Courtesy of Contagious Musiq
DJ Craze: He makes genre purists crazy.
Details
DJ Craze first appears for an in-store set Wednesday, March 26, at F.Y.E., 501 Collins Ave, Miami Beach. His set begins at noon, and admission is free. Call 305-532-5832, or visit
www.myspace.com/fyewmcevents.
He then appears Wednesday, March 26, at his Craze: Bass Sessions V.2 party at Nocturnal, 50 NE 11th St, Miami. Others on the bill include Z-Trip, Krafty Kuts, Stanton Warriors, and DJ Assault. Doors open at 10 p.m., and tickets cost $30. Those 21 and older are welcome with ID. Call 305-576-6996, or visit
www.nocturnalmiami.com.
He next appears Thursday, March 27, at the Wish You Were Here — Greetings from Miami! party at Suite and Snatch, 1439 Washington Ave, Miami Beach. Others on the bill include A-Trak, Klever, Blu Jemz, and Treasure Fingers. Doors open at 10 p.m., and tickets cost $20. Those 21 and older are welcome with ID. Call 305-604-3644, or visit
www.suiteloungemiami.com and
www.snatchmiami.com.
Finally, DJ Craze appears at the Future Sound of Breaks V.6.0 party at Area 51, 950 NE 2nd Ave, Miami. Doors open at 10 p.m., and tickets cost $30. Those 21 and older are welcome with ID. Visit
www.wantickets.com.
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Craze has never been one to overstay his musical welcome in any one genre.
The Nicaragua-born, Miami-raised DJ boasts six DMC championship titles gained largely on hip-hop-heavy routines. Then, in the late Nineties, he won over hordes of ravers with his ingenious drum 'n' bass deck gymnastics. But these days, the only amens and apaches in his sets are the classic, slowed-down kind. He's embraced a kitchen-sink approach to beats, reaching back into his hometown's musical past of freestyle and Miami bass, and forward with the future sounds of flashy-neon, dance/hip-hop crossover artists like Klever and Kid Sister. The epiphany and subsequent change started in Miami.
"I did one set at WMC in, like, 2005, at some party. I didn't want to do drum 'n' bass, and I didn't want to do hip-hop," he recalls. "It wasn't like, a joke — it was like, Hey, I wanna do some Miami bass stuff; we're in Miami. And I did my Miami bass set, and it went off! So I was like, Hey, I'll start doing that again."
But not all of his fans have been able to adjust; Craze mockingly imitates the few voices in the crowd that continue to yell for drum 'n' bass. No matter, he says — when he played d'n'b, they wanted turntablism and hip-hop. And when he first began playing out on Final Scratch, nobody got that, either.
"It used to crash a lot. I did this one gig in Brighton, in the UK, and my laptop just shut off," he says. "And I remember this guy screaming at the top of his lungs: 'Yeah, motherfucker, what are you going to do now? Motherfucker, you should have brought records!'" Of course, since then, Serato (to which Craze switched a few years ago) has become the industry standard. It's tough being the first down a new road.
Regardless, Craze's new, more inclusive approach is winning exponential numbers of new fans. It's all captured in bass-heavy, grind-worthy form on his latest mix, Fabric 38. Encompassing everything from hip-hop and B-more to booty bass, freestyle, and even a dash of house, it's the perfect snapshot of the free-form, roof-raising sets he'll be spinning all over conference.
