YEAR IN VOGUE 2014 mix for FACT

To go with the top ten ballroom chart for FACT, here's the second of my annual "Year In Vogue" mixes for the site.

SUGUR SHANE Kill Da Bitch

Intro

CVNT TRAXXX Make Love (Vjuan Allure Elite Beats Orgy Remix)

TRAXX ROMAY Make Love (Vocal VIP Acapella)

CVNT TRAXXX Make Love (Original)

BYRELL THE GREAT Ride It (Dub)

MIKEQ & DJ SLIINK The Bitch ft Miss Jay

MIKEQ Miss Honey v Curtains 4 U

MIKEQ & DJ SLIINK The Bitch ft Miss Jay

NICKI MINAJ ft SOULJA BOY Yasss Bish! (MikeQ Fix It Pussy Remix)

NICKI MINAJ ft SOULJA BOY Yasss Bish! (Buddah Remix)

NICKI MINAJ ft SOULJA BOY Yasss Bish! (JayR Neutron Remix)

BEYONCE Yonce/Partition (Jay R Neutron Vogue Remix)

VJUAN ALLURE Wherkk

VJUAN ALLURE ft PURPLE CRUSH Night Wherkk (Acapella)

VJUAN ALLURE Wherkk (DJ Sega Remix)

MIKEQ & SINJIN HAWKE Thunderscan

SPF666 Tsundere

DJ DELISH Oh Shit! (SBW Remix)

DIVOLI S'VERE What I Want Acapella

DIVOLI S'VERE Svere Pussy Pop Ha

DIVOLI S'VERE Myrtle Snow Runway

CAKES DA KILLA Hunger Pains (Byrell The Great Remix)

GAGE & KEVIN PRODIGY Bad Bitch

ARMAND VAN HELDEN Work Me Godammit (SPF666 Work Dem Remix)

MIKEQ & DJ SLIINK Werk'd It

IMAABS Grafito

IMAABS Pumps (MikeQ Remix)

RUSHMORE She Wants

BLASTAH Bossy

SUPRAMAN Femme Hyper

TRIMBAL Confidence Boost (Supraman Remix)

DASHAWN WESLEY Move (Divoli S'Vere Remix)

BYRELL THE GREAT Happy CVNT ft Buddah & Divoli

J-LO ft JACK MIZRAHI Tens (Dj Fade Vogue Remix)

J-LO ft JACK MIZRAHI Tens (VJ the DJ & Kevin Prodigy Remix)

SOPHIE Lemonade (JAVASCRIPT x Boyfriends Remix)

SUGUR SHANE Buddah Vs Shane

TONY PLAY Your Gagging

PURPLE CRUSH ft RAJA & JOSH PEACE Shock & Awe (CVNT TRAXXX Remix)

VJUAN ALLURE Anaconda Bump

BEEK TeleKuntx (CVNT TRAXXX Remix)

DAT OVEN Icy Lake (Original Arena Mix)

JOEY LABEIJA End Of Time At The Icy Lake

DAT OVEN Icy Lake (L-Vis 1990 Fire Alarm Remix)

AZEALEA BANKS Chasing Time (B Ames Remix)

KEVIN PRODIGY I Am Happy To Be (Traxx Romay Want It All Mix)

BOY/FRIEND Eve (Ynfynyt Scroll Remix)

KEVIN AVIANCE Cunty (Yarinka Collucci Remix)

Outro

CVNT TRAXXX 2014 Top Ten for FACT

Scoot over here to FACT Mag, to see my top ten ballroom tracks of the year, including music by MikeQ, Vjuan Allure, DJ Delish, Divoli S'Vere and loads (well, 6!) more...

RELENTLESSY CUNTY!!

Major h/t to SPF666's Zak for this piece and tunring me onto Relentlessly Cunty, a dj who has devoted his career to mixing, collecitng and cataloging bitch tracks and cunty beats. This is the roots of CVNT Traxx y'all so learn it and learn it good:

Our new Originators series explores specific, underserved scenes through mixes of representative tracks and interviews with prominent artists, as conducted by Zak “SPF666” DesFleurs. The intent is to provide desperately needed historical context for these genres in the age of the Internet, a time when cultural objects are uprooted from their scenes and reworked, repurposed and reappropriated beyond recognition.

