DJ E-Clyps: A 5 Mag Mix vol 9

DJ E-Clyps mixes Vol #9 of A 5 Mag Mix, 5 Magazine’s flagship House Music mix and interview series.

E-Clyps is blazing his way through the dance community like nobody’s business. His music has been played by DJs such as Duck Sauce, Todd Terry, Kenny Dope, Mark Knight and DJ Chuckie to name a few, and he has a nonstop production schedule and a new label on deck.

You can reach E-Clyps via soundcloud, twitter and facebook.

E-Clyps contributed this exclusive set for our A 5 Mag Mix series, following mixes from Henry Street Music founder Johnny D., Jeremy Sylvester, DJ Godfather, Mr. Mendel, Naeem & Gusto, Parris Mitchell, Zernell and Kool Vibe.

Czarina Mirani’s interview with DJ E-Clyps follows his mix below:

Where are you based out of now and do you have any plans on relocating?

First, Czarina …let me say thank for for the interview and the opportunity! To answer your question, I feel like press, bloggers and media have relocated me already lol! They seem to always assume I’m from New York because of me working with Todd Terry, or they say I’m from Chicago because of my production and DJ’ing style… so it’s always funny to see the look on people’s faces when I say “No, I’m from Indiana”. There’s always that “No way, really?!” moment, like it’s not possible be from Indiana of all places. It always makes for a fun moment. Relocating hasn’t been on my mind much as of yet, i’m too busy trying to really get my name out there: then when the time is right, i’ll look at my options, somewhere warm, because the midwest during the winter is no joke.

My God if there is one person that is constantly keeping busy it’s you! You seem to have endless drive, what is it that motivates you?

Honestly? Legacy. I want to be remembered as one of the best to ever have done it in House Music as both a DJ and Producer. I know that sounds kind of cocky, and it’s not aimed to be, but that’s what I’m aiming for…maybe that’s the Hip-Hop in me, we aim to be the best at what we do or we don’t bother doing it, ya know? People don’t know I’m a DJ at heart first, producer second, I’m aiming to really change that. I take my DJ sets very seriously, rocking crowds is my thing rather than being hunkered down in the studio all the time. A lot of people do music nowadays because it’s the cool thing to do, but I’ve loved DJ’ing and making music before it was the ‘in thing’, it’s helped my life in more ways than I can explain… it’s my therapy.

You launched your label Blacklight Music in April of this year, and I believe it has an accompanying radio show?

Yes. The radio show actually came first because I needed my own outlet to showcase my DJ’ing and I wanted to do it in my own way. I wanted to take a different approach to what a House Music radio shows sounds like. Coming from Hip-Hop, I took the Hip-Hop mixshow approach to it, to make it hype…really give people a solid show that made you want to dance and discover new music at the same time. By the second episode it was featured on iTunes as a “new and noteworthy” podcast, which was a blessing. The whole idea was to build the brand as a whole: radio show, label, everything. The Blacklight label and radio show were phase one, but there are things to come that will be the thing that ties it all together. Just signed the paperwork for the next phase of it all, it’s going to be pretty dope.

It’s refreshing to see that your personal and working relationship with Todd Terry is still going strong! You both recently got to go to WMC, what was that experience like for this round?

Todd and I both came from Hip-Hop first and transitioned into House Music, so it’s easier to work with someone who knows where you’re coming from and has made a legendary career doing it, who better to learn from? Same thing with Kenny Dope, I work closely with both of them now, which you can’t ask for two better mentors to be honest. Our approach to house music is different, we’re more aggressive in our approach to music and coming from the environments we come from: we’re always in hustle mode… always working to take things to the next level.

As far as WMC… It was an experience, my second time ever being there. This year was much more serious for me as I had a lot of bookings and things lined up: this was my year to really show people I can throw down on the decks equally as well as on the beats, I’m not just a producer! It was really cool as well to meet people I respected in the game. I got to finally meet Armand Van Helden, Roger Sanchez, and many others for the first time, and when people tried to introduce me to them, they we’re like “Oh, I’m well aware who you are.. we gotta link up.” – That was a really exciting feeling in itself. I left WMC on a high I can’t explain, so now I’m working even harder. But so many things are going on at the same time, you barely see your room because all week you’re constantly on the go. Meetings, showcases, panels, parties, bookings, and somewhere trying to find time to eat and sleep lol.

To be a part of WMC while simultaneously see what was going on with Ultra across the way, it really set my sights higher. I want to see real House music get on that kind of platform…it’s already shifting that way as we speak. Things are looking up for House Music!

The list of upcoming releases you have is ridiculous! Give us a sample of all that you have coming up?

I’ve been blessed, looking at the release dates coming up it’s really amazing to see how far things have come. I have an EP dropping June 15th on Low Steppa’s Simma Black label, another release on Toolroom dropping late June on the Ibiza Underground compilation, releases coming soon on Kenny Dope’s Dopewax Label, a remix for Omni Music Solutions that people aren’t going to expect from me musically, of course releases on Blacklight Music, launching Dirty Drum Gang, more stuff on InHouse and some other stuff in the works that I can’t talk about yet, but I’ll definitely keep you in the loop!