20 Janeiro 2012 meeting of DJ's na Rocinha

Jan 20th Patrick Alves organized a meeting of dj's in the favela. Over 25 dj's from the comunity showed up and took their turns playing for about 30-40 minutes..Every Sunday they have a pagode party on rua nova or the new street from 6pm until midnight..we met on a friday afternoon at 4pm and various dj's got to play everything from hip hop, funk, pagode, top 40 and anything else you could think of. The place where we played was in front of a bar so our crew attracted a lot of attention and music always brings out many people from the favela. I am sure the bar was happy.

I brought my cdj's and patrick brought turntables, mixer and speakers. The bar hooked us up to electricity to get us going. Big shout outs to Patrick for organizing this event, Dj Markao de Charme, Dj Bola, Dj Fernado Nere, Sem Terra, Dj Ramon and many others. We are planning another one very soon..

I want to thank all the tourists that I received in january and february as witout you, this dj school would not exist. I was able to buy some nice speakers for the school. We are growing the school slowly with students and equipment. Eventually it would be nice to have a sponsor for equipment so I can use the money from tourism to buy a permanent location for SPIN ROCINHA..

Update on SPIN R0CINHA

Our students finally had the opportunity to play outside the favela. Garyt Lineback a mutual friend, works for VALE, a mining company and the second largest company in Brazil.

So, on 12th of November 2011, we met at the bottom of the hill at 12 noon, Vinny. Johnathan, Ariel, myself and Garyt to head out to some far off place about 75 minutes out of the city of Rio. It was a sitio out in Recreio dos Bandeirantes. A BBQ party for middle to upper class brazilians to be dj'ed by students from the favela.

This is good exposure for the students to get used to playing in front of crowds. About 1 hour after we arrived Andre our 12 year old student arrived with his father on the back of his fathers motobike. Everybody got a chance to play various styles of music and to show their skills.

Vale also made donation of rice, beans and other foods to give to projects we have in the favela. I gave some to the kids to bring home and to the daycare just on the otherside of my street. I want to thank Garyt and Vale for having SPIN ROCINHA to play their party. I hope this is the begining of great things to come for the students of our dj school..

***a sidenote...the day following this party on 13 of November, the armed forces and over 3000 police took over the slum without a shot fired. Still a shocking thing for me to watch at 4:09am military tanks and men in fatigues with big military assault rifles roll by my front door..

Beginning of our DJ School- SPIN ROCINHA & Rocinha Media School

For over 10 years, I have had people ask me to teach them to dj. I think that everyone who is a dj has had friends ask them to teach them. Dj schools are rare and most dj’s are self taught. It starts out as a love for music, then getting some tables in your bedroom and practicing. Depending on your skills and desire, some venture out into playing in bars or clubs. Almost all of us at one time has done the family party or wedding. Putting your time in on the decks has its perks. For me it was being able to play in front of a crowd and gain experience. I had the opportunity to play a lot outside of Brazil too, which was great. I played mostly Brazilian parties and funk music was my love. My home for about 8 years was San Francisco so I had the opportunity to play in many clubs there. I will never forget the “Underground”, “Pink” and “el Rio” as some of my home clubs.

So, out of all of this, about 2 years ago I decided that I wanted to make something special here in Rocinha. There were many people in the favela that wanted me to start a English school but for me, I would rather start something that is my passion. There are already English schools here. I started asking people around the community if they were interested. Many showed interest, then I decided to research about how I was to do this. I had told many people from facebook my idea. Everybody said go for it.

About 5 months ago a Dj Phi Pham, from New York contacted me about the dj school and said they wanted to be a part. I told them about my contacts with dj’s here and our plan to have free classes. But I needed help with equipment. Electronics here are very expensive, probably close to triple what the costs are in the United States.

During this same time many more people were interested in this project. Harry Daley a dj from Canada, had contacted me after reading my blog and I put him in contact with Phi in New York. After a few months Harry took a trip to New York to meet Phi and talk about their project called “Building Beats”. Their idea is to help fund dj/music projects in poor areas.

I had some equipment but had to find a way to get more. If we are going to have a good school, we need enough equipment for people to practice on. Ryan, a friend of mine from San Diego put me in contact with a woman who was interested in projects going on here in the favela. I met Lea Rekow one day while showing her Tio Lino’s art school. After seeing the art school, I told her about my idea of making a dj school. She became interested and we started meeting and talking about organizing how we would do this.

She has much experience in doing this kind of thing. Her experience covers many areas including film making and curating large art shows in New York. We set the plan in motion. My job was to find a place to have the classes, find the students, advertise in the favela, buy the notebooks, the white board and host Ryan and Harry for a month. They both brought dj equipment down with them. Lea had friends who donated equipment, website hosting and development. We have both put in a lot of time to get this project off the ground.

We had our open house on August 1st and started the classes on August 15th. We have classes every Monday and Wednesday for now. Eventually we will expand when we find a new space. For now, we are running the school out of my living room. This is just temporary until we secure a good location. The classes run for about 90 minutes. We have nine students that include 6 guys and 3 women. The ages of the students are from 13 up to 34 years old. I absolutely love this project as it is off to a great start and already we are getting interest from other residents who want to take part in the next set of classes.

In order to expand we are always looking for new/used equipment. Lea handles all monetary donations. So, if you have interest to help us expand the program you can contact Lea at info@rocinhamediaschool.org

Below is a video on youtube of our Open House that happened on August 1st, 2011
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjodZv-31iA
Please cut and paste into your browser as I have no idea through this blog how to make a link..