Sobremesa Vol. I - Rozaly

Bodegón con un melón y tordos.  (1807), José López Enguídanos. Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid

Sobremesa, is a word which when translated from Spanish literally means ‘upon the table’. In practice sobremesa is an untranslatable cultural gem referring to the custom of engaging in rapturous post-prandial pillow-talk. If silence is the sign of a good meal then the sobremesa, usually consumed over coffee or a digestivo, lends itself as a signifier of a comfortable rapport. It is not for nothing that dinner dates are considered more intimate than grabbing a drink. Like hermit crabs dancing between shells, sharing a meal is a ritual of simultaneous togetherness and exposure; fertiliser for the conversations that follow. Sobremesa is a series which asks guests to join and share their work while we reminisce and fantasise over dinners, past and future.

My first guest is Matthijs Reinen (1999). The Curacaoan DJ goes by Matheo to his friends and Rozaly to his dancefloors. I was introduced to the DJ at the beginning of this summer when he turned the programming of De School, a technical school-cum-techno nightclub on the outskirts of Amsterdam, on its head. Uninspired by the sounds coming out of the venue’s two main rooms, I crept my way up and out into the central courtyard where a small crowd had gathered around the garden’s DJ booth playing beats which disrupted the usual sounds of De School’s musical landscape: sped up Caribbean carnival music. Within an hour the main rooms had cleared into the garden, a dance battle had broken out, and the club’s staff were trying to manage the unforeseen crowd as they danced to the sounds emanating from the unassuming booth.

EC: Let’s start with some dinner talk. Say you were to host a dinner party, set the scene for me. What would it look like?

R: Okay, so there's this deserted island, off of the coast of Curacao. It's called Little Curacao, Klein Curacao, and I have many childhood memories there. I used to go there once every three months. I grew up surfing and would go down with a few surfers and we would set up a camp in the middle of nowhere. And then you'd have this perfect wave rolling across the point. I think I would also want to die there, you know? So yes, I would like to have dinner there. Set up camp and have dinner there.

You’re also on the aux cord. What's playing in the background?

Curacaoan rock music, but surf rock. Few people know their psychedelic surf rock music from the 60s. I think the whole energy on that island, it's all surfers. That point, it's like a specific part of the island. They should get to know this music to push the feeling we're already experiencing by being there. To elevate it. I don’t have an album in mind but there's this band called Los Dangers?

So you’re Dutch but you grew up in Curacao, is that right?

Yeah, I was born in the Netherlands and then my parents moved back to Curacao where I grew up till I was eighteen.

Is your family from Curacao?

No, but they lived there their whole life actually. They just came back [to Holland] for five years. I was born and they went back [to Curacao] again. But for me, there is no vivid memory of living in the Netherlands as a baby. So I grew up there and then I moved to the Netherlands when I was eighteen. And I'm twenty-four now. Yeah, so that’s six years ago with the intention to study but I knew somewhere that there were more opportunities musically for me here. But I didn't live in the reality in which I could completely focus on music.

Are you DJing full time now?

Yeah, but I'm not only DJing, but also just doing music [air quotes]. After two or three years of being here, I came to the realisation of ‘fuck this whole system with studying and big schools. I'm just gonna do what I love, I'm young, I can take risk. I don't have a child. I don't have any responsibilities. Why shouldn't I not do it?’ You know? So that's when I decided I'm gonna focus and I'm really happy that I did it. I mean, it took a long time. I worked a lot. And I think it's finally starting to … yeah … the fruits are falling. [laughs]

So when you say not just DJing, music…?

I do music copyrighting. So licensing Caribbean music for labels around the globe. I trace the artists, convince the artist, and get them signed. I also do music research on the former Dutch Caribbean islands because our heritage hasn't been documented quite well. And I'm trying to document our complete discography from the mid fifties till 2005. Of Aruba. Bonaire, Curacao and then Sint Maarten, Saba and Sint Eustacia. The ABC islands and SSS islands. I also opened Kanaal40. 

