Ask the DJ ... Kwinzola A.K.A. Ciaran Quinn

Kwinzola ( A.K.A Ciaran Quinn ) DJ’s as part of No Fakin. Born out of the Liverpool Hip Hop night of the same name the No Fakin' DJs, Kwinzola and DJ Illson combine 4 turntables and a deep rooted Hip Hop sensibility to create a semi-live/DJ show like no other. And while Hip-Hop is the anchor, a phenomenal variety of music gets in on the act, seamlessly blended and layered with live instruments, samplers, drum machines and more.

Always playing a eclectic mix of tracks that you can’t not dance to and always want to ask - “what’s this?!” at some point during the set. Cia has one of the biggest record collections we've seen and is a true lover of the black plastic. We love Kwinzola at NoWayBack and he has some very entertaining answers to our ‘Ask the DJ spot’..

Over to you Kwinzola…

1. What was your first acid house moment?

Must be honest, from it's inception, acid house washed over me a bit. I was a 14 year old Hip Hop pot head when the first acid tunes were around & when the time came to venture into clubland the acid scene was on the wain or was being watered down by the more encompassing (general) rave scene. It was hard to avoid that scene in Liverpool with Quadrant Park, the State & a very young Cream being pioneers of the music scene in a city that, back then was barely different to you local village in terms of excitement & entertainment.

Still I was a Hip Hop head in a foreign music land but that changed on a hot, sweaty night in Cream's little (Bar Zoo I think) room when the Dust Brothers (pre Chemical Brothers), hiding under their coats as a rain of sweat poured onto the turntables, delivered a set so spine-tingly good it cemented the early 90's rave scene as some of my best nights out.

2. Favourite club/night ever?

Headfunk - Time nightclub, Manchester 1995-97. Hands down the greatest aural feast I ever dined upon. Weekly affair & don't think I missed 3 in 2 years.

Chubby Grooves was the main attraction often doing the night single handedly but, on occasion, there'd be a warm up dj &, to put Chubby's status into context, future royalty such as Mark Rae, Luke Una (bomber) & Mr Scruff would willingly fill that warm up slot.

Henceforth, Saturdays where spent trying desperately to procure the tunes Chubby was playing. Sometimes to no avail but often you'd come up trumps as he was front of house in Fat City Records & by the mid 90's we'd earned the right to sit in the basement smoking & feasting on the latest beats before they went up to the shop.

Chubby now has Chopped Herring Records & is unearthing fabulous, un-released Hip Hop & releasing in strictly limited, coloured vinyl, numbers.

Essentially, without Robert 'Chubby Grooves' Lipitch, there would be no No Fakin', no More Dusty than Digital & no Kwinzola.

3. Best acid house debacherous moment?

Clubland was, for me, about dancing, partying, meeting new faces, talking shit & repeating that process several times a night. The debauchery which, as I recall, came pretty much weekly was at each & every after party that was foolish enough to let my people back to. I say foolish, we were entertaining but probably only to each other. Mystic & mindbending moments ensued but don't think they should be documented.... Maybe one day though, after some counselling, I'll tell you about a party involving a truly twisted Mike Dixon (Brookside), a snake, someones tooth getting shot out with an air rifle & thinking we'd killed our pal!!!).

3. Guilty pleasure always in your box?

Two Hype - Kid n' Play

4. Guilty pleasure not in the box!?

Matthew Wilder - Break My Stride

5. Give us one of your favourite and hard to find records in your collection?

I'm touching 15,000+ records now, never been a famous dj & don't think I've been sent or given more than 50 records in 20 years despite fairly high profile residencies over the years. I am a fully fledged record collector / digger & I work hard for it, contribute to it & love music/records so I've many hard to find records.

These days, for the right price, you can probably find most of the records I own on Discogs however some of the prices you have to pay are astronomical.

I suppose, whilst it's not particularly expensive & theres 3 or 4 on Discogs right now, The Artifacts - Wrong Side of the Tracks (promo) is right up there with my favourites & as a top 10 hip hop tune to me.

I sat with El Da Sensei (Artifacts) when we put him on way back & pulled this track out for him to sign. He was gob smacked that some bloke from Liverpool had a promo copy & told me there weren't many pressed.

Prior to MC'ing, El Da Sensei was a big Graffiti artist & he tagged the promo up with: -

"Yo, peace for having on of theee original pressings, that's word - El Da Sensei" in his trademak, amazing, style &, I reckon, there aint many of those to be found!!

6. Biggest DJ fail / clear the dance floor moment?

Hands down, Keele University. Me, No Fakin, Peter Parker (Fingathing). 5 turntables, MPC, a Maestro Rhythm King (Sly Stone & JJ Cales choice of beat machine) & 1500 on campus students who, like Kaiser Soze, disappeared within 90 seconds of us starting. To put us out of our misery the resident dj saved us after about 30 minutes. He played Whitney's I wanna dance with somebody (bizarrely, a tune that had followed me round the balkans that year) & the students flooded the dancefloor.

7. Favourite labels?

Black Mahogani, 2Dogs, Claremont 56, Cherries US, Chopped Herring, Redefinition Records, Moton, Mello Music Group, Jakarta, Stones Throw, Ubiquity

9. Favourite producer / producers?

Zo!, Dez Adres, Nicolay, Moodymann, Andrew Ashong/Theo Parrish, Damu, Jim Sharp, Damiano Von Erkert, Nu-Mark, Alchemist, Chilly Gonzales, Soul Clap, Pete Rock, Premiere, De La Soul & Dilla.

10. Who to watch from the new school?

Blitz the Ambassador, Bishop Nehru, Hawk House, Hiatus Kayote, Ibeyi, Max Greaf, life on planets, Brandt Brauer Frick

11 Current killer track?

DJ Nature - No Talk