The fourth edition of the Dublin Disco All-Dayer, taking place on 11 October at Orlagh House, Rathfarnham, is just around the corner, with a stacked lineup including Ruth Kavanagh, Pablo (Fatty Fatty), Ping Pong Disco, Honey DJs, Belfast Music Club, Groovement Soul, Cleveland Mike, Aoife Ni Canna vs Chord Memory, and Together Soul DJs.
Having previously welcomed Joe Claussell, Nicky Siano, and Black Science Orchestra to headline the twice-annual soirée, the forthcoming edition will be topped by Chicago legend Rahaan, making his first Irish appearance in six years.
Known for blending classic disco, jazz-funk, punk-funk and house music in his genre-bending sets, Rahaan’s appearance at the Dublin Disco All-Dayer comes hot on the heels of a new album, The Ones, released on London label BBE.
Tickets and more information about the Dublin Disco All-Dayer can be found here. Ahead of the gig, 909originals’ Emer O’Connor caught up with him. Over to you, Emer! 🙂
Dynamite vibe instigator and grandmaster of the ones and twos, clocking up a phenomenal four decades of vinyl-selection expertise, 909originals gives a hearty welcome to the honorary Chicago house ambassador to Ireland, Richard Rahaan Young, aka DJ Rahaan.
Thank you, Emer.
You’ve been bouncing about this island quite a bit – from the Pav in Cork, to Dynasty in Derry, Dolans in Limerick, and Queens in Belfast, to as a multitude of Dublin hot spots – since the mid-noughties. Are you excited to set foot on Irish soil once again for the Dublin Disco All Dayer next month?
Yes, it should be fun. I’m looking forward to it.
Following in the footsteps of your compatriots Joe Claussell and Nicky Siano, who both played sensational sets for Ireland’s greatest house party, have you formulated any advance ideas of how to raise the bar?
I feed off the people because I’m not a performer, I’m just a DJ. I just play music — there is a difference. So I feed off the energy of the people; I bring my certain game to the table.
So, say if I bring some fish, they might bring some chips and beer or whatever, you know what I’m saying? We have a whole meal together and we break bread, so to speak, on the dancefloor. Oh, I just made that up.
Haha, I love it. Are you going to pack two large suitcases full of vinyl, like when you played for promoter Paul Fogarty aka Pablo, many moons ago, and see where they take you?
Oh, I’m not doing that again, ever. Period.
No?
Oh, what happened was, I got this case — this big case [makes big box hand gesture]. I think that was 2000 – I don’t know exactly – and I thought I could bring this case with no problems.
When I took the flight with Aer Lingus, Chicago to Dublin, no problem. But then I had another flight with Aer Lingus, Dublin to Birmingham, and I had to pay a lot of money for that case. There weren’t that many records in there, and I wasn’t traveling that much at the time, so I was like, “but they told me I could travel like this from Chicago”, and they were like, “this is a totally different situation.”
You’re lucky you weren’t flying with Ryanair — you would have lost the deposit to your house!
So I won’t be bringing that case, sad to say.
Will you not be bringing any records at all?
Oh, I’ll be bringing records, but it will be a much smaller bag!
Will you include the 12”s you released with Pablo on Fatty Fatty Phonographics, named The Rejigs and Chi-jigs?
Yeah, well I’ll have those, if not in my bag then on my flash drive. I’ll be well packed for this party.
Ok, sweet. I believe you’re quite partial to a bit of divilment in Dublin. A little birdie told me that when you played Space 54 back in June 2010, you ended up staying for a week when you were bewitched by a local cailín? What was the craic there?
That was many moons ago, ehhh, I don’t wanna get into that.
No worries, what happens in Dublin stays in Dublin, and I’m glad you had the craic. Can you remember any time in your extensive career DJing at large-scale or intimate events in any part of the world when an element was missing and the energy was a bit off, or if you had any obstacles to overcome in order to reach your objectives?
Oh, that happened plenty of times. That’s something that happens often, especially if the club is there for the money and not for the vibe of the place. Either it can be the turntables are not set up right, or the sound man is not really a sound engineer, or they don’t know what they’re doing.
There can be a lot of variables: the speakers are bad, the sound system is poor, or even with the people — they’re not there to party, they’re just there to socialise.
Obviously you can socialise, but socialise while dancing. I don’t want to have to hear what people are saying while I’m DJing.
Is there any one place in particular where you would definitely never go back to?
Oh, I don’t want to say that.
You’re way too nice, you should be able to give out stink about somewhere at this stage!
Ok, well, there’s one place I do not care to ever, ever, ever go back to, and that’s Israel.
Good, we like to hear that talk in Ireland. Free Palestine! I wanted to ask you about that infamous loft party of 2004, eternalised in the Bring the Heat video on YouTube. It gave me goosebumps just to watch it! Apart from what’s evident in that footage, can you tell us any more about your loft party days in Chicago?
Well, I can tell you what happened at that party was that the power went out. Some people didn’t know the power went and they thought I did it on purpose. There were even some other parties that asked me to do that again. I can’t do that — I mean, I’m not going to turn the power off to recreate this element that happened. You just had to be there.
