IT’S LIKE ANY OTHER NIGHT AT FEVER. I SIT ON the sidewalk across the street. I unwrap my tuna fish sandwich. I flip the top on my can of Mug and take a sip of cool, foamy root beer, letting it slide down my throat sweet and smooth with the slightest bite along the way. It’s like any other night.
Across the street the club is swarming. The men sport spiked hair frozen by an endless stream of hairspray, waxed eyebrows, and collared shirts with the top buttons left undone. The women have molded every strand of hair into place. Their tops are super skimpy, covered in plush velvet and shiny satin. Their pants are tight, their skirts are short, their boots are tall. Cleavage bursts out in every direction, and all I can think is that Lea is more beautiful than every one of them.
I polish off my sandwich and chug the rest of my root beer. My heart is pounding like crazy, but it’s a steady beat, reminding me of what I’m about to do but not causing me to panic. An easy reminder. Badoomp, badoomp, badoomp… I crumple my wax paper and stand. My new competition time is midnight. It’s 11:35. It’s time.
I take a deep breath and do something I’ve always wanted to do but never had the courage to before. I step off the sidewalk into the street. Then I take another step, and another, and another, until I’m walking steadily across and stepping onto the sidewalk on the other side.
It is the closest I’ve ever been to the club and feels more like stepping onto another planet than onto the opposite side of the street. The energy of Fever buzzes around me like an electrical surge. It picks me up and carries me along with it, filling me with its excitement and causing my heart to beat harder. Badoomp, badoomp, badoomp…
The line forming behind the red rope is huge tonight, much larger than usual.
“What’s going on?” an arriving couple asks.
“Big DJ battle going on tonight,” someone answers. “The best up-and-coming in the city are supposed to be here.”
The best up-and-coming in the city. Could that be me? Among the best up-and-coming?
“Aye! Ice!”
I turn to see Hawk dressed in his usual T-shirt and jeans, looking like his typical self. I’ve chosen to wear regular clothes too. I might look underdressed for a place like this, but at least I’ll be comfortable when I spin.
“ ’Sup, Hawk.” I move up to where he’s standing off to the right of the line. He shakes my hand firmly, like we’ve just closed a major business deal or something.
“You okay?”
“So far.”
“Been here long?”
“I’ve been across the street for a couple hours.”
Hawk frowns. “You didn’t go inside and listen to your competition, did you?”
“You told me I couldn’t watch anyone before me, so no.”
“Good. How do you feel?”
“Nervous.”
“Better get over that quick.” Hawk grabs me by the arm like people do little kids when they’re in trouble and leads me over to one of the huge bouncers at the entrance. “Mick, this is DJ Ice. Ice, this is Mick.”
The bouncer, Mick, crosses his sausage-like arms over his bulky chest and studies me. “You look familiar, Ice. You play here often?”
Hell yeah, I look familiar. I sit across the street from him practically every night. But I only shrug at the guy in response. I can hardly think let alone get into any unnecessary conversation. He shrugs back, and then I look on in dead shock as he reaches over and unhooks the red velvet rope that holds the crowd at bay. He ushers Hawk and me in before all of the people waiting in line, then latches the rope again.
Now, I’d love to pretend like this is no big deal. But the truth is, this is a totally key moment. Here I am, me of all people, skipping the line. Little ole’ nothing me, a skinny teenager who sits across the street eating sandwiches under this same huge bouncer’s observant eye and works as a busboy down the street, cleaning up after the people who normally pass up the line.
“Are those two of the DJs?” I hear someone ask.
“Maybe,” someone else replies. “They look like DJs.” And I can’t help but smile.
These are the last words I hear before being whisked into darkness.
I follow Hawk down a narrow hallway with dim blue lighting along black walls that vibrate with deep bass sounds from somewhere up ahead. And there is the beat of my heart again, pounding a little faster now. Badoomp, badoomp, badoomp…
“Come on,” Hawk orders, “hurry up!”
