Tag Archives: DJ Sneak

Business, Covid-19, News

What WOULD his old friend Paul Johnson say? After DJ Sneak outs himself as an anti-vaxxer, his comments have been badly received in his native Chicago – a city which lost one of its legends to Covid last year…

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Those of you who use Facebook or Instagram this week might have been forgiven for having a startled moment upon seeing posts on Paul Johnson’s socials – they’ve been active again. The man himself died last year after contracting Covid-19 at the age of 50, so what’s going on here?

Well, a relative has access to his account and has been posting information about a tribute event to his life which was due to take place. My sources in Chicago confirm they’re still feeling his loss. As one put it to me anonymously, “he was often the reason I carried on when I felt like giving up”.

One person who doesn’t appear to be involved is another name which came out of Chicago’s underground – DJ Sneak. Many noticed Sneak’s tribute to Johnson after his death was, as one put it, “pretty underwhelming” – and like a number of others at the time, he was careful not to reference Covid-19 in his words.

My sources in Chicago tell me most of the dance music scene there have their reservations about things like vaccine passports, but accept they’re the only way they can keep nightclubs open at present. None of them are prepared to go public at the moment for fear of ramifications – but privately, a number have expressed disquiet about Sneak’s opinion on the vaccine.

One DJ who’s been making house music since the 1980s was pretty angry. He said “What the f*** is Sneak playing at? Has he been smoking too many of his own greens or something? I don’t know what the f*** he’s up to. Maybe he’s missing the days when he used to beef with bigger players than him. Glad we won’t be seeing him around here now. [the state of Illinois demands proof of vaccination to enter nightclubs]”.

Another DJ from the same era is angry that Sneak expressed his opinion so close to the date of a Paul Johnson tribute event. Johnson, like Sneak, was another of the second wave of house music producers to emerge from Chicago – something which hasn’t gone unnoticed. The DJ said “He might as well s*** on his grave. Sneak knew Paul well, and I think this is f***ing disgusting.”

After this, he made a possibly less than polite suggestion that Sneak does something quite unprintable with his next joint – I’ll leave this one to your imaginations…

Business, Covid-19, News

That’s another one into the Danny Rampling bus! DJ Sneak outs himself as an anti-vaxxer – but is he just jumping on a bandwagon that some of his colleagues joined two years ago?

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What would happen if you stuck all the anti-vaxxers in dance music on Danny Rampling’s Love Groove Dance Party bus? Aside from the rest of us hoping Rampling drives it straight into the Bermuda Triangle, there’s little doubt the bus would certainly be a noisy place.

Random stories about their careers would be punctuated with bad taste games where they’d come up with the ultimate DJ set to play in a busy intensive care ward full of Covid patients struggling to breathe. And now, Rampling’s fail bus has made its latest stop to pick up another passenger – DJ Sneak.

Here’s Sneak on Instagram getting into rows with his followers on his latest stance. And the argumentative Sneak – who claims he’s had the virus twice – from days gone by is very much present in the comments…

I have had my suspicions about Sneak for a while. Like a number of anti-vaxxer DJs in the USA, his touring schedule appears to be consist almost entirely of states which have, shall we say, more relaxed Covid restrictions. Whereas the state of New York – where only being double jabbed gets you into the clubs – have effectively rendered the anti-vax brigade as persona non grata.

Still, what I can’t help but wonder is, why now? Over the past few years, Sneak has kept himself out of arguments after a period when he was more well known for beefing than anyone else in house music. Is this just Sneak – real name Carlos Sosa – letting that side of his character out once again?

Perhaps his energies would be better focused on delivering on his promise to remove his music from the digital stores…

Business, News

I suppose all those sinks won’t fix themselves! One year on from his vow to remove his music from the digital stores, exactly how is DJ Sneak getting on with the task?

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In the dying days of 2020, DJ Sneak posted a few musings on his social media pages. The pandemic had given him time to think, and he’d decided he would be doing things differently in the future. And one thing he pledged to do was remove his music from the digital stores.

Sneak, possibly having had too many mince pies over the  Christmas break, wanted to pretend it was 1995 again. No pesky internet around then – it was all real DJs playing on vinyl, carrying back-breaking crates of wax around the world. This was a better system, he believes – although possibly not for the backs of those carrying aforementioned crates of wax.

Anyway, I’ve been helping “the original gangster” – as he himself and quite possibly his mother call him – to keep count. Now, this blog makes allowances for the fact master rights may not be owned by DJ Sneak – real name Carlos Sosa – on some records, so I accept it’s going to take a while to acquire control of those back.

On January 19th last year, he had 613 tracks up on Traxsource. Taking all of that down wasn’t going to be an easy undertaking – but the numbers haven’t gone down much. Infact, the lowest they got to was 572 back in May last year. For ease of reference, I’ve prepared this handy, cut out and keep – okay, maybe I wouldn’t go that far – chart which shows the numbers…

Today’s total? At the time of writing this post, 594 records are still on Traxsource. Which increasingly leads me to think that Sneak owns the master recording rights on very few of his own records.

Elsewhere, his total on Beatport is a whopping 791 records. He also has a presence on Spotify, iTunes, YouTube, Amazon Music, Deezer and any other number of streaming services. So much for the digital detox, Carlos…

Christmas, Lighter News

A mince pie for Santa and a carrot for his reindeer! As Mr Claus starts his journey to bring presents to the world’s children, take a guess which gangster is having an early night too…

So it’s Christmas Eve. If your tree isn’t standing tall by now, it almost certainly isn’t going up this year. By now, you’ve probably got all the stuff you need for a table-groaning dinner tomorrow, and this blog hopes you’ve got all the presents you’re going to need for your nearest and dearest.

