What is it about playing a record that feels so natural, so sensual? Is it the warm sizzle that shivers up through the needle, the soft punch of the bass, the steady, hypnotic spin of the turntable or album covers the size of a children’s book? It’s a lost art, really, the manipulation of grooved vinyl, pouring songs back and forth into one another so they wash over the dance floor as one never-ending wave—or cutting sound into a thousand patterned pieces, amplifying the ecstatic flicker of fingertips for all to hear. Music nowadays seems like it happens in a digital fog; the gears of our listening devices are atomized and hidden behind an opaque plastic shell, the “search” for music no more engaging than email, entire collections measured in weeks and months existing only as fragments on a magnet. That a select few still burden themselves with crate after crate of LPs and 45s, boxes of cables, mixers and, of course, the heavy motors of two direct-drive turntables, all for the sake of bringing a good time to anyone who shows up, a chance to connect spiritually to something that drives the entire universe—is nothing short of a miracle.
Chocolate Kitty III, the brainchild of DJ Soul Sister, is a celebration of this miracle, set in a city that owes itself to such cosmic fortune and a general suspicion for all things “technologically advanced.” More importantly, Chocolate Kitty is a celebration of the women DJs who have shrugged off the resistance to their passion for DJ culture and its seedier elements to become truly great at what they do. This year’s lineup is the biggest ever and triples the original number from the original C.K. only two years ago. DJ Soul Sister hardly requires description; she’s an icon, an institution, a city treasure and with a recent gig in England behind her, has officially gone global. DJ Lady Fingaz returns from her new home in San Francisco to join fellow turntablist DJ Beverly Skillz on the hip-hop, scratching side of things. DJ Kristen of Mod Dance Night (and formerly of WTUL) and DJ Lingerie specialize in the early, raw forms of rock and roll, like the British Invasion and old New Orleans soul and R&B. DJ Bomshell Boogie is a relative newcomer on the scene but has quickly made a name for herself with her mix of New Orleans bounce, underground hip-hop and old school R&B, and will also be the first DJ to play Jazz Fest. Beatgrrl might be the most “electric” of the bunch, spinning drum and bass, electronic and hip-hop into something she likes to call, simply, “Ghettro.” Recently added was DJ Robyn Steel, who, along with Beverly Skillz, hails from Lafayette, giving a regional flavor to Chocolate Kitty. She plays rare groove and funk, hip-hop and gangsta rap. ANTIGRAVITY met up with several of these DJs (Soul Sister, Lingerie, Kristen and Robyn Steel) on a fine Sunday afternoon to discuss, among other things, tactical DJ warfare, low-functioning music listeners and post-Katrina record restoration. It went a little something like this:
ANTIGRAVITY: It seems like being a DJ gives you such profound knowledge, appreciation and respect for the music you play, but you also have an obligation to “rock the crowd.” Do those two things ever come into conflict?
Soul Sister: Chocolate Kitty is about the underground women DJs in New Orleans, so we don’t really have to deal with that because we play what we want to; we don’t really deal with a bunch of top 40 stuff.
Lingerie: And if you don’t like it, that’s fine. I don’t do it for the money, that’s for sure. I do it because I love it.
SS: Yeah, we do it for the love of the music we specialize in. We’re throwing our own parties or we’re only taking the kind of gigs from people that respect us and know us.
L: How many times have you guys played private parties where they want you to play this-this-and-this and you say “Okay, I can play some of that.” And then when you get to playing it they’re like “Wait a minute, whoa. What’s this?”
Beverly Skillz: I’ve had that happen to me. It was painful because I came prepared to play what the promoter asked but he didn’t know what he wanted. It was the most painful four hours of my life.
L: If they don’t know music really well, then they’re like, “Baby, stick to the James Brown and the Parliament. That’s all. Don’t play anything else.”
BS: It’s hard; once that happens you learn your lesson because you don’t want to go through that again. You get to the point where you’re really specific with people. “Give me examples of artists” is what I say to people to so you know you’re on the right page.
AG: Do you get any song requests that make you cringe?
SS: I don’t really get that type of request because I like to play random stuff. But you know a lot of people want to hear Michael Jackson, and I don’t have a problem with that—I’ll play Michael Jackson. It might be a Michael Jackson you don’t know… but I’ll play him and [afterwards] they’ll come up and ask if I can play Michael Jackson.” It just went off! Where were you?!
L: That’s called low-functioning music listeners.
Kristen: Or it’s obviously a night where we’re playing older music and someone will come up and ask for the Flaming Lips. No, I’m not going to fuckin’ play the Flaming Lips! Are you kidding me?
BS: On more than one occasion someone’s asked me to play “Sweet Home Alabama” in the middle of a hip-hop set.
SS: Or if I’m throwing a rockin’ party and everyone’s dancing and someone will come and ask for a slow jam. This isn’t waltz night tonight!
AG: What’s some good party etiquette, then?
SS: Don’t bump the table, please.
K: Watch out for your bags over your shoulder when you’re dancing. The drunker people get, the closer they want to dance to my turntables. And don’t get pissed and act like you’re going to knock my record off my turntable when I ask you to step back, because that’s really shitty.
L: People get so mad!
K: I know! People call me “You fuckin’ bitch!!!” But if you destroy my equipment, I have to pay for it out-of-pocket. So I’m not being an asshole when I’m asking you to watch out, I just don’t want my records damaged, I don’t want my needles damaged…
BS: I don’t want your drink in my mixer–
K: Yeah, I’ve had to replace three mixers from people dumping drinks into them. You wouldn’t do that to a musician; you don’t walk up to a band and try to touch their guitars.
