Industry Weekly

Enferno goes live when he’s playing ‘Havana’

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Catch Enferno at Tao on January 13.
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DJing is just one aspect of Enferno’s musicianship. The D.C. native and Tao Las Vegas resident exploded onto the scene when he went on tour with Madonna throughout 2008 and 2009, which led to lots of DJ gigs in major cities across the country. But he’s also a classically trained pianist known to work live performance into his sets and produce music for other artists and events, including Rihanna’s 2010 Loud tour and Shakira’s upcoming El Dorado tour.

After a travel-heavy 2017, Enferno’s new prioritized project is Mix Major, a music production education program for kids that he has developed in recent years. It will materialize as a brick-and-mortar school at home in Virginia in 2018. “I just love making music, and with Mix Major I get to share that,” he says. “Teaching is really close to my heart, especially with kids at a young age, because creativity is just inherent with them and I see it in my own kids.”

Enferno’s DJ sets stand out in part because of his customized rig, allowing him to break into actual live performance at will. Some songs work better for his “live remixing,” and that’s why he’s a fan of Camila Cabello’s hit “Havana,” featuring Young Thug.

“I flipped it into this thing that’s kind of trappy and sped up, and it works to go live because of the song’s acoustic elements and its 808 subs and snares,” he says. “It’s a great fit, but it’s also a song I actually like. Sometimes you’re playing music for the crowd, but it’s not a song you’ll listen to yourself. This song is really refreshing because of those Latin chord progressions and piano and catchy vocals and jazzy flavor. Music tastes are a constant cycle. If you hear a lot of 60- to 75-beat-per-minute hip-hop all the time, or 128-beat-per-minute EDM, something like this becomes really refreshing, a real pop track.”

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Brock Radke

Brock Radke is an award-winning writer and columnist who currently occupies the role of editor-at-large at Las Vegas Weekly magazine. ...

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