ‘Well, I’ve arrived now haven’t I!’”

Back in the early 1990s, Andy’s weeklyCrouch End By Night session in the base-ment of the King’s Head pub was a rootsmusic institution. A club night devoid ofpretension and crammed with great tunesof every musical persuasion. “The atmo-sphere was great. There were very rarelyany wankers there.” It sadly came to a closein ‘93 and since then he’s DJ’d wheneverhe’s been asked, most notably somepacked-out nights at Club Womad. I won-dered whether he paid any heed to temposor beats. “Oh God no,” he groans. “It’s justabout what feels right and I make it up as Igo along. I’m the antithesis of the ‘DanceDJ’ with a capital D. They provide a seam-less unchanging rhythm all night, wherethe dancers barely notice when one recordhas finished and another started. They’reas unimaginative as their audience! –whereas what I do is surprise the crowd,give them variety. As with so many thingsin life, my maxim is ‘Break the rules!’ Don’tlisten to people telling you to analyse howmany beats per second, sod that, just give‘em tunes that will make them go, ‘Wow,what the hell is this?’” Not surprisingly,Andy has a few sure-fire floor-fillers to rec-ommend: the Jambo Sana remix of SalifKeita’s Africa, The Clash’s version of Pres-sure Drop and Junior Murvin’s 70s’ reggaeclassic Roots Train among them.

Gerry Lyseight was one of thefounders of the legendaryMambo Inn club night, anotherearly 90s’ world beat institution.He’s subsequently been a DJ for

hire as well as presenting the much-missed Planet Mambo radio show. But itwasn’t until I spoke to him for this piece,that I realised how important he was tomy own musical education. Back in theearly ‘80s, Gerry worked as a DJ for theGLC, spinning all kinds of global groovesat free festivals, benefit gigs and othercommunity events, a few of which Iattended. Without knowing who he was,or even what he was playing most of thetime, I tapped a foot and took it all in.Later in the decade Gerry and Max Rein-hardt launched the Mambo Inn, initiallywith Latin music expert Sue Steward. “Ialways saw our music policy as Africanmusic no matter how many generationsremoved,” recalls Gerry. “So that includeship-hop, various forms of jazz, reggae,soca and merengue. You don’t need to bea musicologist to point out the similaritiesbetween say soca and soukous or cumbiaand ska.”

Gerry tells me to take special care whenchoosing the moment to crank up the vol-ume and tempo. “There’s a tipping pointwhere people aren’t actually dancing, butthey’re tapping their feet and loosening up.If you try and get them up before thatpoint and make the music too loud, it justpushes them out because it’s too aggres-sive.” Gerry also emphasises the effect thatrecording quality can have on a DJ set. “Theidea is to keep up a flow as much as possi-ble, and something that’s been well maderecently is going to have a lot more oomphto it than something which is old, or evenrecent but poorly made.” This differenceisn’t so noticeable when listening to musicat home and it’s only when I have anotherpractice session on the decks at Darbuckathat I hear what he means. An old ska tunesounds positively tinny when played after asmartly produced track by currentfavourites Charanga Cakewalk. Gerry hasone more very important piece of advice.“Don’t get too pissed or stoned, which isquite easy to do when you’re feeling ner-vous.” To fill the floor he recommends justabout any version of O Mo Como Va, espe-cially 3 Canal’s rapso reading.

Back at Darbucka, I get a lesson on thedecks from the other two corners in theMambo Inn triangle. Max Reinhardt andRita Ray regularly run DJ workshops and

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that experience shows. They home in onthe little that I can do and concentrate ondeveloping it. Both Max and Rita startedout playing in bands and came to the deckslate in life. Max got the bug through hiringdiscos for his children’s parties. At first hejust played the wedding circuit but soongravitated towards black music in generaland then African and salsa in particular.Rita started her DJ career at the MamboInn. “I originally only came down because Iheard they had a 12-inch version of Prince’sKiss which I didn’t own!” she laughs.

Post-Mambo, they spread out over avariety of nights including the free-for-allSpace Race session where they startedinviting musicians to play over the beats.This led to their Shrine Synchro Systemproject. The Shrine night is a celebrationof the music of Fela Kuti and all other AfroFunkateers, it’s currently their main regu-lar gig and it’s here that their Synchro Sys-tem lays down beats which interact withan ever changing cast of singers, Afro-rap-pers, jazz players and the like.

“Everyone’s a DJ in their head,”explains Max. “Everyone’s got theirfavourite music, so one of the things thatyou have to do in a club is field thedancefloor rowdies. Whatever anyonecomes up and asks for, just tell themthat’s what you’re playing. That usuallyworks. Even if they ask for Kylie andyou’re playing an Afrobeat instrumental,just tell them ‘This is Kylie!’ and they’llprobably leave you alone.”

