Purp Wants You to Bop Along to Some Club Beats

If one of the reasons you haven't been leaving your apartment lately is that you, like me, are alienated by the dominance of techno music at mainstream Brooklyn nightclubs (what fellow Hell Gate writer-editor Katie Way calls the "masculine, loud and fast adult laser tag of it all"), TyQurah Pride understands. 

"It can be very harsh and hard, and it's definitely not everybody's cup of tea," the Delaware-born Pride, who DJs under the name Purp, said. Pride is part of a scene of club music DJs that are bringing light and life to New York's nightclubs, which, if you ask me, have been withering in the gray waste of techno and hard dance for far too long. Club, instead, is a syncopated and often zany genre of dance music that emerged in Black communities along the northeast corridor.

"Some of these clubs that are stereotypically white Berlin techno, they don't interest a lot of us, because the people that go there are kind of like meme-y ravers. You know what I mean?" she said. I did know what she meant. Still, she sometimes can get down with harder techno, but when she's DJing she likes to sneak in some of the club music she grew up listening to. "[Hard techno] is easy as fuck to blend with anything," Purp said. "It's been easy to infiltrate those spaces by throwing in some techno-y edits of hood shit." 

"I've got this City Girls 'Twerkulator' remix that all my friends play," she said, which she's played for crowds at Paragon and Bossa Nova Civic Club to, as she put it, "get them to bop along to club beats." "There's a way to do the two appropriately, and take that crowd and show them that there's so much more to club music," she said.

We asked Purp the best places to hear club music, and whatever else she gets up to. "Pretty much just that, going to the movies, going to jazz clubs, and fuckin' playing volleyball," she said.

Wednesday, March 22: Happy Hour at Rise Radio, 57 Graham Ave, Brooklyn (Free)

"Rise is always a good time, because it's not always necessarily super club-based. You pull up, listen to some records, listen to some great DJs, have some beer or some wine. It's cute."

Thursday, March 23: Kene and Friends at Kind Regards, 152 Ludlow Street, New York ($15 to $20 donation requested)

"My African guys. Kene's doing [an all-women DJ night at] Kind Regards on Thursday for Women's History Month, that should be cute, that's also a good lineup."

Saturday, March 25: CTRL with AQ, Nikki Anticss, and Niara Sterling at Deluxx Fluxx, 125 East 11th Street, New York (Free with RSVP before 11)

"We love AQ. I really respect her. Even though she obviously caters to the amapiano and Afrobeat crowd, she really makes sure to get her house music roots in there. I saw her do a pretty much purely house set and it was insane. Deluxx Fluxx is a really nice venue. I haven't played there yet, but it's neon and really fun."

Sunday, March 26: Family Not a Group at Cafe Erzulie, 894 Broadway, Brooklyn ($15)

"This is a day party by this Bay Area-based group [of hip hop artists]— there's like 17 of them, they're mad cool. They come out here every now and then to touch base with their New York City fans. They booked me [to DJ]. We all know how day parties at Erzulie go, it's about to be summer."

Monday, March 27: Jazz at Queens Brewery, 1539 Covert Street, Queens (Free)

"I go to jazz clubs a lot. I go to local jawns, like the one at Queens Brewery. That's one I've been going to for the last three years. I love that one, that's Monday nights." 

Tuesday, March 28: Jazz at Doublé, 1332 Halsey Street, Brooklyn (Free) 

"On Tuesday nights, I go to see jazz at Doublé on Halsey Street, a restaurant opened by my good friend in Bushwick."

Weeknights: The Keep, 205 Cypress Street, Queens (Free)

"I've spent many a night on those vintage couches. It's one of the only spots that has jazz every day of the week, except for the weekend, that's when they do DJs. But they have a different genre of jazz every night, so sometimes it's bossa nova, some nights it's bebop. It's cash only."