Off the Record

Unknown Speaker 0:00
Let's get everyone you're listening to WKNC 8.1 FM HD one Raleigh, where a student run nonprofit radio station based out of North Carolina State University. I'm Valkerie and this is off the record. Here's me today is Alec Lomami of No Visa. How are you doing? Doing pretty good? Awesome. So was there anything you came to talk about specifically?

Unknown Speaker 0:22
Um, yeah. We are throwing a party here in Raleigh.

Unknown Speaker 0:27
At kings, no visa parties decided. We bring in Jim supernova from from the UK. Also have made a voc from seven. So, and yeah, myself.

Unknown Speaker 0:42
Awesome. So, um, real quick, you can just kind of tell us a little bit about yourself, who you are kind of how you like, I guess, describe no visa and also kind of how you got into that? Yeah, so pretty much no visit, genre agnostic dance party that we started about three years or so ago? Yeah. So pretty much at the time, we felt like a lot of parties were kind of genre specific. Like, you know, you have a hip hop party or a techno party, a house party. And now we've now you know, since we pretty much enjoy all those styles of music. So we were like, Okay, why not just have a party where we have all of it together. That's kind of how we started. I mean, we started out based out of Chapel Hill, and well after the pandemic, not like shut down so we you know, and we started playing and now we decided to try Raleigh.

Unknown Speaker 1:35
Yeah, nightlight was was hard on everyone that was really important venue. So you see all like, played a lot like, y'all would play nightlight like pretty frequently to be fun. Yeah, yeah. So pretty much dots aren't up, up until the pandemic has the only pleased to be played. Here. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 1:51
Yeah, cuz I know, y'all. I'm performing not just, you know, the triangle area, but number of different even countries or what's happened like, like, literally going international with uh, oh, yeah. Yeah. So I mean, is the namesake I mean, you know, so. Yeah. So there's an aspect of, you know, I mean, like, we've no visa the ideas to, to be able to travel musically within the party, but also literal sense of where we want to be able to play in different cities. And we've done it. You know, we've played we've had it in all in New Orleans, we had in New York. We just came back from Abidjan, Ivory Coast. And we did.

Unknown Speaker 2:28
Yeah, we also did South Africa, Johannesburg, South Africa.

Unknown Speaker 2:33
Late last year, so yeah, so that's coming. We just tried to keep your moving. Nice. Were there were there any challenges? Like bringing a party like that overseas? Um,

Unknown Speaker 2:48
I mean, not so much. Because I mean, like, so pretty much we come from. Okay, so we, before we started, oh, Visa, like, you know, obviously, we have a label slash management company name immaculate East. And we worked with, like, AI and we've been running it for like, maybe 10 years or so. Yeah. So, so yeah. So So we kind of along the along the year, like, you know, obviously we work with artists in different countries and different spaces. So we kind of we have built like relationships. So you see, you know, so we were able to, to yet to kind of have relationship, some of those some of those spaces. So that's kind of why hasn't been too challenging to make it happen. For sure. It's not easy.

Unknown Speaker 3:33
It's got to be something behind that. And yeah, Raleigh, of course, big stop. Was it like getting getting that going? We kings? Um, yeah, I think we were supposed to do some of the kings once again, before the pandemic, that was like something different. I think it was a constant for one of the artists we work with. Yes. So I think South of up. I've DJ kings before, I think, you know, once before I really liked it. I also went to a couple of shows that I think actually were show from the station. I think they should do some fundraising. Yeah, it's a double barrel is he so I wanted a couple of times, you know, I mean, I really liked the venue. So you know, so once we wanted to do something in in Raleigh, I was like, yeah, why not? Now for sure. That's, that's gonna be great. Um,

Unknown Speaker 4:23
so you've been in Durham pretty actively, pretty consistently. I've noticed I heard in the pinhook What's that? How's the Durham scene doing?

Unknown Speaker 4:31
Um, I mean, the directive is cool. I can make this about this even more parties going on, which is which I'm excited about other other new blood. You know, I mean, just new parties, new, new ideas. I guess. You know, the damn thing is cool.

Unknown Speaker 4:47
We, we don't have as many. I have a lot of venues, that's kind of that's kind of what you know, I mean, what's a little bit limiting, but I think we have a lot of a lot of talented artists, a lot of talented DJs

Unknown Speaker 5:00
So I'm pretty much excited about what's happening there. For sure. I know that, um, the fruit has been having some issues like they've had to. I know belowdecks probably isn't gonna keep going on too much longer is that as that kind of like crowd stuff and an issue for y'all? Um,

Unknown Speaker 5:14
um

Unknown Speaker 5:18
yummy. Yes. Yes. And I mean, yes. I mean, yes, I know. Um, because I mean, I think I think one thing that's helpful to us, we don't do a monthly, you know what I mean? So, like, the, that's the one thing that I've noticed in in DERM.

