#djentrification

What's your story?

I'm not the best at telling my story, but I was born and raised here in the valley and feel fortunate for it.

My name's Alex and I go by the name Djentrification and others, I used this name to force the word gentrification into print on fliers etc because we saw places getting taking away from development that had a great deal of cultural value to us here in PHX. This was around the year 2000 and we actually didn't even know there was a word for it. I wanted to force the word out there more so that people would be more aware of it.

I began Dj'ing right before 2000 and have been interested in playing with sound since I was a young kid. It wasn't a conscious decision to want to Dj, but came about more as an accident through trying to record tapes for myself, learning through coincidence and then mostly from our own neighborhood parties. We would put together a sketchy bunch of found speakers and amps, borrow a turntable from here or there and set shit up in the alley, a garage or wherever.

It was really spontaneous and undocumented.

In a lot of ways this was really related with Graffiti people, I don't know how to say it right exactly, there was a handful of us here in downtown Phoenix in the late Nineties and around 2000 just lurking and doing our thing.

A lot of us had an awareness and respect for local history and people who had pushed and were pushing creativity around here since way back so we had a foundation in a way, on that note we also recognized collectives that had money and self promotion more as their focus and the effect and vibe they put off as well (most of these guys were based outta the east side and fell off since).

On the Graffiti tip, the parties and music were like the decompression side, the fun, easy (Easy as in fairly legal in comparison) side after painting, the painting was the real work. I don't know how to say it or describe it. We weren't taking photos and facebooking our scene on instagram or anything, at that point, even the idea of doing a party in a bar and for any money was even something that was not in our heart. We were just one tribe of hundreds of similar little groups that all had connection but space between them too in Phoenix.

There were other groups around into all the directions holding it down for their neighborhood and we were related and at the same time isolated. A lot of people thought downtown was really dangerous then which was a kinda false perception. There were still mad drag queen on Roosevelt and so what? They had their culture and scene with 307 etc. and I myself respected their thing. Just because someone is smoking rocks doesn't mean they are going come up and bite your neck or something. Lotta the street people were more trustworthy than the sketchy Loft-Developer-"Art" people that were to come downtown shortly after.

Some (but not all) of the cats around at that time crucial to what was happening Downtown in this little micro scene: Andy Kelp, Pablo Luna, Space, Nathanial Nichols, FLip, Smite, Yeyo & Ekoe and a lot of other folks too.

I'm influenced a lot from the Phoenix culture I was brought up in. Local 80's Skate and Punk culture,Graffiti writer culture,and underground warehouse parties of the late eighties and early nineties, then too, the Art & experimental scene of 80's and 90's inspired me and made growing up here interesting. People always move to the desert and see it as lifeless, but the real life is hiding everywhere beneath the surface and in the shadows.

Photographer: Hector Primero & Brenda Davis

Model: Djentrification

Funky X-mas Mix mixed by Djentrification.