Miami Living Magazine features the best Miami has to offer. Click on any magazine below and enjoy. You can download our free app on iTunes. Ideal for iPad and iPhone users.
Issue link: https://digital.miamilivingmagazine.com/i/182118
ML40 65-80 - ALT_Layout 1 9/26/13 8:53 PM Page 72 PEOPLE Digital Architect Roger Sanchez's music receives a surge from his past Words by Vanessa Pascale At first glance, Native New Yorker Roger Sanchez is a little intimidating, as he is the personification of the strong, silent, tough-guy type: tall, DGTL black t-shirt, goatee, BLESSED snapback on his head and eyes shrouded by dark sunglasses (that remain on throughout our interview). It crosses my mind that I might have a difficult time making him open up. I was happy to be disproved. Roger and I meet in a room off to side of the lobby in On top of his game, Roger recently released his album, Release Yourself 13, a mixed compilation of house tracks, and has already dropped two singles, "Troubleman" and "My Roots," off his next album, Roots. Additionally, he has multiple compilations in the works and runs a weekly radio show: Release Yourself (broadcasted in over 26 countries and heard by millions of listeners) and Podcast every two weeks. Unbelievably ambitious, it's a wonder as to when this prolific producer has any time for sleep. The Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District. It is the day after the Grammy-award-winning producer/DJ's set at Cielo, a club he characterizes as having a "sexy vibe and underground feel" -- the opposite of your larger upscale mainstream venues like LIV. With that being said, I was interested in knowing if sets at the abovementioned venues differ. "It's more organic than that. Cielo is what I call my deep house, my secret soul session. There is a particular sonic ethos I approach that night with… I feed off of the crowd. I rarely know what I'm going to play before I play it. I don't have a preset track list… Every record that I play is to build up to the fifth track going forward, because I believe in taking the crowd on a journey…." Roger explains. An expert at his craft, the seasoned DJ-producer has been around since the days when "the DJ was the guy you stuck under the stairs, nobody saw and didn't get paid a whole lot," he muses. "Now, the DJ is the superstar." With an influx of DJs on the scene these days, how does a A number of transitional moments have perpetuated Roger's career in music. In the early '90s, NY DJ Tony Humphries "killed" his record at a Zanzibar party –resulting in a surge of phone calls from record labels. "That was my very underground moment." In 2001, his song "Another Chance" went to #1 in the UK and was a universal hit. And now, is another transitional moment for him. "I'm going back to my underground roots and really re-immersing myself in the sound that I started out with, but in a 2013 approach." I mention his Grammy win for his remix of No Doubt's song, "Hella Good" which he deems as more of a highlight than a transitional moment. "I can't say it changed many things about my life, it was more of a moment of recognition. Remixes, are a bit different than, let's say a Grammy for 'Best Album of the Year,' that garners a type of attention. This is more a matter of, 'We appreciate what you've done, we recognize and we spotlight it.' And you get to say, 'I won a Grammy.' A Grammy never looks bad on a shelf. Never looks bad," he says with a big smile. legend like Roger safeguard his career? Never concerned with the fame aspect of the job, Roger plays music from the heart and really pushes himself hard technologically to find another way to elevate his art. "I don't take the most popular records and string one right after another and say, 'Yay, I'm a DJ!' For me, there's an art in creating a mood, taking a track that nobody knows and creating an emotion out of it. Taking a combination of four different elements of tracks, maybe I take a beat from one, or pull one from another --creating something that's magic at that moment." 72 MIAMI LIVING His retrospective journey additionally encapsulates his affinity for architecture. A former student of the Pratt Institute School of Architecture (one year shy of graduating), Roger has found a way to fuse his creative passions. His next album, Architecture, will highlight twelve architects that have influenced Roger during his studies. "I'm creating music based on an actual building or architectural design concept. It's kind of really bizarre, but I love it. One is called Zaha Hadid, who is my favorite contemporary, minimalist architect... It's going to be my ode to what would have been my career