Embracing the Vibe

CRIS I remember my grandmother and mother playing a lot of Spanish music and merengue. It was always on in our house, especially when they were cleaning or cooking. I’m Hispanic so during family gatherings, we’re constantly playing music and dancing. That fostered this feeling of wanting to create a vibe, getting people to have fun. Growing up, it just spoke to me and I was like, “How do I do this?” 

LES We have some overlap in terms of background. I grew up in a home that was full of music. My family is from Aruba and when I go back, there’s always music playing. There’s never a quiet moment. Music has always been present in my life. 

In high school, I was listening to and hearing DJs on hip-hop records. By the time I got to college, I got corralled into doing a hip-hop radio show with some friends, and that’s where things took off. I ended up doing two radio shows and that helped me develop a love for the whole process. This was in the ’90s. At the time, the big hurdle was getting the equipment, which was considerably more expensive. It took me a while to be able to afford two turntables but I’ve been DJing ever since. It’s been a good 25-plus years.

CRIS I started DJing after I joined SYLVAIN, so it’s only been two or three years. It was because of SYLVAIN that I started DJing. [SYLVAIN Founder] Alain used to spin records and you’ll see albums laid out all over the office. 

I used to throw these huge parties and build playlists, but I didn’t really know I was a DJ. Then once I came here, I was like, “Let me try.” I bought this really expensive mixer controller with so many buttons — I was so overwhelmed. I started watching YouTube videos and my breakthrough moment was a few months later when my girlfriend wanted to throw a disco party. I had never really listened to disco, but I went deep into the disco rabbit hole. I got the DJ high: that taste of controlling the vibe and the energy. Since then, I’ve thrown myself into DJing. I’ve asked you, Les, for all your expertise and tips. 

LES Being SYLVAIN’s DJs has never been a formal thing; we just obsessively love music and DJing. 

I remember the first time I walked into the office: There were records on the wall and I thought, “This is an awesome place.” Alain was very forward about making music a prominent piece of the experience here. We have Sonos set up all around the office and he encouraged people to play what they wanted to play. 

During the pandemic, when we were doing our weekly all-hands remotely, Alain wanted to have music playing when people were loading in. He asked me to start picking songs and I’ve been doing it ever since. It’s developed into a long playlist.  

CRIS  Any time there’s an event or a company off-site, we have to DJ. Anything music-related, we’ll host or run. For me, that has sparked many ideas. For example, we do Verzuz where we compete every Friday with a different genre. That came up because I was talking to a strategist who was figuring out ways people could connect more with music. I thought — a musical experience. 

LES  There are a lot of people in this company who are very knowledgeable, but we tend to be the starting point of the conversation.

CRIS I’m on the Finance team. I manage our company’s budgets, forecasts, reporting, etc. I’d say I’m good at identifying the energy within a room and figuring out how to put myself in an audience’s shoes before I put in my own two cents. That’s what I do as a DJ as well. 

LES  I wear two hats as an all-purpose admin and as part of the engagement team. There are certain elements that relate to DJing, like you touched on: knowing who you’re communicating with, being able to understand people’s nuances. 

There’s a lot of being able to read and understand a crowd in my role as an engagement manager; being able to pick up on little signals from people or their communications styles. DJing prepares you for that because so much of it is playing something and then seeing how people react.  

I’m not in the finance world, but I’m also a numbers guy, and that connects to DJing too; there’s a structure to it. If you’re a person who deals with numbers and patterns, those things are really beneficial to being a DJ. A lot of timing is math. When you’re trying to sync up two songs and you’re trying to get the right BPM, that’s math. I don’t want to speak for you, Cris, but I would say your accounting background probably plays into that too. 

CRIS  Yeah! Also, Finance is trying to tell a story. If you just show numbers without any story, it’s boring and hard to digest. With DJing too, it’s: “How can I build a story? How can I bridge this idea with another so it’s interesting or fun to listen to?” 

LES  One, it’s the unique ability to hear music in a different way. You’re not just listening for things that you like but what you can do with it. It’s having an appreciation for music and getting to a place where you are, even subconsciously, studying the elements of music as you listen. 

