DJ Diaspora - Softshell Studios Archive 016

SoftShell Studios is an archive platform for dance music and adjacent genres in Baltimore. We create tangible memories for the future by documenting live sets at various events, including our own curations.

NEXT SHOWS:  10/10, Featuring Scott Zacharias, The Compound, Baltimore. 11/8 + 12/13, Black Audio Society @ LeMondo, Baltimore.  Check @dj_diaspora_official on IG for details and latest updates.

I started buying vinyl in the early 1990s when I was sneaking into house parties in Chicago, and realizing that the music I really loved only came out on vinyl (back then!). I had 1 turntable and never planned to become a DJ. I bought records because I loved music.  

Fast forward to 1997, when I move to NYC with lots of records I was in love with from Chicago and from living in London, where I moved because I heard jungle! I was going out almost every night, thrilled that I could hear the kind of music I wanted being DJd any night of the week!  Naturally, I befriended lots of DJs, and 1 of them asked me to bring a bag of records and play for an hour. I still only had 1 turntable and didn't know how to use a mixer. But, beginners luck-- I showed up with my bag, and this guy who was opening a new place was there and said he wanted me to be their weekend DJ. He wasn't lying. I had a residency there for 7 years.

(My resume includes Shelter, Joe's Pub, Lot 61, Standard Bar & Listening Room, and many gigs for private entities such as the Bermuda Board of Tourism, in NYC; in DC/Baltimore, Tropicalia, 9:30 Club, The Royal Blue, Diskobar, Showtime Bar, Idle Hour, The Crown, Bossa Bistro and Lounge, Songbyrd Music House, Marx Cafe, Impala, Dew Drop Inn, DC9, Jimmy Valentine's..)

Currently living in Baltimore.

Still strictly vinyl.

(Eventually, I got a 2nd turntable :))

My genre trajectory went like this: deep house-trip hop-underground hip hop- jungle/drum n bass-Latin-broken beat-neosoul-Afrobeat-World-old jazz-old soul-Anything that moves me... and I like mixing all of it together.