DJ Ron Slomowicz: So let's start from the beginning, how did you start DJing?
Donna D'Cruz: Rather than how, I think it's more why. I was at a
Billboard Dance Music Summit talking with Jellybean Benitez and Tom
Silverman, talking about a track. I said that I loved this track with
this beautiful Brazilian sound and a girl singing in French, that it's
such a fresh song and absolutely beautiful. Jellybean asked how I
knew so much about music and if I had DJed before or would like to DJ
at his club. I said of course I know how to DJ, but I didn't really.
I had been thinking about it for a while and had played around with
the Pioneer CD players mixing chill-out music. Jellybean said, well,
why don't you come and start playing in the lounge and so I started
playing with this idea of what New York City was missing. I kept
hearing my own complaints about how come we live in New York City with
the greatest music and the most fantastic fusion we've ever heard and
why is it that you go out and you only hear pop, electronic, or dance
music. I heard so much about the legendary Larry Levan and how people
would play whatever they wanted without limits. I think you should be
able to mix all kinds of music - African and Brazilian music with
house and dance music and R&B and hip-hop if it fits in, with soul
music and funk. It's all the same thing, it's all one celebration of
life. So that's really why I started, so I could have a place to do
that.
RS: And so from the lounge at Jellybean's club you've become
this international DJ playing all these celebrity parties, how did you
make that transition?
Donna D'Cruz: I wanted to bring music, glamour, and healing through
music and I think you can do those three things. I started the label
as an extension of my DJing and as an extension of me. I think the
reason it's resonated because I have a lot of sensuality that I blend
in with the music and the journey I take people on when I play live.
There's a lot of fun but there's also a sense of something deeper
going on as well, and I think somehow it seems to resonate with
people. It doesn't matter if you're playing ABBA's "Dancing Queen"
and it's fun, and then you go to "La Vie En Rose" and then you go on
to something that's African, it should be pertinent for the crowd that
you're playing for at that time. I have a really high sense of
intuition and I really respect that guide that I have inside myself
which I think that we all have and I use that when I play. So I come,
will all my music but without a sequence and without really an idea of
what I'm going to play, I just use my intuition and look at who's
there, feel how they are, and then I play to them. Somehow it seems
to be resonating with people and sticking with people, people are
really loving it around the world.
RS: You've played parties for some really big celebrities, who
are some of the celebrities you've played for?
Donna D'Cruz: I'd really like to keep a lot of that private, but the
ones that are public I mean I'm happy to share. I've done parties for
Dolce and Gabbana, Gaultier, and Zak Posen, I've played at Denise
Rich's party where I had the privilege of playing up on the same deck
as Puffy, who came along and danced. He had his new tracks and we got
to perform together, that was amazing. I can't even think of them
but, you know, the list goes on. I like to think of everyone as a
celebrity really. Sometimes you go to these places and it's like
so-and-so's here, and you've got to play something for them. It's my
privilege to play for everyone and think that there's a Buddha in all
of us and so therefore everyone's the same. So no matter who you are,
once you're in that door, you're a VIP and no matter who you are, we
should all be sort of treated the same. That's very much how I
interpret the music.
