Heavy in demand in the reshaping buisness, he did superb remixes like the Jackson 5 – "We`re Almost There" for Polydor Japan this year and Shirley Basseys - "Spinning Wheel", 4 Hero`s "Star chaser", Nightmares On Wax – "Les Nuits" and since his stunning remix of Shaun Escoffery`s "Days Like This" last year, he also set the house scene on fire.

As a heavy Vinyl-Digging-Man he has a huge knowledge and respect of those rare and old gems. In love with eastern european and scandinavian Fusion-Jazz stuff you can slightly recognize where Spinna have his inspirations for his dope shit that he`s producing.

Wait, I need a break, puh, seems like this dude is not sleeping on the regular tip...Let`s see what DJ Spinna have to say:

Preddy: You doing a lot of diverse production, a lot of hip-hop stuff, rare groove compilations or even house tracks and remixes. How did you get this open-mind-attitude?

Spinna: Well, I must say, growing up in New York in seventies and eighties, I was always influenced by different kind of music. Radio in New York introduced me and a lot of people from my generation to a great big, diverse spectrum of music. You know, you can listen to black-radio over here, like everything from kraftwork, police, to madonna, to michael jackson, to prince, you know. For a good while it was all very mixed up. So, when house music got really popular, say like 85/86, that was also on the radio mixed up with hip hop, r&b and the whole thing. And then after radio I started going into clubs. I got to go in the last year of the Paradise Garage. After the Paradise Garage closed a lot of clubs started to pop up, clubs like the Red Zone or Mars, a lot of little clubs. That`s where a lot of hip hop kids went. And they were able to hear everything. The kids were breaking an popping and stuff like that. They also danced to house. It always has been a community that liked everything…I`ve always been into everything. As far as producing, I started experimenting with house productions in `89/90. I did little demos here and there, but I wasn`t confident. But production-wise I started with hip-hop.

Preddy: Your getting a massive respect for you`re remix of the Shaun Escoffery track – "Days Like This", and beside you`re house productions you also did diverse remixes for UK-acts like Nightmares On Wax or 4 Hero etc. How do you feel about this european connection?

Spinna: That`s, what`s keeping me alive actually. Because a lotta times people asking me: What has dj spinna done? and it`s usually coming from the kids that knew me from doing all the...like there was a time where all I did was independend hip hop 12", like that was a majority of my work. But a lot of those kids who don`t check for the european stuff, think that I felt off. Don`t doing anything anymore. But that`s the other alternative stuff and the independend, like the european stuff has been keeping me alive. But it`s also bringing me into another world, to a much larger and older audience as well.

Preddy: But is it also that this kinda things influence you more today? Also like the broken beat scene from the UK? 

Spinna: Right now I`m really into the broken beat scene. Actually i`m doing an album for the Belly Breakin Even label in the UK, BBE, and I did a broken beat track on the album with Mark De Clive Lowe and Kadi Taidhem. I`m into that, I`m starting do do a little more of that.

Preddy: ...and house-wise you did also a new mix for Shaun Escoffery.

Spinna: Shaun Escoffery is a new track out "Space Raider" and I actually did another song for him for his album. And I`m also starting a house label called Wonder Wax. The first release I did with Rich Medina, the track is called "Reality".

Preddy: What kind of reactions you get from the hip-hop people for you`re experiments with house and other stuff?

Spinna: It`s been pretty positive, actually. A lot of people keep telling me: "Keep doing it!" And i think, it`s because Hip-Hop is so tired right now. A lot of people who respect Hip-Hop, especially in the nineties, they don`t listen to it anymore. So their starting to reach for something else, and they understand why I`m doing it. It`s not that I don`t do Hip-Hop anymore, I`m doing both...try to balance.

Preddy: Production-wise, what kind of music you prefer nowadays?

Spinna: I`m a little more interested in house right now. Because, I haven`t done too much of it. Like with the Hip-Hop productions. When a lot of Independant 12" came out, I was like on a roll. It was easy to make. And I want to get there also with my House-productions. I want to have a big output on both, Hip-Hop and House.

[Preddy for The Message Mag Issue #12 | 2002]

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