SS: Right. Don’t pick up my records…
BS: I’ve had people come up and actually put their hand on the record. Or hit the tone arm. That’s a good sound.
AG: Do you think that some of that behavior is due to the fact that you’re women DJs and maybe aren’t getting enough respect? How much of that do you have to deal with?
SS: It’s different for everybody. Sometimes there’s a perception that women DJs aren’t as good as men, and there’s a trend all over the world, really, of women DJs who are hired for their looks and there are women who DJ topless. And we don’t have that here. New Orleans wouldn’t tolerate that. We have some of the best women DJs and turntablists.
K: There’s been many a time where I’ve had guys come up to me and ask “Are these your records or the bar’s?” Right, because girls can’t have their own records; we can’t select our own records; we can’t own our own turntables. A lot of times what happens—because I do DJ with a male partner [DJ Matty]—and even if it’s my record playing they’ll ask him what it is. Matty’s been like, “It’s her record, why don’t you ask her?” [And] I’ve definitely heard “Oh, Mod Dance Party has gotten as big as it is because you’re cute.” If that was the only reason people came to your night was because you were a cute girl, it wouldn’t last.
Robyn Steel: A lot of male DJs will say that women will get more clout because they are hot, and the only people I’ve ever heard say that are male DJs who didn’t have a gig that night.
SS: I know I haven’t been hired for stuff because I don’t fit that model woman DJ thing. But that’s what the underground is about. We really don’t care.
AG: Who are some of the women DJs who have inspired you?
SS: Well, the person that inspired me was Spinderella, Salt-N-Pepa’s DJ. When I saw her I was watching Yo! MTV Raps. I always loved records; I was in the eighth grade and it was the first time I saw a woman DJ, even though there were women hip-hop DJs before her. But she was the first one on television for everyone to see. And I was like, “Wow… that’s me!” Just seeing her, she’s the reason why I have the confidence to do it.
K: There’s a DJ in Belgium, DJ Shazzula, that Quintron and Miss Pussycat turned me onto because they met her and she is another really young woman DJ; she’s awesome. But for the most part, around here I was honored to be asked to do this because I’ve always looked up to the other women DJs in the city who are doing the same thing. I’ve always loved [Soul Sister’s] night. Everybody knows Soul Sister has made a huge name for herself in a very good way here.
AG: Any good recent finds or digging success stories?
L: I found a great Mac Rebennack [aka Dr. John] single which I was really psyched about because I had been looking for it for a long time, about nine or ten months. I had heard of it on the Bob Dylan DJ show on the internet. He loves New Orleans music, so he’s always talking about Mac Rebennack’s old band. There’s this one song he played called “Bad Neighborhood” that’s so much fun and when I found it I was freaking out!
SS: On my trip to London I did some digging up there and one of the things I was excited about was this Spanish version of [McFadden and Whitehead’s] “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” that breaks out into this wild Salsa; I played it last night and the dance floor was on fire.
L: Rock and Roll Collectibles had a whole bunch of records for a dollar, and I found this one record by this band called Pleasure. The cover has all these ‘80s light beams going across it; and there’s one good song on there called “Glide.”
SS: They have some other songs on that record that are good, too.
L: You know it?
SS: Oh yeah!
AG: How’s the record inventory in New Orleans?
SS: New Orleans is known as a Mecca for records and all of the collectors cleaned us out years ago, but there’s still stuff to be found. Especially with Katrina, so many collections have been lost. It hurts my feelings to think about that.
K: It breaks my heart… You can find some stuff, but a lot of people were stupid and thought their records got ruined because they got water on them. They didn’t try to save them or clean them.
AG: Yeah, vinyl is actually pretty resilient.
BS: I helped DJ Skratchmo restore some of his records. He had gone to his house in St. Bernard and the sleeves had gotten stuck to all of his records. He had a system going where if you soaked them, all the paper would come up. You’d lose your labels, but he saved the records.
AG: What can we look forward to for Chocolate Kitty III?
SS: Well, this is the third year we’re doing it. It started out as a way for me and Ladyfingaz to play together before she left [for San Francisco] and it turned into a showcase, not only of women DJs and underground DJs, but just representing for women, you know? It’s always a hot party. We’re going to have the booty patrol dancers as well!
AG: Did everybody know each other before this event?
SS: Well, that’s just it; we really didn’t. It took Katrina to bring us together. The title comes from when Mayor Nagin made the “Chocolate City” comments, and we just thought, “Chocolate Kitty, that sounds like something fun!”
BS: It sounds like a party.
SS: Some of us are meeting for the first time today. New Orleans is not known for its DJ culture, but having seen DJs in a lot of different cities I can say that New Orleans has some of the best, really.
K: I’m really proud of the mentality of the city of New Orleans. Everyone here is a little bit educated about their history so they’re going to hold you to some standard to actually try and put on a good show.
BS: I think with parties like Mod Dance Night and Hustle!—that they do so well says a lot about the city. When I first moved to New Orleans and started going to Hustle!, I was just blown away. We could never do this in Lafayette! This would never happen; no one would ever come to this and look how successful and awesome it is.
AG: Mimi’s is probably one of the best places in the world to be on a Saturday night.
SS: I feel that way! I have a blast… With Chocolate Kitty, We all know how to throw a party, and when we say party, we mean it. We throw down. That’s what I want people to know. We all love music and that’s what it’s about; we don’t just play the kind of music that we do to make a point or a statement. We love to see people dance and smile and enjoy as we do. And we do it our way, so… no requests!
Interview and photos by Dan Fox
