Name, Location, What You Do:
JKriv, Brooklyn. I DJ, produce, play live with the band Escort, and run the label Razor-N-Tape with partner Aaron Dae.

Influences:
My musical journey started with rock and heavy metal in the late 80s, moved through 70s funk and soul to a period of serious focus on Jazz, Brazilian and other Latin and Caribbean sounds, then back to disco and house in the early 2000s, so the influences are pretty wide-ranging. I came to music as an instrumentalist long before I got into DJing and I still kinda view things through that lense. The artists that have influenced me the most are probably Miles Davis, Donny Hathaway, Prince, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Quincy Jones, Hall & Oates, Aretha Franklin, Frankie Knuckles, Larry Levan,

Favorite Records at the Moment:
Lungile Masitha – Vuyani – South African boogie joint from 1985 reissued on Left Ear Records last month. Fire!
T.C. Curtis – Pack Up Your Things And Get Out Of My Life – 1988. I didn’t know how much I needed this record in my life until last year.
Khruangbin – Con Todo El Mundo – was one of my fav LPs of last year which I will stay stuck on it until they release a new record.
Escort feat. Fonda Rae – City Life – sorry for the plug, but I mean we have FONDA RAE singing on our track! Plus it’s a really fun one. Only out digitally for now, but there is a really nice series of Escort 7’s coming very soon, including this.

Best Digging Story:
Honestly I think my most baller move ever was when I was 12 years old and my uncle took me to see the Philharmonic with the legendary Leonard Bernstein conducting and I convinced him to let us bail at intermission so I could go shopping at Tower Records. I bought a Shabba Ranks CD. Other than that…Cosmos Zapateria in Bogota was pretty incredible…an amazing selection of records in a hidden room above a shoe store. And I’ll never forget being introduced to DJ Yellow in 2002 at Satellite Records, while holding a DJ Yellow record I was about to buy.

Favorite Mix and Why. Any Genre, Any DJ.
Larry Levan live at the Paradise Garage. Recorded in 1978 and released on Strut in 2000. The tracklist isn’t anything too mind-blowing…until you realize that everything he was playing didn’t have the legacy it has now; he was breaking it right there! The programming and mixing is of course perfection…the gold standard of disco DJing.

LP, 12”, or 7” format?
Primarily 12” for me, but I’m psyched to play 45s this Saturday!

Junk Food You Can’t Live Without:
French Fries are just so delicious.

Most Memorable Gig Played:
Getting to play guitar in the Red Bull Music tribute to Patrick Adams band a couple years ago was an incredible honor. It was simultaneously surreal and humblingt o play some of the music that has had such a big impact on me, alongside the people who actually made that music! For DJ gigs, last NYE at the Mareh Festival in Brazil on a boat playing with my great friend and musical cohort Dicky Trisco was one for the ages.

Record That Never Leaves Your Record Box:
The Justin Vandervolgen edit of Bobby Thurston “You Got What It Takes.” There’s nothing that record can’t do.

Shout Outs, Last Remarks, and Gig Info:
Can’t wait to rock it on the home turf Saturday!

Listen to JKriv music here.

Dig Deeper!