Talk to me a bit about what your route into music was like? Was it a big thing for you from a young age or is this something you got into more recently?

I think I'm still trying to find a conclusion towards how I'm so obsessed with music. Some people in my life, in my circle, say because I was raised on an island, I was raised in Dutch and also Papiamento, which is the local language. Because I had both, not completely, like the vocabularies, I could never really express myself in the fullest way. Music helped me in my mind to set things right, you know? But I don't know if that's true. It's also a matter of getting older, that you're able to reflect. So maybe that way of looking at it changes or gets even confirmed. So I think that's why I'm so obsessed with telling new stories to people that they don't know and it started when I was like fourteen or fifteen. I was always listening to the radio and writing down lyrics, just to find the song on my mom's computer. Then I think at a certain moment I found a way to listen to music I've never heard before on the computer. And then that expanded.

Did you have people who influenced this relationship with music growing up?

I had a neighbour who didn’t necessarily have the same musical vision or taste, but he had this same principle of music, in life. And he was always telling my parents "Let him go. Please don't put him onto school stuff. Let him do his thing." He was the first person when I was like, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen that taught me this is something real. To go for it. Because I was always like “It's a side thing”. Because I was just living in the reality in which it was not the main focus. So I think he had a lot of influence. He helped me a lot mentally.

You started DJing quite young and you’ve moved across the world. How have you found your style has developed since you began?

It has changed drastically. Just because it was a way of finding my own identity also. I was always busy being European. That was what was said on Curacao: “You have to be European. If you make it in Europe, you made it in life.” So I started out doing Detroit music. That's where it started. house, jazz, and soul when I was fifteen. Then when I moved to the Netherlands, I was like, “Hell no! I don't know who I am”. Because I'm not Dutch but I was always convinced I was. So then I kind of decided I wanted to put the music from my region, my islands, next to techno music. It's more like a statement in my opinion than a musical genre. It's like a movement in which I want to put them on the same level, because there has always been this power dynamic in Europe and the Caribbean, if we're talking about colonialism, and I just became so aware of it when I moved here.  What kind of mentality I was raised with on Curacao. So then I thought, “Fuck this, I'm gonna invent something”. I don't know what it is, but it's for myself, you know? Finding out who I am and how I want to express that externally. So I went deep into the old discography and I started a project of a lot of old music from the islands. And then I think it was COVID and I woke up one day and I was like, “I want to play Caribbean carnival music in a techno club”. And that's, I don't know how to say it in English, but yeah het is een beetje uit de hand gelopen [laughs]

Yeah this summer at De School was insane. I have friends that work there and they said they’d never seen anything like it. The way in which the rooms emptied into the garden. It was like a hive mind. It was the first time in a long time that I'd really felt that dancefloor community feeling. You had us all in a trance.

[Laughs] Yeah, that one was mental. But the thing is technically, I didn't like that show. Because they weren't prepared for what happened there.

You mean peoplewise?

Peoplewise, soundwise. I was struggling massively. I couldn't hear a thing. 

You played it off well

The other thing about this show connects again with what I was saying before, is that it was a statement. In my opinion, towards the dominant electronic music in that scene. I would say because of what happened there. It was a highlight from last summer. Technically, I wasn't satisfied, but because it delivered that message, I was.

So what’s your own relationship to going out like?

I think it's just that form of expression. DJing really is appealing to me until it becomes a form of entertainment. That's what I'm finding out right now. Which is becoming repetitive because you have a lot of shows, which is also nice, but it's a different approach. So I think because of the way I was looking at DJing, I'm still looking at DJing, I just want to go to clubs and have two beers and just stand there and listen. To hear the story. Once a DJ is engaged with their music it doesn't matter what kind of music it is. Then you'll get sucked in quite easily.

Who are some DJs where you’ve had that experience with recently?

Forest Drive West. Felix Hall. RIP cancelled but I have to mention him. Toma Kami. I think those three are highlights. In which you really hear that this is their life. This is what they wanted to do. This is what they want to share with you

Sorry I feel like I might have interrupted you halfway through you talking about how your style developed.

