DJ Cassidy on spinning for Beyonce and JLo: ‘Everybody has their songs’

As a freshman sociology main at New York College in 2000, DJ Cassidy — already underage at 18, however trying “like I used to be 8” — bought his massive break on one sluggish, wet night time on the membership Lotus in NYC’s Meatpacking District.

That was again when there was extra beef than beats within the neighborhood’s nascent nightlife days, and, that night time, there was a sure hip-hop mogul — Sean “Puffy” Combs — in the home as Cassidy was filling the largely empty house with the soulful sounds of Stevie Surprise, Chaka Khan and Luther Vandross.

“And so Puffy goes to the ground and primarily dances by himself for 2 hours,” the now 42-year-old DJ — who will headline Manhattan’s Radio City Music Hall along with his “Move the Mic Stay!” live performance on Friday — informed The Put up.

“At 5 within the morning on the best way out, he walks by the DJ sales space … and he wrote down his title and quantity on a serviette and mentioned, ‘Name me tomorrow.’ ” 

And when he talked on the cellphone to Combs the subsequent day, Cassidy Podell bought “the best praise I’ve ever obtained.”

“He goes, ‘How have you learnt the best way to play all these data like that?’ And I mentioned, ‘Like what?’ And he goes, ‘Such as you lived it.’ ”

A white, Jewish child from the Higher East Aspect, Cassidy was too younger to have heard lots of the black classics he was spinning once they have been first launched.

However along with his signature mixture of old-school R&B and hip-hop, DJ Cassidy would go on to become spinner to the stars — from Puffy and Jay-Z to Beyoncé and Jennifer Lopez — in addition to rock the White Home at not one however two presidential inaugurations for Barack Obama.

Now a star in his personal proper, he appears each bit the half in a custom-made pink swimsuit forward of his “Move the Mic Stay!” present on Friday at Radio Metropolis.

Celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of hip-hop — a style he fell in love with as a 3-year-old watching the 1984 breakdancing film “Breakin’” — Cassidy might be joined by New York rap pioneers resembling Doug E. Recent, Slick Rick and the Sugarhill Gang.

The all-star affair brings to life the viral “Move the Mic” franchise that Cassidy created in 2020 — within the early days of the pandemic — as a strategy to join remoted artists and their followers by way of some feel-good grooves.

The concept for the franchise got here to hime whereas speaking with an previous buddy

“I picked up my cellphone to FaceTime my buddy and mentor Verdine White of Earth, Wind & Fireplace,” Cassidy recalled. “And [EWF’s] music ‘That’s the Method of the World’ comes on very low within the background, and he very casually begins to sing alongside to his personal music.”

At that second, Cassidy had an epiphany in his Los Angeles dwelling.

“Originally of a worldwide pandemic, everyone seems to be quarantining of their dwelling … and I mentioned to myself, ‘How lucky am I to have relationships with so lots of my musical heroes? Perhaps there’s a method I may give this to different folks.’ ”

Thus, “Move the Mic” — the place beloved R&B and hip-hop greats sing alongside to their hits as they’re performed by Cassidy — was born on Twitch July 7, 2020.’

The digital get together featured such company as Deniece Williams (“Let’s Hear It for the Boy”), Ray Parker Jr. (“A Lady Wants Love”) and, after all, Earth Wind & Fireplace (“That’s the Method of the World”). 

As of late, Cassidy is as a lot of an MC as a DJ, hyping up the gang with each his music and his infectious, mic-rocking method.

It’s a can’t-miss combine that has made him the go-to groovemeister, whether or not for Beyoncé and Jay-Z’s wedding ceremony in 2008 or fiftieth birthday bashes for each Barack and Michelle Obama.

“I’ve rocked the White Home until 4 within the morning over a dozen instances,” mentioned Cassidy, noting that the former president’s jam is “Flash Light,” Parliament’s 1978 funk basic: “You recognize, everybody has their songs.”

He’s actually carrying the mic that he picked up from his DJ godfathers Grandmaster Flash, Afrika Bambaataa and Kool Herc — who’s credited with beginning hip-hop at a celebration within the South Bronx on Aug. 11, 1973.

“I feel the best a part of this expertise on Friday might be sharing the stage with these heroes of mine that impressed me to be who I’m,” mentioned Cassidy. “To be sharing a stage with them is my life’s best honor.”