You might think you are in familiar territory. Some records fall in line with what some might call rare groove. You might here a soul record you know, a little Pfunk maybe even some Billy Ocean. You might feel within your comfort zone, assuming he’s just playing one offs of his record collection. And you could go on thinking that and totally enjoy every magical night at his monthly “Its a Tropical World party” in Brooklyn. But you would be terribly wrong.
And thats ok. But Tropical Jeremy pays homage to a different time and place. Italy during the early 70s to be exact but it shares an evolutionary path internationally within the art of djing. Before the commercial availability of the crossfader, a DJ was more of a selector, song choice was everything and a crowd was eager, ready for eclectic sounds from unknown parts of the world. On his website Tropicalcomputersystems.com you can read an interview with Beppe Loda, one of the many djs from that era. He describes djing back then as an “artless” experience, the absence of ego and without the need to entertain with innovative tricks. Nothing but the hits. Far from what we see now a days, where mp3s stored on hard-drives can be made to match,warble and glitch-out at the push of a button. The music was the part of the architecture in the nightclub and fetishization of it all didn’t distract from what clubgoers came to do; Let loose and maybe find a friend to spend the weekend.
He has been a mainstay in Brooklyns dance music scene for 15 years now. I managed to catch him for the first time at Tandem a few years back but you might have seen him at Zebulon, Kinfolk and now at his own party “Its a Tropical World” at Sisters in Downtown Brooklyn. He gave us a beautiful mix recorded live from one his parties. Displaying dance music from a wide range of sources; Africa to Turkey to New York and back again. People are still people, and a dancefloor with a cabaret license will still draw a crowd. But we’ve come a long way baby and I feel very fortunate to be in an age where you can get it all in one sleepless night.