Oh, yeah. Well, the statement thing. So I came here and I found out I'm not a Dutch person. So who the fuck am I? And that's where this whole journey started in which I had to find out who I am by music. That for me became a way of communicating with myself. Then suddenly, I was playing 160 BPM carnival music. I'm not a technical DJ, so that was kind of difficult and different in the beginning. But it's getting better and better. So I became more technical. I'm going good now, but I think it's more about statements. It's not necessarily the sound. For me, it has to be Caribbean and the ‘other side’ of the Caribbean. So ‘unknown music’ that's how I say the other side because you can say reggae and dancehall. But everyone knows that's like the stigma. But there's so much more. And that's what I want to share with people. And then one chapter is the carnival, the flip carnival, which you heard in De School.

So you only source your music from Carribean archives? What genres do you look for? 

It's all new wave sub-genres of Carnival from different islands. So you have Kanaval, which is Haiti. They have Bouyon, which is from Dominica. You have Dennery Segment which is from St. Lucia. You have Jab Jab, which is from Trinidad and Grenada. Chutney, like Surinamese, Guyanese sound. So I'm just trying to look at all the high tempo 'unknown music' from the Caribbean. That's the thing I'm known for now, that sound.

I saw you were meant to play at Notting Hill Carnival this year, how did that go?

I had to cancel. Unfortunately, I had too many shows. I couldn't. Just the idea of travelling there made me anxious.

Do you ever have it that people don't expect to see someone who looks like you playing the music you're playing? In the different places where you play? Does anyone ever say anything?

Yeah many, many times. But I also get it. Looking at it from a European mentality everything consists out of stereotypes. Caribbean is Black, European is White. But we're so globalised so sometimes it's hard but I just try to approach it without any emotions.

Shall we go back to the dinner table again? Who are your dream dinner guests for the dinner party on Klein Curacao?

Okay, I think Omar S would be there and Vincent, a friend of mine who passed away. He was the only person on Curacao, he was 10 years older, but he saw what I was seeing. He kind of understood what I was doing. And he helped me a lot with just also pushing the things I'm doing

Why Omar S in particular? 

Yeah, just fun. You know? No, Omer S, I don't know if it's necessarily about the music, but his vision in life. You can also hear he's just authentic. You can hear it in his music. You can hear it in his interviews. This guy is onto something. I find that really inspiring. So I want him to sit there. Vincent, who else should be there...?

If you just want it to be three people at dinner, that's also fine.

Yeah that's cute. What a fun question. I think I'll keep it there. Gonna be intimate.

Do you think they'd all get on?

We'll find out. If not, that's how it should be, probably. 

Has there been a collaboration you've enjoyed and is there anyone you are still wanting to work or play with?

I want to do a collaboration with Nyege Nyege. That's a goal I have. It's just the energy. The vision. Yeah, it just all comes together. Het komt altijd terecht. Who would I like to play with…?

Have you done any B2B sets?

No. That sound I’m playing, you barely hear it. That’s the thing. Actually, I know. I would want it to be RP Boo. RP Boo is like a footwork legend. That would fit.

Do you remember what your first gig was?

Yeah [laughs and groans] I had a residency in a super shitty cafe in Curacao. And there no one came and I played every Friday there. And no one came for like four times. Because they were like “Matheo is doing weird music stuff now here in the cafe”. Then I think the fifth time I came in with all my gear and the guy just walked up to me before I was setting up to say, “Yeah, you're not gonna play anymore”.

My next question was gonna be when did you know you'd made it? I’m going to assume not then.

Not then, no [laughs]. But I always had this kind of an arrogant way of looking at it. I just thought I know you're just not the person, you know? You don't know. Well, I think the first time I came out with this Carnaval perspective was crazy. Just to see how much energy there was in this storytelling.

Did you do this at home?