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The first in our series is DJ Relentless / Jade Elektra (neé Alphonso King Jr), introducing us to the cunty voice of ballroom, bitch tracks. Relentless is best known for his Relentlessly Cunty mixes: a multi-volume series that serves as a near-comprehensive survey of bitch tracks.
His contribution is primarily an archival one: the Relentlessly Cunty mixes served as an introduction to many (myself included) to a specific element of ballroom culture that lives on in the endless Soundcloud reworkings of classics in vogue’s most recent rise in popularity.
When did you start DJing? Was it always under the DJ Relentless Moniker?
I guess it all started in 1980 when my Uncle Herbert King moved to Tampa from Las Vegas. He was blind and needed an assistant to help him at his new job at WMNF 88.5. We did a Jazz/R&B show from 1 to 4 PM on Mondays. I had always loved music and had collected records since the age of 5, but this began my love affair with programming. He always told me to “only play what you believe in and love”. I didn’t get the DJ name “Relentless” until 1996 while I was spinning and VJing for The Works and The Break in Manhattan after playing in New York City for the past 4 years. Until then I just used my real name, Alphonso King Jr.
Your uncle gave some pretty solid advice when it comes to djing (and production for that matter). So how did you initially get into the ballroom scene in the first place? What was your house?
My first residency was at Sally’s II (as featured in Paris Is Burning). Ironically, the year before I moved to New York, I watched Paris Is Burning and dreamed of being at a ball. So, when I moved in with The Electrifying Grace (who was the downstairs neighbor to Paris Dupree), I was thrilled. Then Grace got me an audition for Sally’s, right around the time that Dorian Corey and Angie Xtravaganza had weekly shows there, and Willi Ninja, Octavia St. Laurent and Pepper Labeija were regulars.

Check this mix it is EVERYTHING!

QWEEN BEAT mixtapes piece for FACT Mag

My latest ballroom piece for FACT Magazine is a look at 3 recent mixtpes put out by heavy hitters at MikeQ's Qween Beat label - namely Beek, Byrell The Great and Divoli S'Vere:

What Brick Bandits are to Jersey club and what Teklife is to footwork, Qween Beat is to ballroom.

That is, unquestionably the number one production and djing crew, who set the standard for the music and culture in a scene that’s currently booming in popularity.

Headed up by the formidable MikeQ, resident at New York’s weekly dance showdown Vogue Knights and recording artist for LA’s Fade To Mind, Qween Beat counts among their ranks a dozen different members, with skills ranging from the usual production and remixing, to DJing and MCing (in particular the uptempo, in-your-face styles known as “commentating” and “chanting”, unique to ballroom and distinct from other rap-based vocal forms).

This past summer, three of the main members of Qween Beat – Divoli S’Vere, Beek and Byrell The Great – have all released their latest mixtape installments, showcasing each producer’s individual style and their take on the ballroom sound. While the genre is very much rooted in ’90s house and current East coast American club styles – with recognisable signifiers like the Kenlou “HA”/krash and vocal snippets from the like of Kevin Aviance (“cun-ty”) and Loleatta Holloway (the instantly recognisable “woop” vocal from Armand Van Helden’s “Witchdoktor”) – there is much more to ballroom than just a specific set of samples married to a minimalist club/house aesthetic.

I spoke to Divoli, Beek and Byrell to get the low down on what makes a track “ballroom”, but also to find out how exactly these talented producers differ from each other, and what else the Qween Beat crew has in store for us in the future.

READ THE REST HERE. 

#13min "CUNT" mix for #FEELINGS in FACT Mag

Re-=posted by the good people of FACT Magazine:

UK ballroom impresario Niall Connolly drops an importantly-NSFW mix.

Earlier this year, Connolly shared the untold story of the UK vogue scene (part one and two) and shared a sizzling mix of contemporary vogue under his CVNT TRAXXX alias. And while his moniker may be controversial, it nods to one of the most important word in the scene (as anyone who has listened to ballroom knows).

“I always knew that associating myself with the “c-bomb” would be controversial, maybe even a turn-off for some folk, so when #FEELINGS asked for a 13 minute mix a few years ago, I decided to put something together to show how “cunt” has been used positively,” Connolly tells us.

“It basically means hyper-feminine and also super-strong, and in the context of voguing and drag it is very positive. House, and in particular ballroom music, has been the main genre for using the word, and this mix covers both modern ballroom and also the older 90s track that first used the term, like Tronco Traxx and in particular the legendary Kevin Aviance.”

Stream the mix — which features modern producers like MikeQ and Divoli S’vere alongside vogue originals Kevin Aviance and Tronco Traxx — below. Catch CVNT TRAXXX with MikeQ this Saturday at Manchester’s Soup Kitchen.

