Tigerbeat’s replacement at Moe and Barboza is Ben Sheffield-along with DJ partners Swervewon and 100proof-who DJs under the name Blue Eyed Soul and also books nights at nearby club The Woods. With the lack of pay for such a successful night combined with the lack of appreciation and respect, that’s when I decided it was time to go.” I was being dictated to as to what I could and couldn’t play. “But I always want to be able to play everything I’m feeling and to express myself to the crowd. “I’ve never played just rap or trap music on Mondays,” says Tigerbeat. I don’t think they’re getting that at Chop, but what do I know? I’m not there. They were already our best-paid DJs of any night, and they said we had to more than double it or they were walking. “Basically, they wanted more money than was possible. We wanted it to continue to stay fun and make sure everybody was cool and safe-nothing like fights to ruin a night.”īut Severin insists that wasn’t what killed the night. “We asked them to chill on the trap music a bit for a couple of weeks, as the crowd was getting a bit rougher since they started playing way more trap. “No matter what I say about this, it’s going to make me sound like the man,” says Severin. Severin concedes that Neumos asked Tigerbeat to tone down the music temporarily. Lyrically, trap focuses on the drug trade and slums (“the trap”), and has been popularized by the likes of UGK, Gucci Mane, Waka Flocka Flame, and (Academy Award winners) Three 6 Mafia, and in crossover hits like Nicki Minaj’s “Beez in the Trap.” Trap music refers to a strain of mostly Southern hip-hop marked by slurred tempos, stark 808-drum-machine beats, and pitched-down samples. One of Tigerbeat’s partners, hypeman Mikey McClarron, posted a statement claiming that “Barboza doesn’t like the crowd or the music on Tigerbeat Monday . . . they didn’t want us to play ‘trap music’ ” anymore because “the crowd was too dangerous.” He went on to say that he’d never witnessed a fight on Mondays, that there was a “TINY bit of stereotyping” at play, and that Tigerbeat’s fans should “not support a place like Barboza that doesn’t respect diversity.” On August 3, Tigerbeat announced via Facebook that his Moe Bar/Barboza residency was moving to Chop Suey following a week off. So with such a successful, long-running night, why did Neumos and Tigerbeat part ways? “It’d be nice if there was,” Hughes adds. But Hughes says there hasn’t been any slowdown since he left. From Moe Bar’s earliest days in 2007 until last month, this was Tigerbeat’s gig-and his crowd. “It’s been like this for the past year,” says Dave Hughes, Neumos’ head of security. For at least an hour, a lively line has been stretching down the block to get into the venue’s side-bar Moe Bar and its basement venue, Barboza (combined capacity: 300), and cars blasting hip-hop are circling the street in search of parking. Onstage, Josh Saenz-aka DJ Tigerbeat-is doing what he’s been doing every Monday for the past five years: getting a party started on one of the week’s least likely nights.ĭown the street at his old haunt Neumos, though, the scene is even crazier. Two girls gyrate listlessly on a raised platform while a party photographer wanders the crowd. Minutes before midnight on a Monday in August, more than 100 people are getting down at the 500-person capacity Capitol Hill club Chop Suey.
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