“Don’t get too uptight,” advises Rita.“The best times are when I’ve takenmyself on a journey and I haven’t knownwhat I was going to play next.” Theirsure-fire floor-fillers have a distinctlyJamaican flavour: Max goes for BaringtonLevy’s Under Mi Sensi, whereas Rita reck-ons that Broadway Jungle by Toots & TheMaytals is the one to rock the crowd.

Like Andy Kershaw, Charlie Gillett isknown primarily as a radio DJ, but also likeAndy K he’s a formidable, if only occasional,club DJ too. I’ve mainly caught Charlie’s setswhen he’s provided the music before livebands. A job he likens to that of the come-dian at a strip club. (“You’re really not whatthe audience are waiting for.”) Charlie’slong career in music has been well-chroni-cled in fRoots so we can skip straight to theadvice. “Regardless of how adventurousyou intend to be, you need to have certainsafe records that you’re convinced you andthe audience share as an experience,” hetells me, “because they’ll feel more com-fortable dancing to a record that they’veheard and ideally even danced to before.”Mongo Santamaria’s version of Watermel-on Man and Arrow’s Hot Hot Hot arefavoured Gillett standbys. Then there arethe tunes that the audience may not knowbut are bound to dance to anyway: BallySagoo’s remix of Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan’sKenna Sohna is a prime example of this.

“Then there are the things that peo-ple ask you to play which they could rea-sonably expect you to have. They want tomake you feel comfortable and whenthey realise your frame of reference, theycome up to you with the artists that theycan think of in your territory, which isvery often Manu Chao and definitelyBuena Vista Social Club. It’s very embar-rassing if you haven’t got the record,when you can see they’ve moved halfwayto where you are. You don’t want peopleto feel that you’re a person from outerspace or that you think that they are!”

Then, suddenly, the night of mydebut DJ session is upon me. I’vedecided to call it Chilli Fried,quite a good name I think. Grant-ed it doesn’t really describe what

people are going to get, but then SomeBloke Who Doesn’t Know What He’s DoingPlaying CDs All Night isn’t really a goodname for a club night. I use the train rideinto town to go over the collected wisdomthat the DJ experts have imparted: DJing isa journey that tells a story, it’s aboutmatching tunes by beat, mood or style orit’s about surprising people. Play for your-self and for the crowd, but don’t try andread the crowd, although it’s good to sec-ond-guess what they might want andnever, ever leave home without a copy ofMory Kante’s Yeke Yeke! (Unless you owna copy of Kataki’s Hula Hoop Jive that is.)

The club starts to fill up while I playmy warm-up set. Friends, DJs and fRootspeople are amongst those happily chat-ting and munching on meze as I ease upthe volume. When I start my dance set,people are tapping their feet, moving intheir seats and clearly enjoying the music,but nobody’s hitting the dancefloor. I playa funky Afro-reggae groover by London-based singer Ammy Coco and some peoplestart to move. A North African selectiongets some more on the floor and my salsa/Latin mix really has them shaking it.Choosing the right music to inspire com-plete strangers to dance is a highly addic-tive activity. I wouldn’t claim to have mas-tered it yet but I’m certainly getting there,and at the end of the night some of thedancers want to know when I’m playingnext, so they can come down.

Did the (sometimes conflicting) adviceI received from the DJs I consulted help?Yes, definitely. I took something from eachof them and they all contributed to theway that I presented my set. But I think thebest advice I received came when Idropped by Darbucka after work oneevening to have a sneaky practice on thedecks. It was early and there was just meand the barman there. “I was a drum ‘n’bass DJ for 10 years,” he told me as I setup, “and I think you need to relax. I seepeople giving you lessons here and youalways seem stressed. Take it easy! Don’tbe afraid of the technology, it’s the musicthat matters. Enjoy yourself!” I did enjoymyself, so much so that Chilli Fried is goingto be a regular night. Come down, I’ll domy best to make you dance and I’ll evenknow what to say if you ask for Kylie.Dave Hucker: www.technobeat.comEric Soul: www.ericsoul-dj.com M. Morales: [email protected] Jones: www.futureworldfunk.comSimon Emmerson: www.afrocelts.comG. Lyseight: [email protected] & Rita: www.theshrine.uk.comC. Gillett: www.thesoundoftheworld.comDarbucka: www.darbucka.com

DJ AFAT’s Chilli Fried Five1. Ammy Coco Akoua2. Sainkho Ohm Suhaa (Martin Morales

Remix)3. Asere A Favor del Viento4. Amr Diab Habibi (Remix)5. Bucovino Club vs Taraf de Haïdouks

CarolinaThe next Chilli Fried session is on Thursday13 January 2005 at Darbucka, 182 St JohnStreet, London EC1V 4JZ, with live musicfrom Troia Nova. F

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Andy Kershaw (right) & Verity Sharp

Gerry Lyseight

Max Reinhardt

Future World Funk’s Russ & Cliffy

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