Rafael "Légo" Rodriguez

by Czarina Mirani | Published August 2005 | Features Archives

DJING SINCE HE WAS 11 years old, Chicago's own Rafael "Légo" Rodriguez is now one of the most sought after djs and producers in the world. His Monday night Boom Boom Room, going on 14 years, is legendary - the longest running club night of any kind, anywhere in the world. His songs such as "El Ritmo de Verdad" and "When I'm With You" will pack a dance floor, and he recently did a hot remix for Beyonce.

I've been a big fan of Légo's music for years, and wanted to know about his music and the never-ending success of Boom Boom Room. Here Légo gives me his thoughts on house music, number crunching club owners and the lowdown on Chicago's house scene.

LEGO: I first learned DJing when I was 11. I started young. My influence came from my family, which was very musical-oriented. I grew up in Logan Square, a good area when house music was still in its youth. My aunt (not much older than I was) would go and hear Frankie Knuckles and Ron Hardy play. She would go to the Warehouse and their parties and she'd come back with their mixtapes and different versions of songs. A lot of latin and disco. She was probably one of my main influences.

My first club gig was at Kaboom when I was 19, on Saturday nights. That when techno was really hitting hard. I stuck to my roots with house and I was getting the crowd hype. And you know with that type of crowd - the club owners were like "Well, techno's hot. Why don't you add techno to the mix?" I'm not a jukebox. I thought, maybe this isn't the job for me.

5 MAGAZINE: Did you always want to be a DJ?

LEGO: I really wanted to be a professional baseball player. I coulda gone pro but I had a knee injury in college. I never got over the whole mental aspect of being injured.

I got into DJing kinda young, and I felt if I had been more focused, I'd be playing professional baseball right now. But I spread myself real thin. I wanted to play baseball, wanted to be a DJ, I also used to dance. A lot of wear and tear on my knee. I was a b-boy.

My dad gave me the best advice: "Pick one of the two, you can't do both." In this world if you want to be great at something, you just got to be great at one thing.

5 MAGAZINE: Would you give up being a dj if you could have been a ball player?

LEGO: Yeah. I would play ball in a heartbeat. That would be like me waking up everyday to go play at a park.

5 MAGAZINE: How did you get your residency at Red Dog?

LEGO: HiFi Bangalore, he was the original guy who started the night. The original DJs were Freddie Bain and DJ Orlando. I was a guest DJ. When I went in there and played that night, he asked me, "Would you like a residency?" I was like, "Are you kidding? I would love to."

It was weird, we'd get like 50 to 75 people - this was back in like '93 - but all those people were jacking, dancing, sweating, letting you know that they were feeling the music.

One of my favorite memories was a guy who came in dressed to dance at like 11pm, there was nobody there, he walked to the middle of the dance floor, did a circle, pointed at me... He danced for a whole hour, and I spun just for me. Then he left - did a turn, blew a kiss up and bowed, then exited Red Dog. He came there for the little time that he had and danced for the whole hour.

I've had gigs where there were only 15 people, but I played for those 15 people. You have to have a club owner who is willing to let a night grow. We were blessed to have Red Dog. Fifty or 75 people - a lot of club owners aren't hearing that. It grew and grew and grew from there.

If you're young, the best way to get yourself out there is to throw your own events. Promote yourself, 'cause you can't rely on other people all the time. You gotta get yourself exposure. Throw your own parties, even if it's in a lounge with 20 or 30 people. You gotta let it grow and build a following.

5 MAGAZINE: And then you moved to Green Dolphin.

LEGO: I had this idea years ago - why not move it to Green Dolphin? Even when Red Dog was open, the atmosphere - the same with Red Dog, you were surrounded with the energy the minute you walked in.

The night is going on 14 years now. I'm going on my 13th year. Boom Boom Room is the longest running dance night in the world and dance club history. Not just house - all musical genres.

5 MAGAZINE: Tell me about your loft parties.

LEGO: Just because of the city, or more because of haters, jealous of what I'm doing... The police would come and say "We have other things to worry about and would have never known about your party..." Chicago is #2 in the U.S. in murders, so the city has other things to worry about than other people trying to throw a party.

I would like to cater to the youth because they need to be educated. They're all growing up on this jigga what - you know, they don't know nothing about house, they don't know the history of house. They get a couple of turntables, they DJ for three months and they think they're ready to get on. No dude, you got to pay your dues.

I wanted to educate the younger crowd, but I don't want to go too young. I'm not trying to promote high schoolers to come to my party. We were being lenient in the beginning (not carding them) because of wanting to educate the younger people about what's good music. We had to make it 21 and older just to eliminate any problems.

We're keeping it more on the DL now. We were doing it like twice a month. People thought it was a club we were doing this party at.

What I'm getting into now is fundraisers. That way the loft parties can continue. Plus, we're doing it now for a good cause. Percentages go to a good cause now which makes me feel good about it too.

There's no place to go on Friday and Saturday nights, that's why I started doing loft parties. People were thanking us.

5 MAGAZINE: What do you say about the labels people throw on you - of being a "latin house DJ"?

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