DJ Spinna (Review - June 1st, 2006)

Published in BCNWEEK
Issue #4
June 9 - 15, 2006

After work I dragged my ass out of the train in Plaza Catalunya and down Portal d’Angel, crossed
Layetana, past the Spar mini-market on Sant Pere Mes Alt and walked on home to the worst possible thing awaiting a tired Barcelonian after a long day of work... a friend visiting on vacation. “Yo son I’m Theo Shasta let’s go out!” And out we go. After a red bull-like substance and a brief run-in with the gestapo-like Sala Apolo security force (“Somebody get this a guy a neck”), we climbed the stairs to the sweet sonido of DJ Spinna. There are a couple of tracks by Spinna in my iTunes but I’m far from an expert. So I ask my aformentioned friend and virtual hip-hop encyclopedia: “Yo, son, now that you got me out the house, what’s the deal with this Spinna?” As it turns out, in the mid to late 90’s, Spinna was one of the kings of the White Label Brooklyn 12-inch scene — producing classic cuts and remixes for artists like De La Soul, Les Nubians, Eminemand his own group, The Jig Mastas. While his production remains some of the most soulful in hip-hop, he’s now known for his house and dance music mixes and his Stevie Wonder parties in NYC, which are apparently the shiz-natto-BAM! — and quite difficult to get into.
I’m accustomed to the Apolo during a rap show (half full and clustered near the stage). However, last Thurday night dancing people were spread everywhere and evenly from bar to stage. It was all ass shaking, hip gyrating, arm gesturing, hand waving craziness. Spinna kept at it for more than two hours, dreads swinging, cutting and changing rhythms. He murdered it with a hip-hop classics section — laced, like the entire show, with soul, soul, soul. According to my visiting guest/ human encyclopedia, free soul is what he’s been about for a decade. “Soul, funk, dancing and not giving a fuck. He did whatever the fuck he felt like doing at the time. Everything he did he was good at.”