Second is being able to read a room and pick up on the energy of the people in the room, tailoring what you do with that mindset. It’s having musical empathy to think about other people’s feelings as they’re listening to music. 

CRIS  You touched on it, but for me, it’s the technical side, like what to do on a mixer, how to fade one song into another. Also, it’s music selection — knowing what song to play at a certain time, knowing what people are going to want to listen to. But it’s also about playing what you love and being able to stand in that. People are going to gravitate to what you love. 

LES  People think because we have Spotify or Apple Music, DJs have everything instantly available. But there’s so much more that’s not there. Part of DJing is finding those things. I mostly play mp3s because a lot of venues don’t have reliable internet connections and not all equipment is set up to work with streaming. You have to build your own library and there are certain limitations. When someone comes up and asks if I’ll play something, I’m like, “I’ll see if I have it.” I’m one person; I can’t have the entire history of recorded music on my machine. I can improvise and hook up my phone on the fly, but there are limits. 

CRIS  Also, we come into a gig with the story kind of painted. We have a structure. We have some plan Bs or plan Cs, but if somebody comes to us with a request that doesn't fit any of this structure, it just messes up the entire thing. It’s like, “What do you want me to do after I play your song?”

On the flip side, getting feedback can be beneficial: Maybe I’ve been playing this certain type of music for too long and I need to shift the energy.

CRIS Our taste is super similar! Like Reggae, Dance, House music. 

LES I don’t really have anything that I won’t play because it really depends on the gig and who I’m being asked to play for. I really want the people who are experiencing it to be able to enjoy themselves. It’s less about what I like; it’s more about what I can communicate to them. 

CRIS You have a deeper knowledge of music than I do. I remember at one of our company gigs, you were like: “I’m going to play something that this specific person is going to love and they’re going to run into the room.” And it literally happened!

LES  I’m seeing a generational shift in terms of the music here at the office. When I started, people had different niche styles. We were a company of 25 people and we’ve more than doubled since then. A lot of younger people have come in. I come from a generation where music was a bit more segregated; now it’s a lot more mixed. I find it pretty remarkable how universal music and genres are. There will be someone talking about Nine Inch Nails who also listens to Charli XCX. It’s pretty diverse.

LES  Cosmo Baker from Philly is one of my favorite DJs. He’s an incredibly knowledgeable person about music and super technically talented. There’s also a really well-known DJ here in New York, Eli Escobar. I love the parties that I’ve seen him at. He just has a really strong way of connecting with crowds. He’s an incredible producer. Before I even moved to New York and knew who he was, I was actually playing his music, some of my favorite songs, under his aliases. There’s also DJ Koco out of Japan. He does mostly 45s, vinyl singles. He’s so incredibly seamless and has a sick record collection. 

CRIS  I like to go to festivals and really big production environments, and one DJ I’ve seen is Eric Prydz. He likes to blend visuals and music together in a way that just seamlessly puts you in another world. His style of blending multiple tracks at the same time just sounds so good. 

Another favorite is Gordo (formerly DJ Carnage). He just represents what he’s about. He always speaks out on issues when it comes to Hispanics; he’s always saying, “Where are my Latino people at?”

And the third that comes to mind is you, Les. Your library goes so deep. You play music I’ve never heard before. You’ve taught me so much and given me a deep dive.

CRIS  There are so many resources online, whether it’s YouTube videos or books that break things down step by step. Just start playing with the music that you already love and work with that. You’ll start to understand how to listen to music and build a set. Once you start learning from other people, you can incorporate some of those learnings into what you do, and you’ll find “your sound.” 

LES  DJing can really be distilled down to volume control, speed control, an equalizer, and then choosing which side people are hearing. Once you get those things down, you’ll be able to apply them in different ways and you’ll be less intimidated by the technology.

When people are listening, little blemishes here and there are temporary as long as you can get them back into a groove. You just have to separate yourself from your own criticism and play. You’ll be surprised that people will take to it in ways you may not remember. 

CRIS People are only going to remember the vibe.

Les Jacobs is an operations and engagement manager and Cristofer Almanzar is a senior accountant at the strategy and design company SYLVAIN.