Clubs

Read a longer transcript of this interview

‘We decided to do a party which no one was really doing in New York at the time – a very low-key, no-dress-code, no-kind-of-pressure event… like a sort of house party, but instead of doing it in somebody’s home we just did it in the club.’

Francois K, is recalling how Body & Soul got started back in the summer of 1996. The event comes to London for the first time when it takes over Canvas on Saturday, and they’ll be aiming to recreate this simple ‘house party’ approach which helped create a truly legendary club experience.
Feature continues

Body & Soul will already be familiar to many London clubbers, either because they made a pilgrimage to New York specifically to experience the Sunday afternoon shindig (believe me, many hundreds have) or because the three DJs who have always shared the decks there, Francois K, Joe ‘Joaquin’ Claussell and Danny Krivit, have often been guest DJs in London and each have sterling reputations in their own right.

‘The whole thing was very casual in the beginning,’ chuckles Francois K. ‘[When I called up Danny and Joe] it wasn’t like, “Hey, you want a job?” It was like, “Hey, why don’t you come down and bring some records?” Each of the veteran DJ triumvirate brought different musical flavours to Body & Soul’s aural mix.

Krivit is probably the most disco- and R&B-influenced DJ of the crew having been DJing and producing for more than 30 years and working alongside The Loft’s David Mancuso and Larry Levan of the Paradise Garage; Claussell’s (the man behind the Spiritual Life and Ibadan imprints) sound leans toward percussion-heavy African and Latin beats alongside lush downtempo productions; while François K, who also runs the Wave Music label, has been involved with myriad styles over his long career (which started when he played drums alongside the DJ in pre-disco era New York clubs) but is now best known for techno and dub-infused dance music.

I shouldn’t really be categorising their sounds at all though. Body & Soul has often been referred to as a ‘spiritual house’ party but on a conference call with all three DJs in New York (it’s typical of their collective approach that they preferred to talk about Body & Soul together and regularly deferred to each other rather than appear to be the sole spokesperson for the party) each of them stressed that firstly, Body & Soul is about music, not musical genres. ‘The “spiritual” thing is nice, said Francois K, ‘but I guess house music seems a little limiting. It’s just music. I’m not sure why someone decided at some point that only specific sounds had to be played at a night, because it didn’t used to be like that in the clubs.’

Secondly, it’s not about about individuals or which DJ is playing, but the special synergy of playing music together with their friends. ‘I’ve played with a lot of other DJs and partners before and some things have been very nice with good friends and crowds of people,’ says Krivit, ‘but I’ve never had this kind of experience where we really came together, when so much in each of us just kind of melts together.’

‘There’s a lot of respect and love for each other,’ adds Claussell, ‘So when we play there’s no ego with it and it’s just so simple.’

And thirdly, above all, what they feel is most special about Body & Soul is the intense sense of community, unity in variety and love it has engendered.

‘There has always been a great deal of diversity, something that, even in New York, is very much unseen most of the time,’ says Francois K. ‘It wasn’t planned, it just happened very naturally that a community of people came and danced together. It became a really special gathering of people where you could just feel really free and hang out without worrying about what you looked like, about what you wore, or what people thought of you. Many regulars also became good friends and lovers and everything else…’

‘Then they got married!’ laughs Claussell. ‘We heard of quite a few marriages of people who met there.’

I haven’t been to Body & Soul but Londoners who have talk of a club that belonged to the crowd. Having been held weekly for nearly six years, it is now a sporadic affair in New York, but the three DJs were thrilled that, having held their biggest-ever party over the recent July 4 celebrations, that the Body & Soul spirit is as strong as ever.

They’re well aware that they can’t be sure to replicate such a special atmosphere overseas, but, wisely, the London event, produced by the Need 2 Soul crew, will be as similar as possible to the original party. They’re customising the soundsystems, New York style, and importing Body & Soul’s lighting expert, Ariel, along with some dancers too. There’ll be no warm-up acts or guests, simply three great DJs playing back-to-back all night long. One difference is that Canvas is a three-room venue but they’ll be DJing in just one room. The trio will be filmed and the images screened in the other rooms. Hopefully it’ll work well and Claussell’s words will resonate once more: ‘What Body & Soul gave was love and people could feel that. It was about everyone being equal. It wasn’t about the DJ being higher than anyone else – we were all together as one.’

Read a longer transcript of this interview