There are some really good parties here in Chicago that have happened in the past. I can’t think of any one magical moment — there were so many.
You’re a regular on the roster for Panorama Bar in Berlin. Do you remember way back when you were first invited to play? How did you get on?
Yeah, that place is wild. It was on a way bigger scale than the places we had in Chicago, but it was just crazy — it’s unreal. Even to play on Sundays in the afternoon – they have the blinds blocking out the daylight, and then at a certain part of the day they let the light in, and you see all the walking dead people at the party, and they squeal. It’s something special.
I’ve been a few times myself, dynamite craic — rocking in at 9am and it’s still hectic. It doesn’t matter what time of the day you arrive.
I remember one time I was taking a taxi or getting a lift to the place, and there was this guy walking down the street. He didn’t have any shoes on, he didn’t have a watch, he didn’t have a cellphone — this guy was walking completely naked, barefoot, down the sidewalk to Berghain. I couldn’t believe it.
Haha. I was there for Pride one year and DJ Harvey was playing the main room, which was unusual because they usually only played techno, and he’s banging out sexy disco — full of guys wearing only chaps.
That’s normal.
Ahhh yeah, you can’t beat it. Photography, of course, is strictly prohibited in Berghain. Would you be of the mindset that phones should be banned from parties around the world to regain the energy that’s been depleted by TikTok mania?
Yes. Agreed.
A solid yes from Rahaan. I’m sure you’ve played festivals or clubs in the past where some young pup of a DJ is up there playing before or after you, and they’re doing ok, but then they play a few brainless, crowd-pleasing duds. Do you fear for the future of the scene, that festivals and clubs are being destroyed by the power of influencers?
Ha ha. I mean, you have influencers now who have a massive grassroots following — I don’t know the recipe behind that — and they can’t even DJ, or they’re learning how to DJ. And it’s like, wow! In my day we just practiced. I took to my tools and worked on my craft, and I still do that, still to this day. Now, nah, it’s sad.
And it couldn’t be simpler for them to DJ, seeing as they just have to hit a beat match button. Anyway. You’re a slave to the studio, and you’re constantly working on edits. Is there much of an income to be made in this realm, with many major streaming platforms ripping artists off?
It’s a dog-eat-dog world haha! Well, I mean the edit game is basically bootlegs — I’ve done a lot of them.
Is there money in it?
Not really… you’re not gonna be able to close on a house anytime soon or get a down payment on a mortgage.
Speaking of super cool re-edits, where did you get the brilliant vocal for that afro-disco track I.T.T., and what does the I.T.T. stand for?
I know what it stands for but I can’t remember. I should have had these questions before. You did your homework, you’re like right, ready to take the test…
Yeah, I love research. Now I think from what I read online, it means In This Thread, but I’m not sure that’s what you meant by it.
If you give me one minute and I’ll figure this out [types furiously]. Ahhh yes, it means International Theft Theft, because he’s basically talking about other countries coming into Africa, about the oil, making puppet chiefs, and not really doing nothin’ for the people.
Your last production, It Is What It Is, for Hot Biscuit Recordings, which came out in March, has such sweet Carnivalesque flow and funky beats running right through it. Tell us a bit about the production process involved with the talented percussionist Gregory Carmouche, now sadly deceased, and the gorgeous vocals of Chéri Sullivan.
Yes, well, you can make a little track, play keyboards a little bit, but if you have natural musicians and real singers involved, doing what they do, it turns out way better. I did an album called The Ones on BBE not so long ago, and we had all live musicians on there playing through it.
Now, the original version of It Is What It Is was produced by a guy called Vic Lavendar, but they fell out and didn’t go through with the record. I still had the recording over here, so I reached out to Gregory and asked, “What do you wanna do with these songs?” So we kinda re-did it a bit, but he died before I was even able to get it out, and then I was just sitting on this song for so many years.
I didn’t really know this Chéri Sullivan lady; I knew of her but never met her. So I reached out to her and said, “Hey, I wanna put out this song because it’s been sitting there, and we could donate some of this to cancer.” And that’s what we did.
And you donated it to cancer research in memory of Gregory.
Exactly.
How long did it take to record?
We did the track that day. The remix, the reworked version that I made with Gregory, took a full day to lay down. Then he passed in 2019, and I didn’t go back to finish the track until last year.
The track is described on Juno beautifully – “It Is What It Is is a lovely loose jam with noodling chord work, rolling drums, and magnificent vocals that bring plenty of sunshine next to playful whistles.* I think Gregory would be smiling down at you now with the outcome.
I hope so, thank you.
I know you love all forms of music. The album that you referred to earlier — was that the gospel band that you worked with?
No, no, no, that’s something else. That’s called The Ones, which features artists from everywhere [Marcus J. Austin on lead vocals, Nancy Clayton on backing vocals, Carnell C. Newbill, also known as Spike Rebel, on keyboards and backing vocals, Todd Swope on guitar, and Lou Terry on bass].
Now, the record from Annie and the Caldwells — that’s something new with the gospel band.
Tell me a bit about your part in that project?
