The Beginning
From Nick to Nick Flash
My childhood was a happy go lucky time. Picture perfect in many ways. My parents did a great job preserving my innocence, nourishing my creativity, and helping harness my talents and individuality.
These core traits help shape my personality as is it today. I like to think I’m still as curious, adventurous, stylish, and romantic as I was back then. And if not, I strive to be.
Turtle Power
80's Kid with a Cowabunga Attitude
I’ve always had a wild imagination. The books I read, the movies and cartoons I watched, and the toys I played with were always inspiring new ideas and new way’s to look at the world. I saw myself as a hero that could conquer any challenge. An adventurer who faced fears head on and never coward in the face of danger.
Yet never taking situations too seriously. Able to keep a light hearted and goofy sense of humor, share a laugh, and be the first one to get the party started! You can say I’m a sucker for nostalgia sometimes. Pizza is still my favorite food, I still read comic books and collect action figures, especially the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles! Preserving my youthful spirit is essential to my current work as a creative artist & director.
Teenage Wasteland
By the time I became a teenager, I began to realize that the world wasn’t the safe sheltered place I had come to know. I began to feel like an outcast. I socially withdrew. I felt lost, trying to forge an identity through the music and culture that I came to idolize at the time.
Music has always been a huge part of my life since I was born. My parents collected an assortment of vinyl records from Jazz, to R&B, Soul & Rock n Roll. In my teenage years naturally, I rebelled, searching for a sound that could identify with. In 1994, Green Day released Dookie and I finally felt a sense of individuality with my music taste. “Alternative” Unfortunately, I had to hide my cassette tapes because of my parents more conservative values. Which only led me to discovering more artists that I had to keep in a hidden shoe box. Most notably, Bone Thugs – n- Harmony E. 1999 Eternal, Slick Rick: The Great Adventures of Slick Rick. Snoop Doggy Dogg & Tupac, and Miami Bass artists such as 2 Live Crew and The Gucci Crew. What I wasn’t prepared for, was how much I emulated these artists. How much I aspired to be like them and live their lifestyle. So much so that I lost myself in a teenage wasteland.
Hip- Hop was more than just a genre to me. It was a lifestyle that I wanted to learn every aspect of. Rapping, Break-Dancing, Djing, Graffiti and more. Since I didn’t have many dance skills and couldn’t really draw, I decided I should start with Rapping. I’d been in love with rhymes ever since I read Dr. Suess and I also loved to write, so it was a perfect fit. I learned every aspect of the recording process, and recorded my first song in my best friends garage. Eventually I worked my way up to owning my own studio gear, making songs, and even recording other local rappers in my neighborhood. That’s when things went awry. I was robbed for all my equipment at gun point, and at that moment I realized that the studio life just wasn’t for me. After my insirance company reimbursed my losses, I decided to try my hand at djing. So I bought some turntables. The rest is history.
I’ve included some of the songs I was able to salvage from the robbery on this page, along with some poetry and short stories I wrote at the time.
Mash Up
From Rapper to Dj: Making the Transition
Mastering the Basics
Music History
I spent the first years of my Dj career studying every genre of music I could throughout the decades. I searches for similarities in tempo, melody, and structure so as to bridge the past and present together.
Mixtapes & Mash-ups
My world changed when the program Ableton dropped. It allowed me to edit and time stretch songs and clips like never before. In no time I was making Mix Tapes and Mash-ups, and was even featured on the famous Dj Pool The Crooklyn Clan.
Technique
Learning to mix, scratch, and blend on Technics 1200's was crucial to my beginnings. Turntables are the essential hip-hop instrument, and is my belief that anyone entering the dj world should get a feel for them.
Club Politics
Being the shy, unpopular kid in high school was not going to help me in the club world. In order to follow my dreams and advance my dj career, I had to learn the politics. I had to embrace my inner extrovert. More on that later.
That Night a Dj Saved My Life
Before I met my mentor Kenny Mondo, I was just a bedroom Dj who was lucky if he scored a gig at a sweet 16. Kenny took me under his wing and showed me the in’s and out’s of the business. Taught me how to rock any kind of crowd, no matter the age or demographic. I spent 10 years working close with him and his company gaining skill and knowledge.
Aspiring for more
While I excelled at djing private events and weddings, I wasn’t quite fulfilled. I wanted more. I wanted to be in the big nightclubs and festivals, rocking dancefloors packed with thousands of people. But I had no idea where to start.
The Nightclub Years
Through the side door
I Turned My Camera On
Nightclub Dj's are a very territorial group. Once they're in, they don't like anyone coming in and trying to take their spot. I needed a way to be part of the scene without stepping on anyones toes. That's when I found photography. Following in the footsteps of The Cobrasnake & Bronques, I started documenting party people and the parties I wanted to Dj at. Promoters started calling me and booking me, and before I knew it I was everywhere.
South Beach-Miami
Danny Daze, Disco-tech, & The Open-Format Scene
The local clubs were cool, but the star-studded allure of Miami and South Beach fascinated me. There, I met Danny Daze, whom I learned advanced dj techniques and production skills. I used my camera to get into the parties he was spinning, and was able to get a first-hand look at the dance-floor dynamics and how to properly read the room.
Burn-Out
Forgetting What I Came For
After A while, I started to burn out. I was out 6 of the 7 nights a week, and I had gotten so popular as a photographer, that people had forgotten I was a dj all together. I was knee deep in the scene and it all began to feel so fake. Like I wasn't fulfilling my true purpose. So I took a break to work on my art.
Transition into Fatherhood
While I assumed my brief departure from nightlife would allow me to focus more heavily on my writing, fate had other plans for me. It gave me a great gift that changed my life and the way I viewed the world. An inner strength that had eluded me up until then, and a clearer vision of my true purpose in life. An immaturity I was holding on to died when my daughter was born. I saw parts of myself I was afraid to see. Ready to change things that needed to change. Put my best foot forward. Reevaluate my beliefs on love and human emotion. In other words, growing the heck up.
The Future Of My Creative Journey Lies Not In What I Create, But On The Strength Of It's Foundation.
My creativity never seems to hold itself to a single form or medium. I have a vast many interests and ideas, and without taking the time to develop certain technical skills, the ideas tend to remain ideas. That in itself can become a barrier to my success, because it can seem as if I’m just flopping around from one idea to the other.
To counter this, I am using the next phase of my career to focus on business strategy. To building a strong foundation for myself and other creatives to just be able to do what we do best: create. In whatever form we so choose. This will be the most challenging phase of my journey thus far, and will take everything I have both financially and emotionally. The reward however will prove to be greater than the risk, and will be a true test of my resilience. See you on the other side.
