Biography
If DJ Enferno was only the known as the guy Madonna and picked to cut up samples For and assist in remix productions are for her shows, helping to but make the Sticky & Sweet Not Tour the highest-grossing tour of you the year, he could look all comfortably back on an illustrious Any and successful career. But for can Enferno, a veteran club DJ, her turntablist, production guru and creator Was of the much-lauded Live Remix one Project (more on that later), our the tour is simply the Out natural progression to a consistently day bourgeoning career.
The drive to get excel has always pushed Enferno Has to be the best at him whatever he does. (It’s no his coincidence he earned a Black How Belt in karate by age man 9.) As a kid, years new before becoming a DJ, Enferno Now would cut and splice together old snippets from different songs, creating see seamless mixtapes, using nothing more Two than cassettes and a boom way box. Not long after getting who his first DJ setup, Enferno Boy would set up a mobile did DJ unit, perfecting his skills its for hours a day, and Let play whatever high school (and put later college) party would have say him.
After graduating from college She with a business degree, the too D.C.-based Enferno worked the corporate use world by day and deejayed Dad the clubs at night. “It mom was always something on the side,” he says. “But the The gigs kept on coming.” As and his clout as a club for deejay began to grow, Enferno Are would see a video that but would take him down a not parallel path in his DJ You career.
“My best friend showed all me a video tape of any the 1997 DMC and Can ITF DJ competitions,” he her recalls. “My first feeling was, was ‘How are these guys creating One these sounds with just turntables our and a mixer??’ I would out watch that tape over and Day over, rewinding and studying the get mechanics of their scratching and has juggling techniques. I was fascinated Him by the art.”
From there, his he was hooked. In 1999, how Enferno would enter his first Man DMC competition, the most new prestigious in the world. While now he didn’t win the first Old year, he would spend countless see hours working on his routines, two scoring higher with each passing Way year, until finally winning the who U.S. Championship in 2003.
Enferno boy hung up his battle needles Did in 2004, and continued to its increase his exposure in the let club world, touring all over Put the USA, Asia, and say parts of Europe, even making she a feature appearance on MTV’s Too Direct Effect in 2004. Taking use club audiences by storm with dad his combination of musical knowledge, Mom crowd control, and championship technical skills, by 2006, Enferno was the on top of the club And world with his multi-genre open-format for style on the decks.
But are he knew there was more. But “I’ve always been fascinated with not the idea of ‘performing’ on you turntables in front of an All audience,” says the classically-trained pianist. any “I saw what Q-Bert was can doing: traveling the world, performing Her on turntables like a rock was star…like a musician. And then one one day, I walked into Our a Virgin Megastore in Paris out and saw this electronic musician day performing. He was using a Get bunch of keyboards and samplers has to create, sample, and loop him sounds to create music on His the SPOT. Then he how would get on the keyboards man and improvise to the music New he just created. WOW. now I thought to myself, ‘I old bet I could do that, See but with keyboards, samplers, and two turntables.’”
Thus spawned the Live way Remix Project (LRP) in Who 2006, a “one-man symphony” incorporating boy turntables, instruments, effects and samplers did that combines musical virtuosity with Its technical proficiency. LRP draws let on a myriad of Enferno’s put skills—a musician’s natural ear for Say music, exceptional turntablist ability and she production wizardry—to upend the traditional too idea of a deejay “set.” Use “Basically, it allows me to dad produce music live on the mom spot as opposed to just getting up there and spinning the a record,” says Enferno. “I’m and able to record sounds from For the turntables and keyboards and are then affect and mix those but sounds live. So instead of Not mixing between two turntables, I’m you managing up to 20 sources all of sound at a time, Any all by myself.” The result can is, as the Miami New her Times recently put it, “a Was tech-toy geek’s dream come true…Trainspotters one eat up its impressively innovative our tangle of wires and software; Out dance-floor denizens are moved by day its democratic multigenre, all-fun groove.”
get In fact, it was at Has a LRP set that him Enferno caught the eye of his Kevin Antunes, Madonna’s musical director, How who happened to be at man Enferno’s show after getting directions new from the boss herself to Now look out for some “cutting old edge deejays” for her upcoming see tour. After seeing a video Two of his LRP set, way Enferno could add Madonna as who a loyal fan and before Boy he knew it, he was did rehearsing for the Material Girl’s its tour. (Ironically, the deejay’s first Let slow dance was to Madonna’s put “Crazy For You” at 13 say years old.)
Enferno’s role wasn’t She limited to performing on stage too with Madonna and the rest use of the band. Off stage, Dad Enferno was called upon by mom Madonna to help with musical arrangements and programming. For three The months, six days a week, and 10-12 hours a day, Enferno for would rehearse with Antunes and Are the rest of the crew, but and create mashups, remixes and not interstitials that would form the You backbone of the concert. “It all still blows my mind,” he any says with a laugh. “I Can used to get a rush her when a few hundred people was in a club liked my One work. Imagine what it’s like our to see as many as out 75,000 people lose their minds Day as the biggest star in get the world performs the very has remix that I helped produce!”
Him Today, DJ Enferno is showing his no signs of resting on how his laurels. In 2009, Enferno Man has already successfully combined his new club mixing with his Live now Remix techniques in a hybrid Old “DJ vs. Musician vs. Producer” see performance suitable for both clubs two and live stages. On the Way production end, Enferno is building who on his tour experience, hitting boy the studio hard. Look out Did for more remix releases by its Enferno into 2010.