But it’s hard to hurry when I’m trying to take in and remember every detail.
We pass a window on the left and Hawk pauses, leaning into the booth to give the redhead sitting inside a peck on the lips. “That’s Judy,” he says as we continue on. “She sells the tickets and handles the cash.”
“How long has it been since you worked here anyway?”
“Long enough.”
“And all the same people are still around?”
“Lots of people work here for years,” he says. “Others don’t.”
At the end of the hall we come to a small room bathed in soft red lighting. Three more bouncers stand in the center of the room with a set of steel double doors directly behind them and a staircase on our left that leads down into darkness. That same pounding bass travels up to us from downstairs, but it’s much louder now. I can feel it in the tips of my fingers, in the soles of my feet, in the edges of my eyelids. It swirls in my ears and calls to me in a sweet whisper. “Marley… Marley… Marley…”
“Sorry, gentlemen,” the smallest of the three bouncers says. “Gotta meet dress code to get inside. No jeans, no sneakers, no baseball caps, no team jerseys. No exceptions.”
“This is DJ Ice,” Hawk explains smoothly, motioning to me to show my invitation. “He’s spinning tonight.” These are the first people at Fever he doesn’t seem to know. I hand my invitation to the bouncer, who looks it over carefully before speaking to someone through a mini mic hidden on the inside of his shirt. He presses a finger to his ear for a moment, then nods.
“One sec,” he tells us.
I take my invitation back and we step aside to wait while a group of five enter the room and hand little movie theater–size tickets to the other two bouncers who stamp their wrists while the smaller one stands back and observes. He opens one of the steel doors for them and the little room fills with music as the people walk inside. Bass rattles the reddened darkness around me and my heart beats in time with it. Badoomp, badoomp, badoomp… This is really going to happen.
“Hawk?” someone calls out. We turn to see a tall, slick, sophisticated-looking blond guy, with a perfect tanning-bed tan and the whitest teeth I’ve ever seen. “Well, I’ll be damned. I don’t believe it. How long has it been?”
Hawk doesn’t look the least bit excited to see the guy, and for a moment I wonder if there’s bad blood between them. Then I remember that Hawk never looks excited to see anyone.
“Trevor, DJ Ice. Ice, Trevor,” he says in a monotone voice. “Trevor’s the lead floor manager.”
Trevor offers his hand for me to shake. “Glad to have you with us, Ice. Welcome to Fever.”
“Thanks,” I say, trying to sound casual to mask all my jumbled-up nervousness and excitement at the idea of being welcome here.
“You’ve been with us before, I’m sure.”
“Been with you?”
Hawk glares. “He’s asking if this is your first time at Fever.”
“Oh. No, I haven’t. I mean, yeah, first time.”
“Wow! Don’t get too many first timers when you’ve been the hottest club in the city for over twenty-five years. Well then, an even mightier welcome is called for, isn’t it?”
I smile in reply. It’s hard to focus on him with my heart beating as fast and hard as it is and all.
Trevor looks like a blond version of Donnie, except even more carefully coifed and slickly dressed. Unlike Donnie, he’s really cheesy. Unlike Donnie, he also seems genuinely nice. “We’re running about twenty minutes behind, so the DJ before you is just finishing up his set and then we have to switch out his stuff for yours, which’ll take a few minutes too.”
“Okay.”
“But that means you have enough time for me to give you a tour of the club if you wish. I’d love to show you around, let you see why Fever is the best of the best.”
I look to Hawk for direction. Hawk nods. “Thanks,” I say, “that’d be great.”
Trevor turns to one of the bouncers. “George, hit me up on the radio when we’re ready for Ice on the main stage, will ya?”
“Sure thing, Trevor.”
“Fantastic!” Trevor turns back to me and Hawk and smiles. “Follow me,” he tells us before stepping down into the darkness of the stairwell.