Basically, they contacted me to do a remix of their song. So I called my cousin Todd Swope and I said, “Hey, we gotta do this remix”. He’s a musician. I didn’t want to simply put a beat behind it and make it sound like some silly house song or whatever, hooky kind of music I would call it. I wanted something more natural, just as pure as the song itself.
So we worked on it. Todd took it home and he worked on separate parts of the music over a couple of days, and then I put the parts all together, sitting around the vocals. The guys from Annie and the Caldwells, they loved it, and the label Luaka Bop, they liked it too, so I said, “Ok, cool, I wanna do another one”.
I don’t really have to work on old music, I like to work on new music, because you get tired of hearing the same songs over and over through the decades. You want to hear something new. I don’t wanna take away from the old, but man, if somebody asks me to play Doctor Love or Relight My Fire one more time, it’s probably gonna do my head in…
Yes, I’ve seen interviews with yourself where you talk about Chicago being quite restrictive in what you can play, depending on whether you’re on the north side or south side of the city. Do you ever turn down gigs due to the lack of creative control?
I have turned down gigs, one recently in fact. I said ‘nah, I’m not gonna do it’, and I just didn’t go.
You haven’t encountered the same situation here in Europe, or elsewhere in the world?
No. Some crowds here are open, but with this particular place here in Chicago, it either has to be this afro-house music stuff, which is cool, but I don’t want to hear it all night long. I like variety.
When I first got into house music, house music was like gumbo. Gumbo dishes are all sorts of food, meats and all, put together in this big pot.
That’s a dish from Louisiana, is it?
Exactly. So I might play nu-wave, maybe a little techno, maybe a bit of house, disco, some afro, I don’t know, maybe some stuff from Spain… you know what I’m saying, mix it all up together because music is universal.
Do you like to go record shopping when you travel abroad, maybe pop your head into Spindizzy or All City perhaps?
Well, last time I went to Dublin, I didn’t see anything that caught my eye, but you never know, so I’ll take a look.
I know you’ve remixed the exhilarating work of Los Charly’s Orchestra back in 2012 [a London-based project created by Venezuelan producers Juan Laya & Jorge Montiel], but have you ever performed live with a backing band or orchestra yourself? Like Jeff Mills style.
Actually, yes. I did something like that in Amsterdam with a local band there, in a place called Wicked Jazz, and they had a night on Sundays with a band and a DJ, so I did something like that with them, maybe twice.
How are things in Chicago right now, with basic human rights being denied to minority groups, and the advancements of the DE&I movement being rolled back? Is there much talk of it in the music community?
Yes, there is a rollback on DE&I, a lot of changes because of our current administration, but I’ve no idea. All I can do is worry about pulling my little red wagon, make sure it still has wheels on it, and keep it trucking right along.
Anything else I have no control over, except my vote, because my vote is my voice — but that’s all I have right now. I don’t really protest; I may protest through music, but other than that…
My heart goes out to you, honestly. I fear for the future of America, but what can you do? You’ve done some other interesting collaborations over the years, notably The Blessed Madonna, Luke Solomon, and DJ Emanuel. Have you anything of interest in the pipeline at present?
I just did this remix that came out recently, with Frankie Parker. She’s a neo-soul singer mostly, but she did this song that’s a cover of Patti LaBelle’s What Can You Do For Me? We did a remix of that, and I’m really happy with it.
What are the main differences for you now performing as a DJ at home in Chicago and abroad compared with twenty years ago, apart from the obvious?
More gigs back then.Well, things are picking back up, but when Covid happened that was a really big hit. But Covid taught me to diversify, not just lean on doing these parties, doing these gigs.
That’s why the uptake of my remixes, or edits, or whatever has gone up, because as soon as I get off the phone with you, I’m going to get stuck into a couple of records and do some remixes too.
I suppose you got a little bit more work-life balance back too, did you, with the downturn in travel? Sometimes travelling too much has its pitfalls as well?
Yeah, even though my bank account didn’t like it, I learned a lot more about production than from what I did pre-Covid.
Currently, I’m working with a young lady from Italy called Kihmy. We’re working on her album; it’s about to come out pretty soon. So how it all came about was that Kihmy hit me up on SoundCloud. I listened to her music and thought, oh, this is nice, we could work on something together. So that’s what we did.
It’s kind of disco house; actually, one song has a kind of Jamaican or reggae feel, so it’s kind of diverse, but it’s all dance music.
One track is like an ’80s-sounding dance tune; it’s kinda quirky. A couple of songs are trip-house music. We have an album coming out pretty soon, maybe by November/December.
Does she have a big following?
No, no one knows her.
Oh, how interesting. Did you get a record label to back you?
Yes, we got two, in fact. One for the single called I Need You, which was the first single that me and her did, and that’s house. The album is a bit more than regular house music, though it’s all dance music.
Ok, sweet, I’ll keep my ears peeled. That’s it for today, but thank you for your time, and I look forward to getting my dance brogues on the 11th of October for the Dublin Disco All Dayer.
Ok, thank you so much, see you there.
Words by Emer O’Connor. DJ Rahaan plays at the Dublin Disco All-Dayer on 11 October, Tickets are still available and can be purchased here.
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