FACT MAG PREMIERE: CVNT TRAXXX "Make Love (Vjuan Allure Remix)

FACT have premiered the awesome VJUAN ALLURE remix of my track "Mak3 L0ve" (available on the Cannabis Kitsch EP on Knightwerk):

Vjuan Allure‘s impact on the early days of ballroom house is substantial – he’s been spinning and producing for over two decades, and claims to have put out some of the earliest releases in the genre. He’s far from a relic, though, working with the likes of Night Slugs, Fade To Mind and Mad Decent in the last few years.

Last week, FACT contributor Niall Connolly – aka ballroom producer CVNT TRAXXX – caught up with the producer to talk about past triumphs and future plans. As a supplement to that article, we’ve been furnished with an exclusive stream of the Vjuan Allure remix of CVNT TRAXXX’s ‘Mak3 L0ve’. Click below to stream it in full.

My VJUAN ALLURE interview for FACT Mag

I spoke to Vjuan about ballroom, the krash and a lot more, for FACT Magazine:

An influence on the new generation of ballroom DJs such as MikeQ, Vjuan has been DJing for almost 20 years, and his appeal is broader than just the American ballroom circuit: he is a beloved guest of both Night Slugs and House Of Trax in London, Fade To Mind in the US, and the Angels Of Love crew in Rimini. More than any other DJ, Vjuan connects the deep, dark, tribal house of the ’90s to the current fresh-as-a-daisy vogue house sound, and he’s never once failed to make an audience move in all the times I have seen him play, even to avowedly “two left feet” type crowds. I caught up with Vjuan at Streetstar to ask him a few questions.

You’ve been doing a lot of production work this year – what releases have you had recently and what’s coming out in the next few months?

Wow, so many things coming, I’m going to try and name them all. I have stuff ready for Mad Decent, Night Slugs, Fade To Mind, Hot Mom, Paradox 410, FEELINGS, and more, many more remixes coming. Recently I’ve completed work for CVNT TRAXXX, Cherie Lily, Somepoe, Roxy and The Ride Committee and more. I know I’m forgetting some, but it’s a lot.

You’ve been travelling around the world and DJing a lot too – where are some of your favourite places to play and why? Anywhere left you still want to go?

I love traveling and it’s really kind of hard to pin-point one specific place I love the most, but Naples, Italy is so close to my heart. I lived there and have so many friends and so much love from that place – and of course they know how to party! That is where I came into the forefront. I love playing everywhere though, the reactions I’ve had have been so great and heart-warming. The audience truly understands when a DJ comes to play for them, and I come to play. They get into what you are doing even if they may not understand the music at first – but good music is good music and I have never had a problem with any crowd ever.

Read the rest here. 

Forgotten Classics for FACT

FACT asked me to pick an under-appreciated track from the vogue house catalog so I went with Tronco Traxx's Runway As A House, cos it's great, but also cos it used the Ha sample 19 years ago:

“Tronco Traxx, aka producer Robbie Tronco and MC Thomas Biscardi, are already pretty well known within old school house and voguing circles for the tracks ‘Walk 4 Me’ and ‘CUNT (She’s Cunt, She’s Pussy)’, both of which laid a foundation of sorts for modern ballroom, even though they’re from the mid-90s. The raw 909 beats and campy-but-cutting vocal chants, incorporating a lot of gay/black/drag slang and runway instructions, are elements that are still very prevalent in the genre today.

“I love both of those tunes but ‘Runway (As A House)’ is Tronco’s forgotten classic in my eyes. It uses the elements I’ve described above, but adds a bit more sheen, and most importantly of all, it uses the infamous “HA” sound that has become synonymous with ballroom, vogue femme dance styles and the signature “dip” move. The “HA” sound was originally used by Masters At Work in 1991′s seminal ‘The Ha Dance’, and can still be heard all over ballroom nearly 25 years later, most notably on MikeQ’s ‘The Ha Dub Rewerk’d’ on Fade To Mind, and Kingdom’s ‘Stalker Ha’. In fact, you can go on SoundCloud now and search “HA” and get practically any track ever remixed with a Ha in it. It’s almost reaching Bmore levels.

‘Runway As A House’ was originally released in 1996 [note: the art above is from the 1997 reissue], making the use of that particular re-sample very forward thinking. I can’t be sure, but I would hazard a guess and say that ‘Runway…’ was actually the first track to re-sample ‘The Ha Dance’. It still bangs to this very day, fitting in very neatly with modern ballroom and house tracks, and you’ll pretty much always hear it in my sets, along with ‘Walk 4 Me’ and ‘CUNT’.”

"Year In Vogue" mix for FACT Magazine

It's up! The hour-long mix of my favourite ballroom (with a smattering of club and house) from the last 12 months (roughly). Full tracklist below.