Okay, now, in my dreams, Fever has always been one level. In reality there are three. I’ve also always imagined one dance floor when in fact there are several. We descend the flight of stairs to the first, which Trevor refers to as the Elbow Room. Curved couches border the room on two sides, a bar runs the length of the third, and a DJ mixing on a small stage makes up the fourth. That’s another shocker—Fever doesn’t center around DJ Lord at all, but in fact has six other star-caliber resident DJs. All the other slots are filled by different guest DJs every week.
We pass through the Elbow Room into the Billiard Room, where a bar takes up about a third of the space and eight pool tables take up the rest. People are playing on all eight tables.
At Fever even the pool games look exotic. I’ve played plenty of pool and watched plenty of other people play pool, but it never looked quite like this. It’s the blue-tinted lighting and the club music and the sounds of brand-new, shiny billiard balls colliding sharply that make it all seem so sophisticated and alluring. But really it’s the people playing.
Cream seemed glamorous and exciting the first time I walked in, but I got used to it. Eventually I felt like I belonged there. I can’t imagine ever getting used to the scene at Fever. The way the people move, the way they talk to their friends, the way they flirt with strangers, and hold their drinks, and lean against the pool tables, and seem to use the music pumping in from the Elbow Room as their own personal soundtrack. I suddenly feel very sixteen.
From the Billiard Room we move into a third room with a large dance floor and swirling disco lights covering the ceiling from end to end. Small round platforms with poles in the middle have been placed around the room for people to dance on, and a long stage runs the length of the back wall. About twenty or so people are dancing on the stage, with maybe another thirty spread around the dance floor and on all the little platforms.
The feel of the people in this room is a little more like Cream. The vibe here seems to be more about having a good time than looking good the way it seemed to be with the people in the Billiard Room. Still, though, Cream is like the minors compared to this—like the spot the cool crowd hits for warm-up drinks before entering the major-league stadium for the real game.
The DJ is set up in a separate room above that looks out over the dance floor. I can just make out the top of his head bobbing up and down in the little window. Opposite the stage is another bar running the length of the room. This, according to Trevor, is the Star Room.
We climb two flights of stairs and Trevor shows us the VIP Room, which is made up of purple velvet couches and dark glass coffee tables. The walls are painted a bluish purple color, making this the only room in the club that isn’t black.
Platters of fruit and desserts cover a long table against one wall, and this room also has its own DJ and bar. There are only around fifteen people here and at least half of them are drinking champagne. All of them look untouchable, as if they might snub you at any second just for looking at them. They’ve got their own world here and move with body language that seems to say no one else is worthy without actually saying it. They’re like an adult version of the Haves.
A huge floor-to-ceiling window looks out over the main room, which is referred to, of course, as the Fever Room. Descending a spiral staircase puts us directly onto the main dance floor.
The Fever Room sits beyond the set of doors where those last three bouncers were checking tickets and is the room people normally enter directly after paying. It’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. This is where the true clubbers go. There are still some people here who seem to be all about looking good and getting attention, but you can tell the moment you take in the massive crowd that most of the people only care about partying.
The room itself is an enormous open space with suspended cages for the Fever Go-Go Dancers to perform in. Disco balls and spotlights hang from the ceiling and walls, and a small, circular stage occupies the center of the room. The stage stands at least ten feet above the crowd and actually rotates in a slow circle. The main floor surrounds it, and two massive bars take up either side.
I look around me in awe. No wonder Donnie OD’s on booze and girls every night. He has to keep himself from getting depressed that he doesn’t have this! “I had no idea….”
“Well, now you do!” Hawk snaps.
Trevor guides us around a group of tables bordering one side of the room. Each has a large silver rhinestone-covered combination booth/couch curving around one half so people can sit and socialize. We make our way to a table that sits alone on a second level. The table itself is twice the size of the others and is clearly meant for VIPs so they can sit a step above the rest of the crowd.