Unknown Speaker 5:39
Is that like, when something when something happened to repetitive, you know, to constantly like, Yeah, I'm, it seems like, like, it seems like it slows down, which

Unknown Speaker 5:49
seems to be the opposite. In most places, most places, the goal is to have monthly or weekly, but he kind of like, it's almost like less, less is more. So that's, of course we have so it hasn't really affected us so much. Yeah. But yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, every no visa have gone to has been popping. As as always. Um, so you mentioned it's this week. So what are the exact specifics like time location? And also can you tell us something about the the lineup or like, what? Who else performing? Yes, so, so it's the Saturday, October 17 1414.

Unknown Speaker 6:28
Releasing the record on the 70s I'm like, there's so many

Unknown Speaker 6:33
if the 14th actually was on my birthday.

Unknown Speaker 6:37
Um, yeah, so we have a gem supernova who's a DJ slash radio host from the UK. So that's this is our first US tour.

Unknown Speaker 6:47
Yes, she's she's the headliner. And we have

Unknown Speaker 6:51
a medevac from CF and so he's playing to the party is also also a partner. It's a partnership with like, some some friends. I think the party is the discovery. So they're gonna they're gonna play as well. And then I'm gonna close up tonight, so they have like a set that they're doing as well. I have a set as well. So the day gonna open and then

Unknown Speaker 7:15
the main oak den she's the gym supernova, and I'm gonna call that amazing. What time does

Unknown Speaker 7:23
it start at? 10? And to whatever um, let's see. I mean, really great bookings. I'm a massive someone is a fan or No, before you've booked DJ lag, and Bianca superstar in those really cool artists on what what's it been like working with with them? I mean, it's been it's been. It's been it's been cool. It's been.

Unknown Speaker 7:45
Yeah, yeah. So all the so yes, all the artists that we've had, like they've been really easy to work with. And

Unknown Speaker 7:52
it's been it's been a it's been a plus, because like, I know, I know. It can be it can be difficult sometimes. But like, you know, I mean, we've been we've been lucky so far.

Unknown Speaker 8:01
Yeah. Nice. And I know it. This is, of course, a genre agnostic party. But y'all have, I've noticed that a lot of ghoom played at the party.

Unknown Speaker 8:10
Can you kind of describe that as a genre? And why there's been a lot of, kind of, maybe not a focus, but there's been a lot of that kind of energy in the party. Yes. So I'm gonna miss like I

Unknown Speaker 8:22
said, genre from setup from South Africa, from Durban to be specific. I know, this is like, some sort of dark electronic music, like, you know, I mean, it has, you know, influence from like,

Unknown Speaker 8:35
Afro house as well. Um, but yeah, I mean, I think I lived in I lived in SF for four years. So, and that's kind of like in the heydays of when the genre kinda was Barisan thing is, so it was just kind of part of just a genre that I really enjoy. A lot.

Unknown Speaker 8:54
So yes, I tend to play the lab too. So book people played out. I mean, I've loved all the the groom sets that y'all have. How do you pronounce Exactly?

Unknown Speaker 9:05
Thing is Gong Gong, click well, like I'm not gonna

Unknown Speaker 9:12
declarative as it's pronounced, it's spelled GQ O M for any listeners at home who want to look that up. Amazing genre. That's kind of the the future of electronic a lot of ways.

Unknown Speaker 9:22
Let's see. While you're coming to Raleigh, Have you have you spent much time with the kind of the Raleigh dance scene as well? Because that's I know, I'm, I have my thoughts about it that I won't share on this. But um, there's there's a level of commercialization that I think is kind of unescapable in the the kind of Raleigh dancing. So I'm the only people I mean, so I haven't. So the only people that I'm around from the rally dancing is like, you know, I mean, people who play like halfway house or piano or that sort of thing. So they tend to complain about the rally scene, but like, I haven't personally it's

Unknown Speaker 10:00
pearcey myself literally. Mayra to like my rally scene experience may not be realistic because, as I say, my rallies and experiences like the shoulder like you guys play. Yeah, you know, I mean put together so that was like my first introduction to it. You know what I'm used to like Citymeals Oh, it's, it's cool. So when I talk to people when they describe me like that, it doesn't really reflect my own personal experience. So like, I'm not really,

Unknown Speaker 10:25
really glad you've had a good time in the city, but yeah, and others. I've noticed there are some some areas that can be pretty, pretty, pretty hetero pretty, pretty commercialized. But obviously no visa is none of those things that DIY underground roots are always really cool. I've always been asked this I love that. How do you like get the like, backing visuals for you have to like the video you play on loop? And it'll be so cool. So yeah, so you know, so we haven't, you know, we have we had like a team of like, we have like a few creative on the team. So like, you know, I mean, like we see so we kind of some events, some of it, we just like did you know we just kind of like just did it, build it ourselves. And then some other stuff just like stuff, the resource on the just kind of mix it together. It's funny, you mentioned a video because like, I'm almost I'm itching to change it because like we have it for a long time. Not sure I'm tired of seeing it. But like some people haven't seen it. So it's cool for them, which it is very iconic.