No at Garage [Noord], that was the first time. It was just COVID, not COVID. Like the end of COVID. It was the first time that I decided to do a set playing this kind of music I have in my mind. But I don't know if it works. And it worked so well there but I was still like, “oh shit okay”, so I think that was like “Okay, I got something”. I got kind of confident of how I feel music and how I see it. Maybe Lowlands? or Dekmantel Selectors. Because I played there also last year. But this time, I was just confident about my story, musically and I felt like it was just cooking. You know? Not that I'm such a good cook.

Making pasta

Yeah, making pasta or like, you know, peeling a cucumber. I mean, everyone can do it. And it felt like that and it went crazy. And then I was like, “Okay, I think this is it.”

You claim you’re not a good cook but you're in charge of dinner. What is the dish? What's your crowd pleaser? 

I would have Johnny Cakes. Johnny Cake is like typical Caribbean pastry. It used to be called Journey cake because people would take it with them to go and work on the sugarcane field. You might find them in the UK. And it's kind of salty, slash sweet dough. And then a really dirty industrial layer of cheese in there. Just like industrial cheese you know? Not like profound tasting cheese. You can still call it cheese, not American slices. You can still call it cheese.  And then I think, a goat stew.

Staying on the theme of crowd pleasers. What’s the best crowd you’ve ever played for?

Nyege Nyege. That was last summer. Because I can do it for me. It feels like I'm just reprogramming my computer. I'm just experimenting and people go crazy. At De School or at Dekmantel, Wildeburg I have always to be a bit more aware.

So do you adapt your sets to the place you’re playing?

Well, if I play for a crowd, and I don't know, like tomorrow I'm playing in Vienna. I've never seen these people. So I'm not gonna play certain songs which I played in Amsterdam two times already, which I don't play anymore. Kind of like a super idealistic belief. But it is what it is. That's the approach. On the other side for instance if I'm playing at De School or Nyege Nyege, Nyege Nyege would be really absurdistic and De School would be more polished and especially Lowlands would be more polished, more vocal, more colourful.

Are we having a drink after dinner? If so, what?

Diplomatico! Which is brown rum. It feels like you just scraped a bottle out of a cave, like a pirate bottle.

You just drink it on its own?

Yeah, without ice. Unfortunately it is socialist rum from Venezuela so you’re supporting their government but it is fantastic. I barely drink. Sometimes I drink a bit of rum so that would be the drink of choice.

What do you look for to close your sets with? 

That’s one thing I have to say. The closing at De School was perfect. I don’t know if you were there?

We were literally glued there the whole time

[laughs] There's this song which was still like high tempo music, which I never got to play in other clubs or festivals because it was a bit too absurd. It's a bit too weird. Then I was just there playing and it started and then a friend of mine was standing next to me. He was the only one I ever sent that song to, the only person besides me that was like, “this song is crazy”. Then he heard it was starting and he was getting really like: "No, what are you doing?!". And then the people went crazy on the first drop. We were almost crying with each other and it's even getting better, you know? Yeah it was just a good feeling. Played that one and then that song stopped. People were clapping and then I played Drunk in Love on a zoop and I think that also worked. But it's also kind of a statement, because people were like ' Yeah that's so cheesy. I could listen to that in a bar". Well you listened to it in De School. So the same kind of approach. Sometimes I build it down. I think this time I didn't build it down. It just went into kind of a weird cloud. When things become really happy and cheesy it becomes dark again. That's what happened here. So I think that's where it had to end otherwise people would get a psychological break. Even me

Do your friends ever come to you for recommendations on where to eat? Where would you send them?

There's this Indian restaurant on St Maarten but I forgot the name but I went there like ten times. They have this mock Chicken Chatpata. So artificial chicken. 

Are you a vegetarian? 

No but it just tastes good. With this super pure spinach paste as a curry. I am critical about two things in life: music and Indian food.

Thanks for talking to me! My last question is what are you looking forward to coming up? I saw you’re doing selectors again.

For work I'm doing a song for a commercial in the winter. I'm gonna go back home to do the shoot. Then I'm gonna do another sound design for Botter. So sound design and shit. In life, going back home again. Although I just came back. Beginning of November I'm going back. I just found out once again that my soul lies there.