Trevor presents us to the table. “Everyone, this is our next contestant, Ice. Ice, this is Lord. He’ll be the voice you hear introducing you to the crowd tonight.”
DJ Lord looks up at me from under long, dark bangs that completely cover his eyes even though the rest of his hair is cut short. “How ya doin’ tonight, Ice? You ready for this?”
I nod in reply, my heart pounding like the wheels of a subway train rumbling across the tracks. Badoomp, badoomp, badoomp…
“Next to Lord is Steve, and that’s Pete, DJ Smooth, Julian, and last, but most definitely not least, Katie Green, better known as Femme Fatale.” I figure these are the other five DJs who got to pick contestants. They all greet me and then Hawk, who already seems to know everyone. Girlfriends and friends are also mixed in at the table but aren’t introduced.
Trevor pulls out a walkie-talkie and talks to whoever’s on the other end. “Okay,” he tells me, “we’ve got the congas Hawk requested, and your equipment and records are already up there as well, so you’re all set.”
“Up there?” I look up at the huge circular stage, and my mouth drops. “That’s the DJ booth?”
“It spins at a snail’s pace,” Trevor assures me, putting an arm around my shoulder and guiding me toward it. “You’ll forget all about it in no time.”
“Wow!”
I soak in different energies from the people we pass as we move through the crowd and across the dance floor: all the happiness and disappointment and heartbreak and hope and laughter….
Music from a DJ in the Star Room pumps through the Fever Room speakers so the crowd has something to dance to between contestants.
“You ready?” Trevor asks once we’ve reached the base of the circular stage. An aluminum ladder angles against one side. My eyes follow it up to the top, one rung at a time. A door sits to the right of the ladder, which, according to Trevor, leads to a small lift inside the stage. The lift is used to haul up equipment and remains stationary while the rest of the stage moves around it.
The ladder is primarily for the DJs so they can climb up and down quickly without all the hassle of the lift. I can’t even imagine how many different DJs must have climbed that ladder and stood up there, some of them famous guest DJs visiting from all over the world. I grip the ladder and watch the stage above through determined eyes. “Yes. I’m ready.”
“Excellent!” says Trevor. A heavyset guy in a sweat suit with long, stringy, light brown hair and wire-rim glasses pulls out of the crowd and Trevor puts his arm around the guy’s shoulder like he did me. “Right on time, Lenny. Ice, this is Lenny, your sound engineer. He’ll show you the lay of the land up top.”
Lenny nods a greeting and motions toward the ladder that I’m now gripping circulation-tight. When Trevor offers his hand, I let go long enough to shake it, then grab the ladder again. “Good luck to ya, Ice,” he says, flashing his gleaming-white smile.
“Thanks.”
He turns and shakes Hawk’s hand. “Good to see ya, Hawk. Don’t be such a stranger.” Someone calls to him over his walkie-talkie and he moves back into the crowd.
“After you,” Lenny says, motioning toward the stage. I take a deep breath and begin to climb.
Stepping onto the massive DJ stage feels more like stepping onto a carnival ride, like a merry-go-round in slow motion. As I look around, I feel like I’m being closed into a Ferris wheel and pulled up into the air off balance, with my insides scrambling as I rise up over the top and come to a sudden stop, swinging back and forth as I gaze over the side at the view. That’s how this feels. Like being picked up off the ground, having your stomach churned, rising all the way to the top, then being kept there slightly off balance, gazing over the side at the massive dance floor below.
“This is it,” Hawk is telling me, “end of the line. Remember, no matter what happens tonight, do not fuck up. Do and I’ll kill you.”
“Okay,” I say, but my heart is pounding so hard and I’m feeling so amped, it’s hard to even speak. Badoomp, badoomp, badoomp… And I wonder if he’s feeling the pressure too. His rep is riding on me now. After all the negative crap he’s spewed about my skills, he turned around and believed in me enough to let me be the one to redeem him at the club where his career went south. Even made partial amends with his former best friend to do it. Now, that is some deep shit.