Unknown Speaker 11:22
Like this video. Now I'm sure if you've seen it like 10 times, you know, it's this guy, but listeners at home, it's there's an amazing little role. There's like a guy conducting planes is kind of dance. It's very, like it gets you in the mood of movies. Oh, for sure. It's very cool. Um, you also always have to like the TV on the side. That's yeah, that's a nice touch too.

Unknown Speaker 11:42
Are there any like specific, like aesthetic inspirations for the parties? Or just like, like, people, you've worked with things you've picked up? Um, yes. I mean, it just, it just, it just a reflection of like, of our taste, you know, I mean, it's a pretty much. It's not, it's not just me, like, freedom, mush, you know, I do most of the curation and the lineup or whatever, but my brother also does a lot of the visual and the murcian, that sort of thing. So, you know, it's just kind of like a mixture of this stuff that we like, we like a lot of, you know, obviously, yeah. All vintage VHS type of aesthetic. Awesome.

Unknown Speaker 12:18
Um, let's see,

Unknown Speaker 12:21
just outside of movies, or what are some of your favorite performances and kind of acts around these parts? And also maybe what's like, what what's against Have you listened to in kind of your spare time?

Unknown Speaker 12:33
Funny enough, um, so Okay, first.

Unknown Speaker 12:38
I mean, there's, there's a lot of stuff that I like from around here. Like, I mean, I think I've, I've, I like party legal. I actually do. Do some of the guys who are even inspired me to even do no visa. You know what I mean? So like, I think they do good work. I think

Unknown Speaker 12:57
I'm blanking on the name.

Unknown Speaker 13:00
Yeah, I have a friend. Isabel. Yes.

Unknown Speaker 13:04
She does. She does a lot of shutter a lot of shows and like a lot of her show cater to like, really, you know, finding new people then, you know, I'm saying give them a chance to play and which is like something that the out we also like to do. Yeah, I mean, she's, I even told I was like, Yo, you got me, you got me. I mean, you made me lazy because now I'm just like, I'm just gonna let her you're discovering I'm just gonna like, oh, yeah, this was cool.

Unknown Speaker 13:31
So she does some really cool stuff. Yeah. I have a friend. Mickey slicks. He's actually from Raleigh. He plays a lot like clockwork. Yeah, he's he's also pretty cool. So yeah, I'm sure I'm forgetting. Yeah. Again, a bunch of if you haven't been shouted out, you're so cool. Don't worry.

Unknown Speaker 13:53
Yeah, I think I met you at a local project. So I think you were working Dora? Yeah. Have you? Have you like local projects? Is that like one of the

Unknown Speaker 14:02
like, like scoping? For sure. Yeah. You have a lot to see especially like bookings, like the triple eight booking app recently. It's good to like work with a kind of newer, like, not just up and comer like college talent as well. So it's always really cool to do us a lot of x y, z.

Unknown Speaker 14:17
Um

Unknown Speaker 14:21
yeah, they're they're really cool.

Unknown Speaker 14:24
Let's see what's uh, obviously we have we have this party then.

Unknown Speaker 14:28
You had New Orleans and the 29th is that it? Nearly is that was that happened? Yeah, sorry. I meant like September 29. Yeah.

Unknown Speaker 14:37
So after these, obviously, you got a lot of planning going on. What what do you think is kind of the the future of no visa?

Unknown Speaker 14:44
Ah, so, so pretty much I've

Unknown Speaker 14:48
like I've, I've always I'm a kind of one that we, we kind of want to stop profiling things. You know what I mean? So it's not just a party want to be able to like put

Unknown Speaker 15:00
About like local artists then do that sort of thing.

Unknown Speaker 15:04
Yeah, I mean, we also gain to stop when our music ourselves, you know, I'm working on compilation things of that nature. So yes, that's kind of like, in the next year or two, that's kind of one of the focus. Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. You mentioned you're dropping a record on the 17th. Well, let's What's that? So yes, so it's

Unknown Speaker 15:22
safe to say, you know, so yes, it's a song that will point as a note is an ova compilation, which is a collaboration with

Unknown Speaker 15:31
a producer from from from Congo name, the GSP. Lulu is actually one of the

Unknown Speaker 15:38
he's the, I'm gonna say one of, he's one of the fun of the Congolese of house. Music. You know, I mean, that's, that's also something that I play a lot on my set. So like, yeah, so that, yeah, so we releasing records together on December 18. That's so cool. Um, is that through immaculate taste? Or is that?

