If you love electronic music then you have definitely danced to this man’s records at one time or another. Of Puerto Rican heritage and New York upbringing, Sandy was exposed to a vibrant and colourful hybrid of sounds, sights and characters that has made him one of the finest DJs and producers in the dance music world…
Hi Sandy. Fuck me it’s noisy there, where the hell are you?
“Ha ha. Dan, I’m just walking through Soho in London, I was meant to be flying to Iran today but my Visa fell through and I lost all my flights. So I’m just going to chill for a few days here.”
Well there are worst places to chill out – like Iran.
So you’re re-launching your seminal Blackwiz label which we will come to later, but before we get to that, you started DJing young – real young at the age of 13 in your native Spanish Harlem in New York City. So, I’d imagine the streets of New York were pretty much filled with music 24 hours a day (as it is today) – what musical influences were filling your head back then, which at such a tender age got you into the groove?
“Well I was born as you say in Spanish Harlem in 1971 and yes the streets were filled with music – Jazz, Latin rhythms and so much Disco. Everything changed though when Hip Hop exploded and then Electro – all the sounds started to fluctuate together, it was a great time in a great city.”
What was Harlem like back then for someone falling in love with music?
“Just like you see in the films. You’d walk from block to block and music was everywhere sitting alongside the drugs and gang culture. People would be hanging their speakers out of their windows, dudes dancing in the streets, nobody had any money, we’d all just hang in the hood. Music was all we had, there was nothing else to do. My dad was part of the whole psychedelic movement and he had all the big hair and flares thing going on. He used to take me on drug deals and I had to wait for him in the car whilst he got rid of all the weed he was selling, so the radio became my best friend.”
Did you have a mentor who taught you the artform of DJing or did you just make it up as you went along?
“No there was nobody about to guide us at all. It was just a bunch of kids hanging out late at night talking about what we wanted to do. Friends had turntables and mixers and they threw house parties where people were taking a lot of hardcore drugs – I opted for the music. I just enjoyed being the centre of attention I suppose. Back then it was all about myself and my cousins, we were all so into the music – we taught each other skills but I was the one who saw it all as a career rather than just fun. They didn’t. Then I got fucked up. I was in the wrong place at the wrong time one night and ended up in a detention centre for two years. Maybe it was a blessing in disguise you know? I sorted my head out and as soon as I was released I bought some cheap decks, started borrowing records from people and boom, off I went.”
So how did you afford the vinyl as a young kid starting out, you were a street kid coming from the ghetto – what gives?
“We’d all be robbing people, the usual shit associated with the Bronx – kids just making our way into the world however we could. We’d all have shit jobs, we just did the hours and spent the dollars enjoying ourselves.”
Worst job you ever had?
“I can’t believe I’m telling you this Dan, I ain’t admitted this to no one before! I used to work in a flower shop.”
I’m getting married next year, will you do the flower arrangement for us?
“Ha ha, for sure, count me in!”
Moving on swiftly, I started putting on parties as a promoter at the age of 14 in a local village hall charging three quid entry. You waited until you were 17 and the venue was a little bit closer to home, well actually, it was your home! You charged friends a few dollars to get in where you DJ’d all night solo style, what did your folks think about that the next morning trudging through the carnage?
“The next morning? It was way horrible, but forget my parents – it was the neighbours that were the problem. We used to take over the whole building with different little parties in various apartments, hallways and stairwells as there were so many friends and family living in the building. The neighbours were running around screaming their heads off. For the next parties my friends and I rented a hall near The Bronx Zoo, it was so deep in the hood. I was playing Chic, Patrick Adams, Jazz-Funk, Rock, Electro and Hip-Hop, it was all intertwined. You could play Run DMC, the Cover Girls and Information Society in one take, that was the music in the ghetto – and it was everything. However, there was this guy who couldn’t get in one time because he was sort of notorious on the scene and we knew if he came in, there would be trouble. Anyway there I am trying to placate things and he turns to me and says, ‘okay Sandy, I’m coming back and I’m going to shoot you dead’. I thought to myself, ‘I’m not getting blasted like this just because I want to play music. Nothing happened that night and the party continued but it really shook me up, especially when one of my cousins came over to me and told me not to worry as they were ‘carrying’ too. That was it, I was out of that whole side of things.”
You wanted to learn the keyboards to enable you to start making music, how did a kid in the Bronx manage that? “You’re right how did I manage that?!
“I couldn’t afford lessons and there were so many books out there, but again, I couldn’t afford them and didn’t know where to start with them anyway, I needed someone to teach me the theory behind it all. So I finally plucked up the courage and called a local music teacher who, before he put the phone down on me, I managed to quickly explain my situation. I think he thought ‘wow, here’s a kid from the ghetto trying to do something with his life, I’m going to give him a chance’ sort of thing. He told me about one particular book to go and get, and explained all about jazz chords and how to understand the book. After that I practised every day for two years on an old keyboard I manage to scramble enough money for, I’m still a three finger kinda guy but it works. So I suppose I owe a lot to that guy.”
1992 a seminal year in all of our lives as a young Sandy Rivera steps into the studio. You released some Hip Hop stuff that landed on the lap of a certain Fat Joe but suddenly moved to House, what made you switch camps?