I’m facing five other DJs, every one of them more experienced and seasoned than I am. I know I can’t win. Under normal circumstances I would’ve worried about how good they are and how the three that’ve already gone ended up doing. But frankly I don’t care. I never did. It’s being here that matters. And my one goal, now that I’ve made it, is to stand tall and impress the judges and the other DJs enough to restore Hawk’s name. It’s the only way I can ever come close to repaying him for everything he’s done for me.
Lenny goes over some of the technical sound engineering stuff, which is complex and complicated and goes way over my head but does give me an overview of the kinds of things he can do to help me and the types of requests I can make of him. He wishes me luck.
The music pumping in from the other room has stopped now and the crowd stands around socializing. Waiting. For me. There are so many people packed around the dance floor on every side. Many more than I ever imagined there could be. It’s like wall-to-wall bodies.
“Dump the jitters,” Hawk is saying. “You can’t afford them anymore.”
I nod slowly to show I understand, not that I really have any control over what I’m feeling now anyway. I’m not even sure I’m still nervous. I don’t know what I am: excited and amazed and surprised, I think, but mostly just overwhelmed.
“I need you to forget all this going on around you and get your head around what you’re about to do. Remember what I said. You can’t have your set a hundred percent prepared, because you have to be able to adapt to your crowd, and you can’t wing the whole thing either because a contest requires rehearsing, strategizing, putting some thought into the development of your set. It’s all about sounding spontaneous but polished. You are both.
“You’ve got four solid hours’ worth of quality and creativity to give this crowd. Now it’s up to you to mix it up. Select forty-five minutes’ worth of the best music you can from those four hours. Start with the two records you’ve always started with. From there, feel out your crowd and move in whatever direction they take you. Let them guide you. Go with your instincts. Spin the best you ever have. Cuz if you screw this up even a little, I’ll break your neck in two. Then I’ll kill you. Remember—”
“I know. Don’t fuck up.”
“You’re goddamn right.”
Hawk turns and moves to the ladder.
“Hey, Hawk,” I call after him.
“What is it?”
And that’s when I finally say all the things I’ve wanted to say to him. Except that I only actually say two words. Hawk hates sappy, so I simply nod to him, my eyes humble and appreciative.
“Thank you.”
Hawk’s gaze moves out over the crowd. He gives a slow nod of his own, but it’s directed more to them than me. “You deserve it, I guess.” He lets out one of his typically bitter laughs. “I mean, look at you. No matter what life hits you with, your ass keeps on fighting to get where you need to be.
“I’m gonna fight to get back everything I had and then some. I figure if a newbie like you can keep on keeping on no matter what, it’s definitely not too late for me. So should you be thanking me for all I’ve done for you? Hell the fuck yeah! You better thank me. But maybe you aren’t the only one who feels thankful.”
Hawk turns his back on me then, stepping onto the top rung of the ladder and swinging his other leg over the side, but stops long enough to call out to me once more before climbing down.
“You’ve earned the right to call yourself DJ Ice,” he says. “All you gotta do now is kick some serious ass.”
Hawk’s words linger with me long after he disappears down the ladder and I find myself staring at the spot where he stood and thinking back to that first day at his place. When he caught me on his tables, he made it clear he didn’t think I was a real DJ. I was a joke to him and he let that small fact be known in a big way. So to hear him say I’ve earned my name means the world.
I watch for him to reappear down on the dance floor and finally spot him making his way across the room to sit with the other DJs. Somehow, his words are exactly what I needed to hear because I feel truly ready now. I’m eager, even.
No more lessons. Hawk is gone. It’s my time now.