DESHAUN TIMOTHY & SUGUR SHANE - Ima Read (Divoli 2013 Mix)
SUGUR SHANE - CT Drops
VJUAN ALLURE - Kid Conga (Rebounced) ft Danial Haaksman
MYRRYRS - Memphis
RUSHMORE - Turn It Up
KEVIN JZ PRODIGY - Nasty Poetry (Schwarz Remix)
POISONOUS RELATIONSHIP - Nite Birds (MikeQ Remix)
MIA - Y.A.L.A. (MikeQ Remix)
BYRELL THE GREAT - #TwerkIt
LULU EBONY & GREGG EVISU - Bangee Cunt (DJ Delish Remix)
HYPEHEADS - Tom Landry (Ynfynyt Scrol Godless Bisexual ReQynt)
SHARAYA J - Banji (CVNT Bitch Edit)
BEEK - Like This (Like That)
TONY PLAYBOI - Space Walk Runway
AIR DJ - Britney Puta
BRITNEY SPEARS - Werk Bitch (Divoli S'Vere Gaginator Mix)
BRITNEY SPEARS - Werk Bitch (Divoli S'Vere Gaginating Ha)
JAY R NEUTRON - YUNGNEUTRXN
VJUAN ALLURE - Natives R Restless
DJ SEGA - Django (Demo)
SCHWARZ - My Pussy Tastes Like…
SUGUR SHANE - Outta Sight Cunt Juice
THOMAS BANGALTER v L-VIS 1990 - Spinal Ha
B AMES - Sniffles (The Bump Dub)
ANGEL X - Electro Runway Pump
MATRIXXMAN & MYKKI BLANCO - God Created The Beat (JD Twitch Remix)
BODYJACK - The Widowmaker
CVNT aka CVNT TR4XXX - Midnight Function
HOUSE OF WALLENBERG ft OCTAVIA ST LAURENT - Be Somebody (CVNT TR4XXX Remix)
NEW YORK TRANSIT AUTHORITY - A Long Time Coming
JAY EXCLUSIVE & VJUAN ALLURE - Any Bitch

'The Untold History of UK Vogue' for FACT Mag part two

Et voila, part two of this epic piece, this time covering my own involvement in the scene, Tranarchy's Vogue Brawl, House Of Trax, Ldn voguer David Magnifique and the daddies of them all House Of Suarez and Darren Pritchard. Read it all here. 

 Judges at Vogue Brawl 2012: Pride Is Burning

As we saw in part one, voguing in the UK comes from a different tradition to that in the States, and even mainland Europe. 

Not based so much on the streets or in the clubs, voguing came to prominence here in the early 90s through professional dance troupes and art and fashion shows. Yet, as with America, the natural home for voguing in this country is still the house ball, where all elements and categories get to work the runway and compete for legendary status. And, although we may be some way behind our European counterparts when it comes to regular balls, the UK is not completely devoid of house balls – though as usual with this scene, you have to look a bit further afield to find the real action.

The UK’s North West is the centre of the current UK vogue renaissance, with annual balls in Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow. Time for some disclosure: as The Niallist, I’m a founder member of the Manchester-based queer collective Tranarchy, and since January 2011 we have held an annual ball called Vogue Brawl. In my time, I’ve also helped organise and host the Fierce Ruling Divas Ball in Glasgow, and I’ve DJed at Liverpool’s House Of Suarez Ball under my vogue production alias CVNT TR4XXX. I’m heavily involved in this scene, and right now it’s focussed in spots that are well respected for their dance music cultures and histories, but that don’t necessarily get a huge amount of time in the media spotlight.

We’ve already encountered a young Darren Suarez in part one of this article, voguing as a teenager in the clubs, after hours parties and cemeteries of late 80s and early 90s Liverpool. Flash forward 20 years, and Darren is a professional dance teacher with an idea for throwing a ‘House Of Suarez Ball’. The first of these balls was thrown in 2010, and since then the House Of Suarez Ball has grown to become the UK’s biggest annual vogue function.

NC: How would you describe the HOS ball to someone who has never been?

Darren Suarez: “If you’ve never been to one of our balls, I can guarantee that you will be overwhelmed with colour, dance, energy and fierceness. At least one of the five categories will inspire people. The categories at our ball are Fantasy, which gives creatives in costume and fabric the chance to create big costumes and installations in the theme of the ball, to live out their fantasy, in a way. There is Solo, which is inspired by a solo performer’s confidence to vogue, or perform solo any of the other styles that might fall under that umbrella, such as waacking, hands, femme, new way, old way, etc.

READING IS FUNDAMENTAL! 

