When they said ‘Get busy’, they could have been referring to DJ Spen. Down the line from sunny San Francisco, he fills us in on his hectic schedule. “I’m in the studio working with Mark Evans and Barbara Tucker on the new single ‘We Are’. Just finished a Hustle Music project – real gospelly – and a Groove Junkies remix on a song called ‘Oh Lord’.” It’s second nature to a man who’s been hard at his turntables since the tender age of 13. But would he say gospel is his first love?
“It has to be up there in the top three, I guess!” laughs DJ Spen, the artist otherwise known as Sean Spencer. “I’ve been around it since I was born, it’s kinda like a part of my life. My parents were very instrumental in the whole gospel thing – they were Southerners, so it was a big thing for them, belief in God was very heavy in my family. I owe them that, they were a major influence.” Growing up, DJ Spen found himself drawn equally to
“hip hop, funk and the soul stuff. And some of the rock stuff – some Zeppelin, Hendrix, Chicago, that kind of thing. I was into a wide variety of things as a kid.”
Spen, whose career spans two decades, was front row centre at the birth of hip hop in the early Eighties. “The hip hop thing – it was something new that came around. You turned on the radio at that time, ’79, ’80, and you were bound to hear it. I mean, shoot, the first hip hop record I ever bought was ‘Rapper’s Delight’ by the Sugarhill Gang, not long after it came out! I would turn on the radio and it would be Parliament, Funkadelic and the Rufus and Chaka Khan album, that was real big. It was an interesting period.” It spoke to the young DJ Spen loud and clear. “As a young kid hip hop was fresh – it was a voice that really spoke to me going through my teenage years and early adulthood. It’s really attractive at that time. The gospel thing was always there, it never really left.”
Gospel and hip hop might seem poles apart to some fans - do they complement each other? “Well, there is hip hop gospel!” DJ Spen says. “To a point, it’s complementary when you make it complementary. You can put anything together, it’s just about how you put it together.” He’d know, having been mixing it up since his early teens when he started to put together production team Numarx. “We were turntablists, that’s how we started,” he explains. “One of us decided to pick up a microphone and start rapping, and the others did it too – then the ones who wanted to stay on the turntables stayed there, and the ones who wanted to expand and do other stuff did that. We ended up being a pretty tight unit.” Not only that, but one of their 1986 tracks – ‘Girl You Know It’s True’ – ended up being made famous (or infamous) by a certain Milli Vanilli.
From his first successful foray into music with Numarx, DJ Spen went on to the Basement Boys, having found himself at the cutting edge of another exciting emerging genre – house. “The whole house thing had started coming around in a major way, and instead of just doing a hip hop record we figured we’d get some guys who were doing the house thing to remix it. It ended up taking off. At the time, especially as a DJ and doing mobile stuff, you had to play a little bit of everything, be knowledgeable about it, know what was happening with electro and pop. From there I got interested in doing some songwriting and something other than just the hip hop stuff.” As a Basement Boy, DJ Spen started to become highly sought after as a remixer, putting his unique spin on cuts by the likes of Diana Ross, Everything but the Girl, Ann Nesby and Shaun Escoffery.
On to the present – DJ Spen’s newest love as of 2004 is Code Red Recordings, the label he runs with his partner in crime and fellow MuthaFunka Gary Deane. “He had a studio opportunity for me after I left Basement Boys – at the time I was going to get a regular 9 to 5. It seemed like one of my last ditch efforts to try and make this happen. I tried it out, and it took a minute, but it ended up working.” Working it is, with the likes of Ultra Nate, Jada, Marc Evans, Anne Nesby and Karizma adding their flavour to the pot. And it saved him from getting a proper job, too. “Pretty much,” DJ Spen agrees, “at least for now!”
Code Red has gone onto releaing some of soulful houses most sought after gems. With DJ Spen & Thommy Davis presents Terry Thompson feat. Lisa Mack ‘Shine’ which has captured the vibe of 95-96 whilst keeping the whole dance floor appeal very current. Also DJ Spen feat Ann Nesby – It’s So easy. Possibly one of the most supported track at the 07 WMC amongst the soulful dons and already Code Red’s 10th release.
What does he love most about what he does? “I love every aspect of it, from going to the studio, to writing a song, to engineering a song, to doing the beats, sending a record off to be mastered and then being called to go out and DJ. I can’t see myself doing anything else.” As for the future: “I just want to continue to build the Code Red name, to make it a contender. To be able to write more songs, with so many other people I want to work with - Ce Ce Peniston, Martha Wash - good gosh, the list is huge! If I ever got to work with just them I’d be happy. Beyond that I don’t know, maybe it’s a bit too soon to ask me, but I’m loving what I’m doing so much right now. I’m very, very blessed, I tell you.”
