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DJ SHAKA 23's STORY
Steadily gaining recognition and credibility, Shaka23 is truly at home with music. As a child, she was exposed to Chicago's pioneer underground house radio show, BMX and the DJ's of the Hot Mix 5. Her older brother DJ "Def Cut Don" started spinning house music in the mid 80's, which brought about her inspiration to become a DJ. While most kids were playing with toys, she was attending basement parties, listening to local rappers mc, checking out the latest grafitti on the train tracks and watching the local breakers pop lock, break, and battle. Growing up in the inner city environment of Chicago during the pinnacle of urban street music, shaped her and fascinated her as a child and continues to be an influence in her DJ'ing and producing. In 1990, she began to attend raves, and loft parties. This new underground scene opened her up to the sounds of techno, drum and bass, and many new genres of house music. She became friends with many of the DJ's, promoters and party people in Chicago and throughout it all knew she would be a driving force in the years to come. In 1996 she moved to NYC after being signed to a modeling contract. She lived there for 2 years and continued to support the rave and club scene in Manhattan, making a plentitude of music contacts and widening her knowledge of dance music. In 1998, she made a decision to move back to Chicago where the true home of house is and started spinning records. From there she found support from many great people in the Chicago scene including Lady D of SuperJane, Kenny Carvajal, Arman Razavi, and Dion Antic, to name a few. In addition to DJing, she promoted many events and weekly party nights at clubs such as MadBar, BigWig, and Smart Bar through illmeasures, a music promotion company she started with a group of talented local artists in '01. Over the past seven years she has played at the majority of Chicago’s hottest clubs & lounges. Shaka23 was featured at Pure's "Future Sound Of Chicago" event at RedNo5 sponsored by Shure and has played many events hosted by UR magazine, including NYE '02, NYE '03, and the BGCC monthly parties in '03. Special appearances include DJ sets at "Hotel 71", The Museum of Contemporary Art for "First Fridays" and many of All Terrain productions events. Such events include: "Heat" festival '02, the Grand Opening of Domain Properties & "Japonais" Restaraunt in '03, NYE '04 @ The Sofitel & The Looking Glass Theatres "Mad Hatters Ball" '03 & '04 hosted by Billy Dec, Joey Slotnik, & David Schwimmer, & W Hotel City Center NYE '04. In Aug. ‘04 she played alongside Boy George for Marshall Fields Glamourama in Minneapolis & Chicago. Write ups include: Chicago Tribune interview "From tranquil to trendy... The new hotel scene" by Terry Armour 1/02, NewCity story "Decks Appeal" by Margaret Noble 11/03, Chicago Social "Mad Scene" for Madhatters Ball in 6/04, Chicago Tribune interview "In a mans world, DJ Shaka makes her move..." by Karen Buddell 9/22/05 Currently, her passion for the electronic music scene remains and she continues to dedicate herself to helping maintain the life and growth of underground music. Through the years, she has become well versed in many forms of music ranging from disco to electro and receives inspiration from artists such as Lipps, Gary Numan, the Cure, DM, Prince, Rita Mitsouko, Moloko, Goldfrapp, Herbert, Tony Senghore, Morgan Geist, Chicken Lips, Max Brennan, Trentemoller, 2raumwohhnung, Akufen and the late Armando. By playing at many diverse venues including lounges, clubs, hotels, openings and other events, she's had the opportunity to experiment and open her mind up to any and every style of music. With no limitations, she continues to DJ with an energetic style that can be best described as a fusion of diverse elements ranging from deep to funky electro disco house with classics mixed in, providing our dance music community with a boost of freshness and creativity. With seven years under her belt and over 30 crates of records, Shaka is versed and equipped with many styles of music including all genres of disco, 80's, house, broken beat/nu-jazz, electro, techno, and even classic and 80's rock. She is currently in the studio working relentlessly on music production for many projects. Her first record, "Bet On Love" was released in winter '04 by "Abicah Soul Recordings" under the name "657 Connection" (house music alongside Monna of 3 degrees & J. Reed of illmeasures). |
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