“Firstly, I owe a lot to Fat Joe. He made a big investment in me and for that, big props. But back to the change. I was doing the Hip Hop thing and, well, there was this incident involving a friend who just jumped out of the window of a house we were working in and headed off to the local store to get some soda and chips where he got involved in a huge shoot out – all about the whole drug dealing side of things. For me, Hip Hop was over there and then. House music was the way forward. The Kings of Tomorrow was a huge learning process for me which enabled me to make such great records later on such as ‘Come Into My Room’ and ‘The Path’. And I’m not even gonna mention the hook Everything But The Girl took from me! Looking back though, I think most of my stuff was about the underground, now it’s more rounded. I now have the opportunity to go in any direction, but still, I still strive to make every track I put out have longevity.”
So many major DJs over the last 20 years have recorded their own material under many different guises – you have gone under Auréi, D’Menace, Awesome Foursome, The Committee, Kings Of Tomorrow, Mysterious People, Organized Noize ,Sanjay, Sanjose, Soul Vision – why?
“I enjoy working with different people, trying out different sounds and basically seeing what happens on the dancefloor. Testing the water out there if you want. I do some things for commercial success obviously, the royalty cheques from projects like D’Menace really help the cash flow situation and enables me to experiment with other avenues. But one thing I am really aware of and care about is that I make sure that two records/identities don’t collide with each other musically, that’s really important. I love the fact that though people like Deadmou5 just doesn’t give a fuck and just rolls it out.”
I loved the album ‘Trouble’ – sample free and a real mish mash of everything...
“Thank you Dan, not surprising you describe it like that really as it was recorded in three different countries – the US, UK and Malaysia. I totally set out to make it a sample free album – it’s the best way to do music.”
Latvia – and a rally car drive to the airport, explain please…
“You really do your homework. That’s a good one. I was in Riga spinning at some outdoor event, it must have been sponsored by some car company or something. Anyway, the next morning I’m greeted in the foyer of the hotel by this guy I’d met the night before, a big time rally driver who’d come to take me to the airport, in his racing car. We were flipping and sliding all over the highway overtaking cars with inches to spare, off the hook. We got to the airport and everyone we were flying by were waving at us, apparently he knew everyone there. He then proceeded to do a show for them all, handbrake turns, amazing 360 degree circles around trees – just madness. I didn’t even have to check in, he pulled up right by the stairs to the plane.”
Thankfully, after all this time you have decided to resurrect Blackwiz Records, it all began bizarrely back in 1994 through a publishing deal with one of the greatest songwriters ever, how did all that come about?
“We did a record deal with the legendary Burt Bacharach, crazy really – here was a guy who has had over 70 Top 40 hits in the US and over 50 in the UK investing in some kids from not such a great background but he saw the fire in our eyes.”
How much an investment?
“He put $75,000 into us which back then was a lot of money. I actually liquidated the company a year later, I didn’t feel it was going in the right direction, I didn’t think the structure was right and I didn’t feel comfortable in such a big corporate business. People like Wu Tang were coming through doing their own thing and I just felt, it’s time to go alone.”
What are the plans for Blackwiz Records, the first record featuring Rae that you wrote together – ‘Persuasion’ is out now. Tong is all over this lush, roof raising, hands in the air classic. Ibiza is going mad for it already, my friends over there keep playing it to me down the phone accompanied by screams from the dancefloor in the background. What’s the story?
“To be honest Dan, we made this record a year and a half ago. Defected didn’t work out for me, they didn’t see the bigger picture. For them, I felt it is all about the compilation releases, not the artist – it’s like one big machine. So we split and I was left with a whole bunch of tracks, so I thought fuck it, I’ll do it myself.”
What artists are you bringing in that you are excited about to the label?
“Watch out for my new protege – C.Castel from South London who I have just got signed to MN2S – there is some deep stuff coming out. Also, I’m hooking up a new chill out band, sort of like the Zero 7 / Kosheen vibe. I’m calling it Kotrae, it’s all live drums, guitar and sax and we’ve already got eight tracks finished. The plan is for us to hit the festivals next year, it’s a real opportunity for me to show everyone my whole spectrum of music. Oh, and if you know a really great drummer, give me a call!”
Best record you have ever made?
“Dan, that one is coming in the next album.”
2003/4 saw you move to London leaving New Jersey behind, why the move?
“A couple of things, Firstly, the travelling was really a pain, I was getting so many gigs in Europe and beyond and it was all getting too much for me – 14 hours to Greece was a killer when it would only take three hours from London. Also, I was going through a really bad divorce and had a chance to move on. I flipped to California but that didn’t work out and at the time I was doing good stuff with Defected and flying to and fro from London all of the time, so one day Simon Dunmore just said, ‘you’re crazy…move to London it’ll be so much easier’. So I got a place in Soho, then Notting Hill and now a little bit more west and loving it.”
Who do you think is the best DJ of all time?
“I’m gonna upset some people here, but Danny Tenaglia is on another level. I just love the fact that when I hear him play, I don’t know half of his records. When he plays in New York it’s amazing and the sets he does at The Ministry of Sound in London mind blowing.”
You have played in every major club in the world – what has been the best this year and favourite London club?
“My memory is shot Dan. I just got back from some club in Brazil, about an hour from Sao Paulo on the beach…amazing. I have opted out of Ibiza this year due to the whole Defected split, but my favourite club ever in London has to be ‘Renaissance’ when it was at The Cross. You used to get a real vibe down there, intense, no lights, intimate – you could feel the warmth from the clubbers in front of you. A sad loss.”