And with it being the big day tomorrow, Santa Claus will be starting to make his way around the world shortly to deliver presents for children, no matter where they are. Various trackers are available online if you want to know roughly where Mr Claus is at any given moment – and to be fair, they can be terribly useful.

Why’s that? Well, in the grand spirit of Christmas cheer and mischievousness, I’ll tell you. It helps you to work out when you should go to bed – because remember, Santa cannot come to your house and empty his sack if you’re wide awake, can he? It would be like going round to someone’s house for Christmas dinner and discovering you were only getting Brussels sprouts to eat – a right stinker!

One person who’s determined to show Santa he’s been a good boy this year is DJ Sneak. He won’t be staying up until the early hours of the morning – his Christmas Eve live stream ends at 11pm local time. With his set starting at 5pm, he’ll need plenty of festive sweets and mulled wine to keep him going for six hours.

However, Sneak might want to get a move on after doing his Friday night show. Because according to every Santa tracker I’ve checked, Papa Nöel – to use his French name – will be in the USA between 9pm and midnight. So let’s hope that the self-declared house gangster gets to bed in time.

And don’t forget to leave out a mince pie for Santa and a carrot for his reindeer. Best not leave out one of your joints, though – and I don’t mean of the musical variety…

Humour, Lighter News, News

We know dance music is a sausagefest, but this is ridiculous! Unspoken rule suggests to get ahead in house music, you have to eat meat… and LOTS of it!

I like to try and learn something new every single day. Those lessons vary from brilliant insights which I can rely on until the day I die to utterly useless information which stays in my head despite having no use for it whatsoever. And yesterday’s lesson is admittedly somewhere in the middle.

Whilst a number of DJs based Stateside were tucking into their Thanksgiving dinners yesterday, I noticed something of a trend. An awful lot of the big names in the house music world love their meat! And I can’t help but wonder why.

Take Simon Dunmore, for example. The boss at Defected appears to have a gargantuan appetite for things which used to say “moo”. Or DJ Sneak, and his notorious BBQs – he’s pictured above examining his chopper. Or perhaps David Morales, who was photographed yesterday in Chicago tucking into a big steak – and posted a video where he spent a lot of time looking at his meat.

Elsewhere, Roger Sanchez spent his Thanksgiving with family and friends, with long-time girlfriend Kristen Knight having cooked a feast. Yes, yesterday might have been a special day, but posts and stories of DJs about to eat steaks and chickens are something I see a lot more of than I ever expected.

It seems that to get ahead in house music, you’ve got to love your meat. The ultimate irony in a scene so frequently accused of being a sausagefest…

Business, News

Deep house remix of “Incy Wincy Spider”, anyone? You can take babies and toddlers raving for New Year’s Eve now – and still be in bed at an hour even DJ Sneak would approve of!

One thing which I’ve wondered about a lot recently – well, over the past 20 minutes, anyway – is how old the average reader of dance music publications actually is. Are they read mostly by fogeys who think everything was better in the nineties, or young whippersnappers who think anything made before 2020 is old?

If DJ Mag’s latest article is anything to go by, there must be a fair number of old codgers who are supposed to have grown up by now. An events company called Big Fish Little Fish are putting on so-called family friendly raves over the New Year’s Eve period. The parties are two hours long and finish by 4pm – meaning you’ll get to bed even earlier than DJ Sneak does.

Meaning the kids can play in sensory rooms and soft play whilst the adults can listen to old music in the background. And after that, the kids nag you for a McDonald’s and you go home to celebrate New Year’s Eve in pretty much the same way almost anyone with kids does.

Namely by doing the same as you would any other night of the week. There might be slightly more alcohol involved than normal, but that’s about the extent of it. And yes, that probably means being in bed earlier than DJ Sneak, as I mentioned before.

If you haven’t got kids, this will all probably make you want to delay that prospect as long as possible. Yet if you already do – I have three, if you’re wondering – the disco of a New Year’s Eve party and still being in bed at a reasonable hour will be bliss. Strange…

News

As DJ Sneak celebrates his 52nd birthday today, just how WILL he spend his big day? Clue – it isn’t by going for dinner with his wife…

On this Friday morning, it would be churlish not to acknowledge the man in house music who has probably started far more arguments than anyone else. Yes, DJ Sneak – real name Carlos Sosa – is 52 years old today. Everyone at Amateur’s House wishes him a happy birthday on this day – and by everyone, I mean just the one guy who currently works here.

Anyway, Sneak likes to celebrate his birthday most years by having a party dedicated to it. For example, he spent the celebrations for his 49th birthday at Pacha Ibiza. Or going back further in time, his 44th birthday back in 2013 was spent doing a DJ set alongside long time friend Mark Farina in Toronto.

Infact, the only time I can find in recent years where he hasn’t been doing anything to celebrate his birthday was in 2020, due to a certain thing called the Covid-19 pandemic. And this year, his birthday party will be tomorrow at Underground Business – although fans who like seeing his Friday live stream won’t be disappointed, as he’s doing that too.

How long does he intend to continue this practice of DJing on his birthday? A source recently told me “If Carlos has his way, he’ll still be doing the funky chicken when he’s 85”…