FEATURE: Hippie Torrales - Zanzibar Legend

Hippie Torrales began DJing at the age of 15. He came into recognition in New Jersey and New York after opening Docks with co-partner Nelson "Butchie" Nieves. After establishing himself as an innovative and creative jock, Hippie was recognized and hired to work at Abe's Disco, which was the forerunner for Club Zanzibar. On Friday, August 29, 1979, opening night at Club Zanzibar Hippie became the resident DJ and opening jock for the club.

During his tenure at Club Zanzibar, Hippie won the prestigious Billboard Award for the best disc jockey in the State of New Jersey in the same year Larry Levan won the award for New York. It was the last time those Billboard Awards were held. After his resident at Club Zanzibar, Hippie went on to play all the Jersey Shore night clubs. In addition to the club gigs, Hippie worked on music production and remixing. Some of his most notable mixes of that period were Jimmy Ross' "Fall Into A Trance" and The Clark Sister's "You Brought The Sunshine", which garnered them a 1 record of New York's local radio station WBLS and also garnered them a Grammy nomination that year for Best Gospel.

In 1988, Hippie was approached by local record store owner, Joe from Music Village Records in Newark, New Jersey and asked Hippie to produce his own record. Hippie thought about the opportunity and went home, borrowed equipment from a friend and began working on his very first original production. He wrote and produced You're Gonna Miss Me by The Turntable Orchestra, which became a club classic in Europe and has sold over 2 million copies. It was from this moment on that Hippie began traveling overseas and DJing at international clubs and began writing a music column for Discoid Magazine, which was called "What Is Hip."

Hippie's remixing career took off when he partnered with Mark Mendoza and created MenTor Productions. They did numerous remixes which included such artists as Lisa Stansfield, Evelyn King, D'Lacy, and most notable Rosie Gaines. In 1997, Hippie and Mark produced Rosie Gaines' Closer Than Close, which went top 5 in the British Pop Charts and has sold over 8 million units worldwide.

To date, Hippie continues to DJ overseas and currently does an internet radio show on Tuesdays, on CyberJamz.com. He now lives in Florida and is currently collaborating on new production with Jerrell Battle and Jose Burgos of Soul Creation.

Hippie Torrales claims these other DJs as influences: Angel (RIP) El Central DJ, Richie Kaczor, Joey Palmenteri, Flamingo Joe, Tom Savarese, Joey C, Richie G and Mike Mcknight from Brothers 3, Frankie Beauchamp, David Mancuso, George from The Limelight, Ronnie Fitzpatrick, Acid Queen John, Larry Patterson, Larry Levan, Tee Scott and countless others from the old school to new school jocks.

Reprinted with permission from Bernard F. Lopez
http://www.discomusic.com

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