Dance Chic: How did you become a deejay?

Nelson Torres: I started spinning music back in the late 1970s in the Bronx. We would have block parties, where we blocked off streets of traffic. In the night time, there would be different sets of deejay crews who would bring out their equipment and start playing music. We had different crews, emcees, and deejays. They were playing more hip hop.

I was nine or ten years old, just watching in awe. I was watching people dance to the music and something inside of me said, “I want to do that!” So I started collecting records here and there. By my twelfth birthday, I had professional turntables and I was just mimicking what I saw the guys doing and I never stopped.

Why did you switch from spinning Hip Hop to Salsa music?

Hip hop was my passion at first because that’s what I saw the Deejays doing. Disco was popular back then too, so I would do both disco and Hip Hop. I was really just playing in my bedroom back then. There weren’t really any big parties.

Eventually, everyone in the family knew that I was a deejay, so when we had family gatherings, they would “Nelson, why don’t you bring your records?” Friends started inviting to spin their house parties. In the mid 90s, there were a lot of private parties and birthday parties. A lot of deejays didn’t play salsa at that time, they were more hip hop oriented. So I would get jobs because I could play Salsa. Before I knew it, I would get more and more calls because I could play Salsa music.

In New York City, there were a lot of parties, which we call socials, they were like practice parties where people learnt to dance salsa. People wanted three to four hours of Salsa music. And it just progressed from there, the socials just got bigger and bigger. Fortunately, I hooked up with David Melendez, so there are about eight congresses in a year that keep me busy.

Do you think a Salsa deejay has to be a Salsa dancer?

I think so. I personally know some deejays who don’t dance much, they just have a ear for the music. But I think if you really want to be able to relate to the people on the dance floor, you should at least know what they are feeling or what they are waiting to hear.

But that doesn’t apply to everyone. My mentor, David Sala, doesn’t dance but he is one of the best deejays ever.

What goes through your mind when you’re spinning?

I may be in a certain mood but I still pay attention to the dance floor because I’m playing for the crowd, not for myself. So even if I may be in the mood to play a certain type of music but if the floor is not getting full. I’ll have to change up and adapt to what they want to hear.

How do you know what kind of music dancers want?

Let’s say if I’m playing down tempo, and I have a young crowd. The young crowd really prefers to dance to faster music. Then I’ll start picking up the pace. If I see smiles on their faces and more people coming on to the dance floor, then I know they are like the music.

In general, I pretty much like to start on a down tempo, then start bringing up the pace and bring it back down again. That way, I cover the whole spectrum and try to keep everyone happy.

People tend to prefer familiar music, how do you spice things up a little?

You can’t be afraid to experiment. There are many deejays I hear that play the same music and the dancers like them because they know the songs.

But I get bored.

Whenever I hear David Sala and Henry Knowles play, I keep going over to the console to ask, “Hey, what’s that song that you’re playing?”

A lot of these other guys I hear, they just play the same old songs, I’m like “I know that song… I know that song too.” Unfortunately, a lot of dancers get into this comfort zone where they know the songs, they know the breaks and they know absolutely what they want to do to it. If they hear something different, they may not be open to trying something new. But a good deejay should always try to introduce something new.

But you have to know when to try. You don’t want to experiment when there are too many people on the floor and you hit it with something crazy.

Nowadays, anyone can call themselves a deejay. What do you think of that?

The problem these days with the Internet and technology is that people are becoming deejays overnight. The deejay equipment is easy to use, you just press play and the music is going. It wasn’t like back in my days where you had to play records and you needed to know how to blend and stuff like that. It has become a lot easier for people to give themselves the title, Deejay. But there’s a lot more to it, you’ve got to know your tempos, your music and everyone should have something different from the other deejays. I don’t like deejays who simply follow the rest.

What are your sentiments regarding the passing of many of the stalwarts in salsa music (e.g. members of Buena Vista Social Club and Celia Cruz)?

That’s actually quite sad. When I’m in New York listening to the Spanish radio station, it bores me to tears. The radio would come on and I would hear the same songs that I heard three years ago. The musicians like Marc Anthony are talented and doing very well. But it’s just a really different kind of music. I’m happy that guys like Spanish Harlem are coming out with albums and keeping the old school alive.

I think Albert Torres is doing something in the West Coast, because he realized that many of the musicians where passing away. So he is trying to breed a new generation of musicians, to get older musicians to teach new ones, to pass on the torch.

The music means so much to me and I don’t want it to disappear.