I pull my headphones over my ears. They’re not hooked into the decks yet, but into my iPod. I shuffle to the song I want and look back out over the crowd again, eyeing the room in amazement, turning full circle to take in every inch of it as Drake’s “Greatness” fills my head and hypes my senses. I turn my attention to ordering my records, pulling up my playlist on Dorian’s laptop, checking my needles, and adjusting my mixer settings how I like them to be.
“You ready?” Lenny asks.
“Yeah. I’m cool.”
“Hey!” a girl’s voice belts out from somewhere out in the crowd below. “Hey! Down here! Ice! Down here!”
It doesn’t take long to spot Jewel, whose hair is now streaked with dark blue to match the funky lace dress she’s got on. She looks as beautiful as ever as she waves a piece of cardboard in the air that says DJ ICE RULES!!! across it in big, colorful letters. “You’re the best, baby!” she yells.
I can’t see them, but I know my boys are out there somewhere too. Chuckie, Scuzz, Will, and Terrell all got to skip the line and get in free on my guest list. My guest list… Even Rick and Hogan switched their shifts around at the club so they could be here.
I look for Hawk at the DJ table in the back, but people are swarming it now.
“All right, everybody,” a voice suddenly booms overhead, “let’s see how loud we can get. Because DJing from our main stage is our fourth contestant. Show your support and help me give a warm Fever welcome to Deeeeejaaaaay Iiiiiiiicccce!”
Now, meeting Lord wasn’t much of a thrill. There was so much to take in at once I couldn’t really focus on any one thing. Besides, he’s such an average-looking guy. Average height, average build, average clothes. The only thing interesting about him at all is those signature bangs of his, and I’ve seen those plenty of times from across the street. No, meeting him wasn’t exciting at all.
But having him introduce me? Now, that’s special. The DJ Lord is introducing me to the crowd at Fever. That’s when the reality truly sets in. I have arrived. I’ve really made it.
It’s pretty unreal. I’ve only dreamed about this down to the detail. The best part is, every one of those details is better in person.
Hundreds of eyes stare up at me as the crowd cheers in response to Lord’s introduction.
Since I know I can’t compete on the level of the other DJs, I’ve decided to ditch all the stupid little things I’d do if I were competing for real and do what I want. Hawk won’t care as long as I perform well within the choices I do make. And I will. I can already feel it.
I look down at the people spread out below and surrounding the stage, taking it all in and then some, letting them keep on with their applause until they get bored with it and quiet down to a mumbling state as they wait for me to do something.
There is color everywhere. In their faces, in their clothes, in their surroundings, in the spotlights. My heart pounds so hard I’m surprised no one else can hear it. Badoomp, badoomp, badoomp…
The colors pixelate, swimming before my eyes like so many tiny, swarming insects. Black touches the fringes of my view and slowly takes over, spreading inward until only a few colored cells remain and complete darkness takes over. Pitch-black nothingness inhabits the area where all those people once stood. Now there is only empty space.
The noise around me disintegrates and I breathe in the silence. Nothing else exists but the space immediately surrounding me and the still air and my vinyl lined up in Hawk’s trusty crate. As my first record falls into place on the left turntable, I pick up the closest mic and tap it to make sure it’s on.
Talking to a huge crowd happens to be the last thing on earth I want to be doing, but there are words that need to be said. Even if I have to force them out.
“This set I’m about to play,” I say, my voice echoing amid the black abyss, “is for my father, Rodney Dylan.”
I put the mic back on its stand. And then there is nothing left but the emptiness. That and a sample of voices so soft they’re barely audible. I gradually increase the volume and let the voices grow and grow, slowly overtaking the emptiness with a single word that sings out over and over again, exploding from every speaker before I pull it back, fading it out a little more each time someone sings it like an echo that booms in the darkness, then fades away in an evaporation that vibrates through vacant air.
“Music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music.”
It’s an eleven-note count of samples I took of voices from eleven different songs each singing the word “music,” and just as quickly as the voices rise to full volume, I fade them away into nothing. Then I drop them again, letting them boom and fade, boom and fade.
