We love Robbie Rivera so much that we interviewed him twice during Miami Music Week and WMC. The Puerto Rican-born DJ/producer has been traveling the world and spreading his unique flavor of house music for more than twenty years. Iconic tracks like “Bang,” “Which Way You’re Going” and “The Hum Melody” are eternal clubland anthems. His track “Funk-A-Tron” was a precursor to the electro sound and the recent update with Tom Staar and Kryder dominated clubland and festivals last summer.
A recent distribution deal with Armada will bring a whole new audience to his Juicy label. Robbie explains his reasoning for joining Armada; he gets so many demos from Italian, Spanish and South American producers who want to be on his label, but he doesn’t have the manpower to keep up with them. An Armada synergy seemed like the right thing to do. He loves “supporting new people” but needed “help to take it to the next level.” With the support of Armada, he now has that team to help him branch out and to explore new sounds. Collaborations with reggae artists Ky-Mani Marley and Eek A Mouse are set for release as well as a remix of Enrique Iglesias ft Zion Y Lennox “Subeme La Radio” which transforms the reggaeton hit into a house record.
Robbie’s Juicy Party in Miami was billed as “only real DJs” and when asked what that meant, he said that real DJs are people who don’t have a pre-planned set, they mess up, and most importantly, a real DJ takes risks. Robbie fits all those bills, especially at recent gigs when he’s bringing back classics into the mix. He dropped Erasure’s “A Little Respect” at his Back to Basics set in Ibiza and the crowd went nuts. This was probably the inspiration for his upcoming song “Not A Single Word” which he described as his experimentation with the Depeche Mode/Erasure sound at 117 BPM.
As wild as his party life may be, Robbie is quite stable and normal. He starts the day with Matcha green tea (no coffee) and the wildest thing on his rider is alcohol – which he mostly gives away to his friends. He prefers the Sinatra Select brand of Jack Daniels on the rocks or Rose Champagne. When asked about the wildest thing he would want to add to his rider, we find out he has a sweet tooth: chocolate cake, vanilla & chocolate ice cream, and cheese cake being his big requests…oh yeah, and then there was the chicken wings. He loves grilled chicken wings; he would definitely prefer those over a sandwich like he had to do one night when he rushed to a gig right off of an airplane and having not eaten for a long time.
Coming up next for Robbie, he will be diving into the live music world, and he’s experimenting with the sounds of salsa, merengue, and reggaeton. That along with a slew of new releases for both clubs and radio are on the way. He only has one request “don’t get upset if I release too much music,” he says. How could we Robbie? your music fuels club and radio playlists worldwide!
