John Todora, the longtime DJ at Tootsie's Cabaret in Miami Gardens, has been for a decade the face of numerous strip clubs from West Palm Beach to Miami. He laughs when recalling the story of how he got into the business. "A friend of mine was telling me how he'd just trained to work at a strip club the night before. And he goes, 'The guy I was working with made $300 last night and got three blowjobs.' He and I went back and forth about what was better, the $300 or the three blowjobs.... But either way, I knew I wanted in."
He doesn't brag about the dancers he has slept with. But he says he married a former Penthouse Pet. He met her at a club in West Palm Beach while he was DJing and she was the featured dancer. They're divorced now, and the 38-year-old stocky Italian-American doesn't like to reminisce. Especially not with so many attractive women walking past him, pining for his attention.
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Details
Want to know what will be on the radio in six months? Pay attention to your strip club DJ. Here are five songs they're spinning now:
- "I'm da Shit," Ball Greezy, featuring Brisco and Ace Hood
- "Naked Hustle," Bizzle
- "On Deck," Unda Surveillance
- "She Can Get It," DJ Laz
- "Dance Like a Ho," 2 Live Crew
CrossFade: Top Ten Stripper Songs of the MomentRelated Content
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"Can you play that new Usher song?" a white dancer named Dreamer requests.
"Hey, I really like your hair," Todora answers back with a smile. "Did you do something different to it?"
"Really? You like it?" she says, grinning. It's her time to dance, and she hits the stage without getting the song she wanted.
"In this business, you learn how to say no without saying no," Todora notes.
A few minutes later, a dancer makes it known she's unhappy with his music selections. "That motherfucker keeps playing bullshit music for me," she complains to another dancer. "Give me Pitbull or Daddy Yankee or something. I'm fucking Puerto Rican!"
Todora says he can't satisfy every dancer. About 170 girls dance at the club, and catering to all of them isn't possible. "You have no idea what it's like back here some nights," he says. "Playing music so that the customers are happy — that's my job."
The music culture is drastically different here than at black strip clubs. Todora says he gets CDs passed to him all the time, either from artists or middlemen. But he says the way it is done has changed significantly since he first started.
"It used to be, guys in suits would come by, and you knew right away they were from a record label or something like that," he says. "They'd buy you a bottle, hang out, and sort of schmooze you into playing a few songs. Now guys just walk up, give you a CD, don't even give you a business card or anything, and just walk away." He points to a bin with about 20 CDs recently given to him that way. "It's all hip-hop stuff," he says. "I used to have guys bringing rock music in, but that hasn't happened in a long time. Rock music isn't stripper music anymore; rap is. These guys are now like the Mötley Crüe of the Eighties."
At 3 a.m., inside Take One Lounge just north of Little Haiti, Ball Greezy stands behind the bar like he owns the place. DJ Nasty is on the one and twos, and the music is all local hip-hop. Greezy's "I'm da Shit" is playing, and even though there's barely 30 people, the tiny club feels packed. DJ Nasty is a comedian when he's on the mike, and he's cracking jokes on everyone — bartenders, security guards, dancers, anyone. He calls out customers by name and tells them to throw money onto the stage. "I just like to make people feel appreciated," Nasty says between songs. "That goes a long way. A lot of DJs don't do that."
"Hey, nephew," he yells, "throw a hunnit on the stage." Without hesitation, a short, bearded black guy wearing a gray T-shirt and a blue and orange baseball cap takes a stack of a hundred singles and tosses it toward a black stripper dancing onstage behind him. The woman, a Georgia transplant who goes by the name Bianca, hardly acknowledges the money as it falls. Sticking bills in a woman's G-string barely exists at Take One.
Nasty spins Trick Daddy's "Take It to the House," and the energy level picks up even more. Greezy is on hand, testing out his new song, "So Amazing," which he just finished mixing two days ago. Nobody else has heard it yet, and he's previewing it at Take One to gauge the reaction.
"My relationship is with the DJs; that's who I attend to when I show up," Greezy says. "Once a nigga feel like you're supporting him and what he's doing, he'll play your music just out of love. So many people come in and say, 'Play my song, play my song,' but I'd rather build a relationship. So whenever I get a new song, they don't hesitate to play it."
As if on cue, DJ Nasty teases "So Amazing." "This is the new Ball Greezy track," he says two or three times before spinning it.
Girls dance all over Greezy, and the usually screw-faced rapper can't help but flash a bright smile. A guy in the corner takes off his shoes and drapes his shirt over his shoulders. Judging by the hood-tactular reaction, Greezy thinks he might make the song his new single. Nasty pulls up the track after a minute and says into the mike: "I got that new Ball Greezy. Nobody else has got it." When he drops it again, the crowd's response is even better.
It's impossible to say if the song will go national, but on this night, it's a hit. "This is what I needed to see happen," Greezy says. "I want folks to lose their minds when this song comes on. If this happens more frequently, then I'll be all right."