“Music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music.”
Whistles and shouts rise up out of the darkness, but I barely hear them as I drop the voices a third time around, this time distorting them into unintelligible sound as they fade away and adding keyboard notes I recorded during lunch one afternoon at school. The keyboard notes become full chords that float beneath a long, fluid little tune that repeats itself over and over as the voices continue to sing that one beautiful word again and again like mist settling below a sleepy gray sky.
“Music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music, music.”
And then. At last. I add THE BEAT—an even-paced dance rhythm blending into the voice and keyboards with ease. This is my ode to the DJ world, to the eternal love I feel for that indescribable, unattainable miracle they call music.
I let the beat take over, pulling the voices and replacing them with another string of sampled sounds off a favorite track of mine called “Hole.”
That’s when the color returns, appearing in random drops that focus my right side and then my left before expanding into all the empty spaces in between as the crowd returns to my peripheral view. I allow myself to look up from my work long enough to see them in full focus, bodies moving, listening, starting to sway on a packed dance floor as people wait to see what I’m made of.
Everyone has a moment in life, a space and time when everything is theirs and goes exactly the way they want it to. I am in the midst of mine. In my whole life I have never been happier, freer, or more sure of myself. This is the only flawless experience I’ve ever known, and I don’t plan on missing one single beat of it.
I move into my Brazilian set next. It’s an ode to my teacher; and Hawk’s friend Jobe’s live conga playing adds the perfect touch to Hawk’s favorite original composition now being played in front of a live crowd for the first time. I end up mixing Hawk’s work into a composition of my own he helped me create called “Plenty More Where That Came From” and let that take over the room.
The crowd reaction to my addition of a live musician is overwhelming and unexpected, and they cheer all over again when Hawk’s other friend Marty steps onto the circular stage and joins in. Marty’s sax sings throughout the club in long, soulful notes as the congas continue to add a sense of culture, inducing people to move from deep within.
My head bobs in a way I can only describe as more confident than it ever has before as I absorb the crowd’s energy and try to mind read their desires. At school, at Cream, at Spazio’s, even with my friends, I’ve never felt like I belonged so completely as I do in this moment here at Fever on this rotating stage. I’m taking over the whole damn club.
The next part of my set is made up of random mainstream rap lyrics laced over R & B melodies each taken from a rap song, then swapped up so none of the rap lyrics match their original R & B melodies. It’s like a mash-up, except without that typical mash-up feel where someone combines two songs and people go, yeah, that’s cool. I want them to walk away from my mix convinced the songs I combine should’ve been used together all along. I don’t even want people to be able to remember how they sounded apart when I’m done. And that’s exactly what I do.
This is also the part of my set when I move onto the third deck and spin on all three, holding my breath as I do, since I’m only capable of mastering three turntables at once for a minute or two. This is the part I was most worried about. I’m just not all that confident with a third deck spinning. I thought about skipping it and not even risking the chance of screwing up once I was on the ones, twos, and threes, but Hawk really wanted me to fit it in somewhere. I end up abiding by my mentor’s wishes, and the confidence I’m already feeling spills over onto that third deck. I feel like I could mix on three turntables for the rest of my set if there wasn’t so much more I wanted to do.
People shout and whistle, calling out to let me know they’re appreciating the pounding, swirling sound I’m creating and I can’t believe how easily their movement can join our energy together, doubling it as the beat doubles before dropping hard. The crowd is packed in so tight that people are having trouble finding enough room to dance. I watch the expressions of pleasure on the Fever crowd’s faces and fall in love with the feeling.
This is where I choose to mix in the voice-over Scuzz did for me of a Langston Hughes poem called “Dream Deferred.” Scuzz has the lowest, smoothest voice of anyone I know, and girls melt when he speaks to them. When he recorded the poem he really got into it, lifting his voice in all the right spots and pausing over words for emphasis the way the real poets do.
