DJ Karo Biography
The Search for the Perfect Beat
A dirty south native, DJ Karo got hooked on spinning vinyl in 1994 when he was a pirate radio deejay on Free Radio Asheville 89.4, bringing the listeners eight hours a week of punk, new wave and hip hop. Back in those days, hip hop scratching was pouring from the liberated air waves of San Francisco, and DJ Karo followed the echoes.
DJ Karo’s turntable talents grew, led on by the music itself. After time in the San Francisco Bay Area, his crate-digging exodus led him in 2000 to New Orleans, music’s Mecca. There he played in clubs, smoky seedy bars, block parties in the streets, alley-ways on many-a-Mardi Gras–even backing up a Circus cabaret with his scratching–all the while sharpening his skills into a well-rounded DJ.
Karo also spent time in Manchester, U.K. during this period, where he was exposed to northern soul, Factory Records and the Hacienda legacy.
Returning to his roots in the south, and New Orleans, Karo continued the funky break studies, and toured on both the east and west coasts of the US. For two years he DJ-ed a weekly Jamaican music night in New Orleans with the Domino Sound System.
When Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005, DJ Karo lost 1,000 records of his rare collection to the toxic flood waters, cleaning and salvaging what he could. But this is a small loss compared to the scale of tragedy and suffering which the city faced, and continues to struggle with now, 3 years later.
The hurricane’s winds blew him all the way to far-off shores, cut/scratch/mixing his way across Europe. Since early 2007, DJ Karo has been a resident DJ at Le Truc Mush in Paris’ 11th arrondisement (XXTruc Mush Myspace website here!XX). From the rues of New Orleans to the rues of Paris, the search for the perfect beat continues!
DJ Karo mixes old school breaks, electro, booty-bangin’ dirty south beats, and club music, with a heavy dose of Jamaica riddim. The result is a dance-floor-friendly fusion which defies a label, and gets the party jumpin’!
