You are one of the most prominent kizomba DJs and promoter in Toronto. Could you tell the community a bit about yourself and how you started Djing?
My name is Newton, Jean-Jacques; I was born in Haiti and grew up listening to kompa. I can tell you that it was never in my plans to become a DJ. While living in Montreal, I started a fun project compiling the best songs from various CDs. I created mix CDs and sold them under the name of DJ Neg Serieux (which means Serious Guy in Creole).
Around 2010, already living in Toronto and selling my CDs there, a friend asked me why I didn’t DJ for real and the idea started growing in me. At that time there were already a couple of DJs playing in town, but when I listened to their mixes, I thought I could do better. I started mixing kompa, dancehall, reggae and other music genres for different crowds.
Original article was written by and syndicated from: Kizomba Voices of Toronto
After seeing Manuel Dos Santos with his crew showcasing kizomba to kompa songs at a Montreal kompa club, I decided to introduce kizomba to my Haitian crowd in Toronto. My enterprise brought me in contact with Kiz’me Productions (Java, Regan, Laurence and Leila) and I asked them to demo kizomba at my upcoming birthday party. I took Java’s classes to learn kizomba and started working on a mix CD (zouk vs. kizomba) for my party.
As I was searching for kizomba music I found that I already knew those songs under the genre of zouk. I thought if this is what they called kizomba, I can DJ it because to me that was zouk in Portuguese. The night of my event went really well, and I decided to partner up with Kiz’me Productions to throw some more events together. The developing scene was playing mostly ghetto zouk (i.e. Mika Mendes, Nelson Freitas) so I knew this was going to be easy since I grew up with that kind of music. This is how I started DJing kizomba.
When I went to Angolan parties, and spoke to Angolans, I discovered that they preferred kizomba music with a more traditional sound which I would call zouk. Although I didn’t know Portuguese, musically I was very connected to the culture and the feeling of the music due to its similarities to the music of my country. To make it easy, anything that sounded like zouk but was sung in Portuguese I put them under the zouk umbrella, whether it was kizomba from Angola, cabo zouk from Cape Verde or zouk from the Antilles. The learning curve of understanding the needs of the different crowds was pretty easy, all I needed to do was finding their own popular artists.
What do you mean by ‘zouk’?
When I’m talking about zouk, I mean Caribbean zouk. I believe that we shouldn’t even say Caribbean zouk because zouk is Caribbean. The other zouk people promote is Brazilian zouk, and it should be really called lambada.
What do you think about the ongoing controversy about kizomba vs. urban kiz?
I think you need to be able to distinguish between the two since they are different. If you are an urban kiz fan, you need to understand that the two dances may share some similarities but they are not comparable. I can give you an example: take the NBA vs. the Harlem Globe Trotters (HGT). The HGT is a team that plays like a circus, with tricks and no specific rules. It’s like funny basketball. They don’t do half of what an NBA team does. They play by different rules, so we can’t compare them to a real basketball team. The HGT can’t claim they are an NBA team and vice versa. The same idea applies to the controversy between kizomba and urban kiz. If you dance or teach urban, you should promote it as such and do not claim to teach kizomba.
Can you tell us a bit about the origins of kizomba from the perspective of the music?
Before kizomba became a dance, the music was already there and it was not called kizomba.
At that time zouk was the popular music played in the clubs and PALOP artists felt the need to create their own version of it. They wanted to sing about their own country, in their own language so they incorporated their own cultural instruments into zouk music. For example, Angolans started playing zouk rhythms with instruments and rhythms from Angola. Similar things happened in the other PALOP countries: Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé & Príncipe. A Cape Verdean zouk sounds different than the Angolan one.
Is it important that dancers understand and distinguish between different styles of music typically played at a kizomba social or should they just enjoy themselves?
I think we have to have an open mind. There are a lot of layers in kizomba music: language, cultural and musical layers and as a result there are so many versions of the music people call kizomba. If we accept that kizomba the music originates in zouk and as such, it is beyond Angola, we have to be open to the diversity the music and dance will offer you. The different languages kizomba is sung in indicate specific cultural influences, but you can’t expect a social dancer to understand all that. Who are we to dictate how people feel the music. At the end of the day I’d rather people come to my party, enjoy themselves and not worry about the music. Better to have people dancing than sitting down.