Spoken word jumps like pop rocks over my music, which now consists of John Coltrane jazz playing over a pulsating techno beat, with some scratching thrown in to show off my full range. My mix floats on air and shakes the rotating floor beneath my feet, and I can’t help but beam with pride at the smooth blend of sounds and words. The poetry has the reaction I’d hoped for with the Fever crowd. They seem way hyped that I’ve added a poem to my mix. There won’t be anyone else doing that tonight. But I’m not done yet. Far from it.
While the crowd is busy shouting for more of the jazz/poetry mix, I’m moving into my house set. Latreece climbs up onto the stage and gives me a prideful squeeze before grabbing a mic and beginning to sing, lacing her voice over my mix of upbeat, dizzying energy. Her deep, emotion-filled notes cry out across the crowd and multiply over themselves, expanding throughout the massive room until the walls reverberate from the outside in. “Mmmmm, woa, woa, woa-aah…”
I add a high violin sample and a light, pulsing beat, letting them dance within the record as Latreece plays with a scale of deep, heartache-filled notes improv style above it. “Heaven…. Oooooh, heaven!” I ask Lenny to switch up the effect on her microphone so each note delivers an echo.
“HEAVEN… heaven… heaven…. Oh… oh… oh… oh… oh.”
Spotlights spray rainbow patterns that swirl in mini circles over the room and across moving bodies that appear and disappear as the stage turns its way around the club. I close my eyes, but even with them closed I can still see people dancing in patterns of light. I can picture Pop standing somewhere down there in the middle of the crowd, alive and loving and laughing. I can see Ma standing beside him, drug-free and happy and lost in my music. Imagining my mother finally being free of her pain helps lift me out of my own. Being here, standing on top of the world, lifts me.
Latreece’s voice floats through the club over and over like the swirling colors of the music itself, like the swirling colors of the spotlights, like a swirling, colorful dream, floating on a dream, submersed in a dream.
“He-e-e-e-e-e-aaaaaaaaven…”
And it is heaven. All of it.
The tracks themselves become dreams, spreading over the club like wildfire and filling every crevice like melting butter; and when I drop a deep, pounding bass into the addictive melody, the rainbow patterns become pink, flickering strobes. Smoke creeps in, spreading across the dance floor and proving Lenny really knows what he’s doing because the timing couldn’t be more perfect.
Hell, the whole night feels perfect, and all the while I am here, not dreaming but really, actually here, standing amid a massive crowd of people and bathing in their happiness. It’s so crazy the power that music has, the way music can make people feel. Whatever it was they were doing before they came here—trying to focus in some boring class, working long hours at their job, changing dirty diapers, sitting in standstill traffic—whatever struggles and disappointments they might have experienced today, I have sucked all their worries away and replaced them with euphoria.
My own euphoria has brought me to another level, a completely different plane. Kind of like when you have the most incredible dream right before you fall asleep and your conscious mind still has control and everything turns out the way you want it to.
My music is my drug: one I will always fiend for, a natural drug that’ll always be more powerful and beautiful and pure than the one that killed my mother. Nothing feels as good. The energy and the control of sound parallel that feeling I get when I’m riding with Scuzz and Chuckie and someone says something so funny and we all crack up laughing. It mirrors the thrill of seeing that one special girl I’ve wanted for so long look into my eyes as her sweet lips form a smile meant only for me.
It feels like these moments and so many others blending together on the ones and twos and replaying inside my head, above my melodies, outside my drumbeat, around my heartbeat.
Every part of me explodes and shouts at the world, and when the people hear me cry out to them through music, they seem to understand, cheering and moving within an expanding freedom they can’t control and wouldn’t want to even if they could.
I am consumed by the power of this place, its glimmering beauty, sparkling in so many different forms it’s blinding.
But I squint my eyes and take it in all the same, playing on and on into an endless night.
And so goes the dream….
And so goes my life….
For as long as I live,
I will never forget this.