'The Untold History of UK Vogue' for FACT Mag part 1

The first partt of my in-depth look at the history of voguin in the UK for FACT magazine, featuring interviews with Les Child and Black Roy form the House of Child, the UK's first vogue house, plus a young Darren Pritchard voguing in late 80s/early 90s Liverpool. Go to FACT to read the whole thing, and also to see the bad ass video footage I've dug out... 

There are many great things about living in the UK.

Of course, it’s not perfect here, but two of the main reasons I like living in this country are the acceptance of gay culture by the mainstream, and the importance accorded to dance music – all music really, from classical to pop. Which is why it’s always been a mystery to me that there is not more voguing going on here.

Vogue culture, or “ballroom” as it is also known, is a highly-developed, immersive culture that originates in the working class, black/Latin@, LGBTQ/drag subcultures of New York City, and more recently other major cities in the United States. Like hip-hop, it encompasses many different forms of self-expression, from music and dancing to art and fashion, while highlighting alternative modes of gender, race and class expression. Without being overtly “political”, vogue culture deals directly with highly politicised issues.

The UK was one of the first early adopters of Chicago house music, not to mention other black-originating music genres from the States like jazz, soul and hip-hop. It’s also traditionally pretty accepting of queer culture, from homegrown heroes like David Bowie and Elton John all the way to the commercial success of acts like the Scissor Sisters. So you would think that the UK would be the perfect breeding ground for vogue. In my experience though, that has not been the case. That’s not to say that there is no voguing happening in the UK, but that, for once, we are far behind some of our European neighbours when it comes to the acceptance and adoption of an American dance music subculture.

...

Britain is not completely bereft of vogue. There have been (and still are) some highly respected voguers in this country. The House of Child was Britain’s first ever vogue house, which was formed in the late ’80s by the professional dancer and choreographer Les Child, inspired by the voguing he was seeing over in the States:

Les Child: “I would go to New York about three or four times a year back in the day, because that was the place to party. It was a bigger world then, you didn’t have the internet and it was like taking a rocket ship and going somewhere else. At the time I was a dancer, I would do some bits of choreography for friends, for films and for pop videos. I was dancing with Michael Clarke at the time, so I would go to New York with him a lot.
“I went to house balls there in the mid 1980s, they were these amazing events. Otherworldly was a good way of describing it! It was like nothing I’d ever seen, it went on for hours, it was a bit intimidating because it was a different culture, a different attitude, a different language, the whole thing. But it was just so brilliant and so captivating. And of course it came from the black experience.”

 IMA READ THAT BITCH

AZARI & III live review for FACT

IT WAS THEIR LAST EVER SHOW!! 

 

Niall Connolly is a UK-based producer and writer who releases music under the name CVNT. He’s also co-founder of the queer collective Tranachy, and hosts vogue/drag balls across the UK. He was at Manchester’s Warehouse Project for the last UK show by Azari & III, a Canadian group whose take on house music not only draws from the sounds of classic Chicago, but also the “marginalised black / gay club” culture at house music’s roots. 

And like that they’re gone, just as quickly as they’d arrived.

Four years ago a little single called ‘Hungry For The Power’ dropped on Cosmo Vitelli’s I’m A Cliche label in Paris. With its accompanying video of a psychotic business man, a dominatrix prostitute and some cannibal voguers, the world was introduced to Azari & III. It was as exciting a debut single as has been released since. And then, just under one month ago, via their Facebook page, it was announced that the group would be breaking up after fulfilling their current live engagements. This included a live set at Manchester’s Warehouse Project, a show that would mark the band’s last ever appearance in the UK.

A lot can happen in four years, and in the case of Azari & III, an entire “house music revival” has sprung up, a revival that the band must take some credit for inspiring. Although consumers, DJs and fans of house music would argue – this writer included – that the genre never went away, it’s hard to deny the impact of Azari & III on dance music in general. Through the presence and vocals of front men Starving Yet Full and Fritz Helder, we were reminded of house music’s roots in underground, marginalised, black / gay clubs, and through the production of Dinamo Azari and Alixander III we were reminded that dance music could be sensual and sexy, something that was desperately needed in the era of stadium EDM, aggressive trap-pop and sexless brostep.

Read it all at: 

No Way Back: Niall Connolly salutes Azari & III

CVNT in FACT Mag

CVNT introduces four tracks via Body Work.

Hailing from Glasgow and now based in Manchester, CVNT might not seem like a natural-born producer of ballroom house, the underground New York LGBT culture that gave us vogueing, but on his new EP for the Body Work label he’s forged his own transatlantic take on the style, melding hints of garage, grime and rushing acid with all-out, heavy-duty house music.

 Read more here.