Unknown Speaker 15:58
What else is? I mean, I'm sorry, you're wearing the immaculate taste hoodie right now. So I'm getting a lot of Immaculate vibes over here. What else is immaculate taste do? Exactly. So yes. So again, like we started off as a as a record label, but with that, I kind of migrated more toward more towards

Unknown Speaker 16:16
a management company, so we stayed doing management, mostly, we don't have a lot of artists on the label side of thing. And then we also slowly move into, like, you know, I'm a creative, a creative agency.

Unknown Speaker 16:31
Because, you know, because we've done again, we've done most of our images, most of our flyer, most of the cover art, that's all like in house.

Unknown Speaker 16:40
Awesome. That's, that's really cool that you have that like synergy of the two different groups there. Um, I was gonna, I was gonna ask, a lot of this is just like, things I've noticed in movies, I remember at the DJ lag show you had like, what, what, um, setup were you playing on, because it looked kind of different than like, the other artists. So it was a, it was a really, really tiny controller.

Unknown Speaker 17:04
And the idea really was I used to play on I read a lot, because

Unknown Speaker 17:10
I felt like, I felt like there was this stigma of like, a real Dejan need to play on CDJs to kind of be respected. And now and I always was, like, you know, even when I go to Africa, you know, obviously, where, like, access to CDJs is, like, it's almost impossible to find, but you still have that standard. So I was kinda like, I was like, I was, like, first of all, I don't even know, personally, I'm sure they are, well, like here in this equals, you know, like, in a triangle, I don't even know any person, any person of color, who even own a CD. So to have to have such standard to me, it was like, you know, like, I don't, you know, I mean, we don't even have access, access to the gears, you know, obviously, I got lucky enough to, you know, to be able to be, you know, to behave like people like Patrick from TriCity, you know, I mean, and Laura Quinn, please, you know, who, you know, so let me use let me learn on the gears, you know, I mean, but there was always an aspect that I would have just didn't like, so I was like, Okay, I'm going to show and this is why I pick the tiniest, I'm surely I could find, I was like, Okay, I'm going to show up with a very tiny controller. And I'm going to, I'm going to have an amazing set. And you did, and you know, me, and thank you, you know, so the idea was to be like, yo, it's not really about the gear is about, like, you know,

Unknown Speaker 18:34
it's about what you can actually do. We take action playing a music, so that's kind of what it was. But yeah, but then my control is in my computer. You know, maybe I messed up. And now I've been playing CDJ.

Unknown Speaker 18:50
Back, I feel like I said,

Unknown Speaker 18:53
you can read a book.

Unknown Speaker 18:55
It's a really cool sentiment and like, yeah, again, I I don't really get this, like, emphasis on like, it's it's two tracks. Well, you can do that on anything. At the end of the day. Um, yeah, that's, that's a really cool story. A funny thing to me is like, the fact that like,

Unknown Speaker 19:10
now you have CDs apologist, but like when CDJ first came out, people, like people who play vinyl was like, it is not religion. It's like newfangled. Kind of funny. You know, I mean, the now the thing that people was like, Oh, this is this is not real DJ, not those people saying, Oh, if you use that, that's not religious. Yeah. It's interesting.

Unknown Speaker 19:31
Wow. Um, let's see. Is there anything else you wanted to kind of shout out specifically?

Unknown Speaker 19:37
I mean, yeah, I mean, you know, first, you know, thank you for having me.

Unknown Speaker 19:42
Of course, this was an honor to have you on. Yeah. And yeah, and then just like, you know, just excited about the party on Saturday. Yeah, hopefully, you know, I mean, like, people come actually we get a lot of students. I mean, a party really a big you know, again, we started like and not like so

Unknown Speaker 20:00
We always had

Unknown Speaker 20:02
we always draw a lot of students are always you know, I think they just bring good energy and it's just I don't know just good energy to come to dance you know I mean they're not it's not too cool you know whatever so I've always liked it i mean i You know i mean it's been it's been harder because like most venue now you know me it's

Unknown Speaker 20:21
was venue now I kind of wanted to be like 21 And above that has been difficult but like what I made sure the show for it to be at love we'd love to hear that cool. Awesome What are your socials? How can we help you find you in movies? Ah, yes, so no visas at no visa party on Instagram. And my name is Alec. Underscore, Mommy. Yeah, that's pretty much it.

Unknown Speaker 20:48
We actively use we need. Again, thank you so much for coming through. This has been wonderful to talk to you. Thank you.

Unknown Speaker 20:55
I appreciate you all for tuning in. And you can check out all the interviews I and everyone here does at wknc.org/podcast and click off the record. I'm Dockery and I've been here with Alec law mommy and WKNC 8.1 FM HD one rollick

Transcribed by https://otter.ai