Real el Canario • Groovetrackers Archive

Stijl: Classics/Salsa

In this saturated DJ market a lot of words have lost their meaning. Especially the word real has lost a significant part of it's meaning. But every now and then someone comes along who lives up to the word's original meaning…….Who am I talking about? Ezequiel V. Real (Dj Real el canario).

Born on May 27 1974 Real laid the foundation for his dj style on the beautiful island of Tenerife. Citing Grandmaster Flash and Grandmaster Melle Mel as his early influences he started out as a breaker. 'My early memories of Hip Hop was that it was all about fun, music and expressing yourself'. Since he was into breaking he started collecting records, which led to his ultimate passion dj-ing. 'I did not have my own setup in the beginning so I had to practice on my family's midi-set. I did that for a long time without breaking the needle'.

Since '91 Dj Real has been spinning profesionally at Braham's & Listz, Vampi's and Soul Train. At those clubs he helped building the Hip Hop & R & B scene to grow incredibly fast. He helped the scene by throwing his own parties in the islands capital city Santa Cruz, doing several program's on the island's premier dance radio station Radio Paraiso and by opening a record store. 'Remember, this was in the beginning of the 90's Hip Hop and R & B were not as big as they are now. MTV hardly played any R & B, to get the music I loved I decided to open up a store'.

Despite all of his entrepreneurship and the success he had on the island he started to feel limited in his progression. Especially his trips to London and Amsterdam were an eye opener. He saw how big the scenes were in those cities and decided it was time for a change…

'When I came to Amsterdam I knew I had to start all over again. Like any other beginning dj I started playing at minor spots'. The first gig in The Netherlands was at café 'de Haasjes'. The owner hooked me up, and then gave my tape to the owner of the Ministry and it's been on ever since….'
In less than a year dj Real became Amsterdam’s most aclaimed dj in the black music market. He has spun at the Bassline (with heavyweights like Kenny Dope and Tony Touch), Chocolate (with Dj Shortkut) Paradisco, even open up the only dutch show of Busta Rhymes.
Next move was expanding thru the whole Netherlands, resident at Now & Wow on the eclectic club night 'Soul punkers on Disco Speed' Chocolate and urban groovezz in off corso he expanded to Rotterdam, then Utrecht, Leiden, Maastricht. Now in the 2003 Dj Real would be working on his productions along side with his Dj work, seeking for international recognition.

As I stated in the opening sentence Real is definitely keeping it real. When we go back to the basics of this Hip hop culture, originality and personality are two of the main factors the culture was built on. Real seems to effortlessly combine those two factors, which make him really stand out in this saturated dj-market. With his unorthodox high-energy-fast-mixing style he seems to drive every kind of crowd into frenzy.

See, Dj Real started off as a B.Boy ( break dancer ) this fact gives him the knowledge of how to play from a dancer point of view , then Djing in his bedroom all day, scratching, without realizing that he was building his technical base, he spun for his friends and b'days parties until his profesional debut, when he started to spin for all kinds of crowds, black, white, latinos or asians it didnt matter, they all we're on vacation, and they all wanted to have a ball. The fact that he has an extended record collection with all kinds of styles ( hip hop, R&B,jazz-funk,disco,latin,..)all this facts together, give Dj Real that sound that nobody can't refuse, or categorize, for one simple reason, Dj Real El Canario doesn't follow any path,Dj Real has no rules, he sets them…

Real el Canario
Spanje
http://www.djrealelcanario.com/