What is your favourite music and dance style?
In terms of music I love kompa since I grew up with it. I love kizomba and semba, as well as the various genres under the kizomba umbrella like ghetto zouk. As for the dance, I dance everything. There are many good artists of various genres that have introduced me to different layers of the music and dance.
Who do you think are the most trusted sources of kizomba dance and music knowledge in Toronto?
This is hard to say, because I know of many people outside of the dance scene who have the knowledge, but they don’t share it. If someone wanted to learn to dance kizomba, I’d recommend that they go to trusted teachers who have a good reputation, who have students and have a structure in place.
Whatdo you think the biggest issues are in the Toronto kizomba dance community?
I think the biggest issue is the lack of accountability of our instructors. They need to expose students to the dance, the music, and the culture. For the amount of teachers we have, just a few are really devoted to produce enough good dancers.
I think we have more teachers in the scene than what the scene can handle, and this is counterproductive. The scene has been around for 6-7 years, and the progress has been slow. Let’s say we have approximately 10 trustable instructors. If one instructor produces one good dancer a year, we should have 60-70 good dancers by now. Instead we are arguing about kizomba vs. urban or what type of dance is someone dancing. As a community we should stop judging and concentrate on teaching and learning.
On the other hand dancers have to come with more respect to the dance, the culture and the learning process. Whether they prefer urban kiz or kizomba, any dancer should start with learning the fundamentals of kizomba.
Another issue I see is the lack of collaboration between dancers/promoters/organizers. I remember when the kizomba scene started to grow in 2012-2013, people didn’t know much but they encouraged each other. Now we know much more but instead of having an open mind we are critical of each other.
Original article was written by and syndicated from: Kizomba Voices of Toronto
How would you rate the Toronto dance scene on a scale of 1-10 compared to the international scene, in terms of strength and competitiveness?
If we are comparing Toronto to Paris based on technicality alone, I would say we have a long way to go and I’d give Toronto a 6. I find that the majority of dancers know the steps but they execute them with a lack of smoothness.
If we look at how our scene has grown organically, how people go out, participate and enjoy the vibe, I would give Toronto a 9. If we compare Toronto in terms of musical knowledge and musical sharing, we are way up there. Other cities might have a higher level of technicality, but they are more about urban kiz and not kizomba. We have a scene that offers different options and different parties. We have socials three or more nights a week, we have major festivals with top international artists. Our dancers are exposed to a much more diversified level of musicality than in any other city in Canada.
What changes should be made to have a stronger dance community in Toronto?
I would like to see people work together more, instead of separating, whether on the promotion side, DJing, or the instruction side. We are in the business of teaching people how to dance, but it is still a hobby. We can’t go on fighting and we would accomplish much more if we were more accepting of each other.
Do you have any advice for up and coming DJs?
Don’t be selfish; take time to learn as much as you can of kizomba. Be open to the culture and understand it. Even though I grew up with kompa and zouk, I had to learn to travel between all the layers of the music.
Any shout-outs to dancers, teachers, DJs, promoters?
Yeah, I’d like to send a shout-out to the whole community: I love my community, and as much as a lot of people are criticizing the Toronto scene, everyone – from teachers to dancers – is doing their best to improve the scene!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DJ NS is a resident DJ at MAS, the weekly Thursday kizomba social at El Rancho, and at Flavour Fridays, currently held at Luanda House. NS is well known in Canada and the US mixing kizomba, semba, ghetto zouk , kompa and more at festivals and congresses in North America. He is the founder of the annual Kiz’N The 6IX weekend bash and Urban Legends events.
Through his great sense of musicality, crowd reading and ex- tensive musical knowledge DJ NS has become a community builder and trendsetter in the Toronto kizomba dance scene.
Original article was written by and syndicated from: Kizomba Voices of Toronto