Owor’s female touch stirs basement
Sep 21, 2006
She gets turned off by club revellers who sip their beer using straws. But that alone has not stopped the city’s only female DJ from spinning at late night jams and driving crowds wild.
By Titus Serunjogi
She gets turned off by club revellers who sip their beer using straws. But that alone has not stopped the city’s only female DJ from spinning at late night jams and driving crowds wild.
And what is more, the 24-year-old, Winnie Owor, is dying to enter into a disc-spinning match with Bangi, one of the local DJs popular at mixing soul, oldies jams at Ange Noir Discotheque. “I bet I can give him a run for his money and beat him hands down,†she said during an interview at the club, Tuesday evening.
Owor’s fine taste for the oldies is fast making her popular among revellers of the Basement (former Viper Room). And she has proved good at mixing hip hop with R‘n’B, garage and techno in a way the keeps up the weekend-night revellers at the Basement in high spirits.
Last Saturday, during Owor’s jamboree night, hundreds of revellers got down to groove, grind and sweat it out on the dance floor, never mind that many occasionally sucked at their beer using straws. Owor dropped in hit after hit; once mixing smutty ghetto lyrics with the heavy bass attacks –– one would think the sound was just about to tear up the speakers! And when Owor sampled in Sean Paul’s Give It Up To Me, the revellers went bizarre!
“The fact that it was a lady spinning the mic and calling on us made the party all the more exciting,†said Nicholas Mpirwe Messe, a Dembe FM prankster, who was partying at the club last Saturday night.
So what is it with this ‘female touch’ on the discs since Saturday Jamboree is more of a man thing –– highly charged and vigorous?
“A DJ is a DJ, whether it is a lady or a guy. Some men say I am picky with my CDs. But I can also do crazy things with the sound, if that is what the crowd needs,†says Owor.
However, she acknowledges that amid all the rap, she is sometimes tempted to give smoother vibes of UK pop singer Madonna a slot.
How she mixes the smoother vibes into the more explosive rap, without letting down the mood of the revellers is all a matter of tact.
She is also fast-gaining a cult following for the new oldies night that happens once a month at the Basement. And just as Bangi used to do there while it was still called the Viper Room, Owor takes revellers back into the grand old 1980s, to the days of disco.
Is it not strange that Owori fell for beats while studying Natural Resource Management at Nairobi University? After discovering her passion, she went for a DJ course at the Homeboys DJ Academy. Soon afterwards, she was enlisted as a DJ for the annual Divas night, a series of street bashes that rove through Nairobi and Mombasa every year. Since her relocation to Kampala, she has always been tipped for one-off gigs at bachelor’s send-off parties and private parties. She has now learnt to play kidaandali (local pop or ‘band’ music) and always looks out for what is on the local FM charts.
She gets turned off by club revellers who sip their beer using straws. But that alone has not stopped the city’s only female DJ from spinning at late night jams and driving crowds wild.
And what is more, the 24-year-old, Winnie Owor, is dying to enter into a disc-spinning match with Bangi, one of the local DJs popular at mixing soul, oldies jams at Ange Noir Discotheque. “I bet I can give him a run for his money and beat him hands down,†she said during an interview at the club, Tuesday evening.
Owor’s fine taste for the oldies is fast making her popular among revellers of the Basement (former Viper Room). And she has proved good at mixing hip hop with R‘n’B, garage and techno in a way the keeps up the weekend-night revellers at the Basement in high spirits.
Last Saturday, during Owor’s jamboree night, hundreds of revellers got down to groove, grind and sweat it out on the dance floor, never mind that many occasionally sucked at their beer using straws. Owor dropped in hit after hit; once mixing smutty ghetto lyrics with the heavy bass attacks –– one would think the sound was just about to tear up the speakers! And when Owor sampled in Sean Paul’s Give It Up To Me, the revellers went bizarre!
“The fact that it was a lady spinning the mic and calling on us made the party all the more exciting,†said Nicholas Mpirwe Messe, a Dembe FM prankster, who was partying at the club last Saturday night.
So what is it with this ‘female touch’ on the discs since Saturday Jamboree is more of a man thing –– highly charged and vigorous?
“A DJ is a DJ, whether it is a lady or a guy. Some men say I am picky with my CDs. But I can also do crazy things with the sound, if that is what the crowd needs,†says Owor.
However, she acknowledges that amid all the rap, she is sometimes tempted to give smoother vibes of UK pop singer Madonna a slot.
How she mixes the smoother vibes into the more explosive rap, without letting down the mood of the revellers is all a matter of tact.
She is also fast-gaining a cult following for the new oldies night that happens once a month at the Basement. And just as Bangi used to do there while it was still called the Viper Room, Owor takes revellers back into the grand old 1980s, to the days of disco.
Is it not strange that Owori fell for beats while studying Natural Resource Management at Nairobi University? After discovering her passion, she went for a DJ course at the Homeboys DJ Academy. Soon afterwards, she was enlisted as a DJ for the annual Divas night, a series of street bashes that rove through Nairobi and Mombasa every year. Since her relocation to Kampala, she has always been tipped for one-off gigs at bachelor’s send-off parties and private parties. She has now learnt to play kidaandali (local pop or ‘band’ music) and always looks out for what is on the local FM charts.