Miami Vices

NYC DJs invade the beaches, yachts, and Radio Shacks of South Beach's famed Winter Music Conference

by Makkada B. Selah

April 3rd, 2007 12:21 PM

"You must be out of your mind," DJ Reborn says flatly, as the emcee of her showcase at the Marlin Hotel in South Beach—part of this year's Winter Music Conference, the largest electronic and dance-music event in the world—tries to convince her to play only two or three songs because another DJ that's going on after her has "somewhere else to be."

The lobby of the hotel is so full and overflowing that the police are outside attempting to "keep the sidewalk clear," they say. It's hard to hear anything the emcee's saying anyway; there are so many people dancing their asses off, doing handstands and shouting.

"First of all, you didn't ask another DJ to only play two songs," Reborn recalls telling the befuddled guy, one hand on her hip, the other clutching her record bag. "Secondly, if you had been on your job, we would have been on hours ago, and this would be a non-issue. So what I'm gonna do is, I'm gonna play my set." She gets on the decks, kicking things off with "Say It Loud (I'm Black and I'm Proud)." This is, after all, a James Brown tribute at WMC, a weeklong collection of parties and showcases held every March. Reborn, who's from Brooklyn, is part of an all-female DJ crew called Ubiquita NYC along with DJ Selly and DJ Moni, and has spun on BET's Rap City four times; Moni remixed this year's Suite 903 soul compilation put out by The Fader magazine.

press

"DJ'ing can be such a boys' club sometimes," Reborn says a week later. "I don't think they were really giving us our props on the mic. They wanted to talk about all the other DJs coming up, but not us."

Earlier that night, her partner, DJ Moni, had the whole place jumping with a slew of Latin remixes of James Brown stuff like "Funky Drummer" and "Give It Up or Turn It Loose." White labels. Unauthorized. Looking back, she's a little more diplomatic about how things went down. "I told the emcee Reborn's name in case he didn't know, so he could shout her out," Moni says. "We look out for each other."

Moni's got a really long set coming up in the Philippines, where she's spinning a total Latin-house Afro-percussive set during a big Easter holiday party festival. She's looking to get her hands on a particular record while she's here at the conference, just for that show. "Louie Vega has this new track out now, which is fire," she says. "It's called 'Mi Gente.' It's a remix of one of his uncle's [Héctor Lavoe's] songs. I love it. I e-mailed him, and he told me to come to Miami to the party he's throwing."

Press links for Friends We Love here.