DJs On DJs: Brazilian Heavyweights Interview Eachother

INTERVIEWS

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Tastemakers Cat Dealers, Bruno Martini, and Joy Corporation talk collaborations, turning points, and life’s simple pleasures.

If you haven’t been tapping Brazil for new music, you’ve been missing out. For a country often associated with chill bossa nova vibes (and obviously every supermodel you can name), a strong underground of electro, house, techno, and EDM artists have started to take Brazil – and the world – by storm.

If you want a short list of where to start listening, we’ve got you covered: Cat Dealers, Bruno Martini, and Joy Corporation.

About the Artists

Brothers Lugui and Pedrão, better known as Cat Dealers, have been among of the biggest DJs in Brazil and around the world since 2017. Since their remix of “Your Body” by Tom Novy went viral, they’ve consistently ranked among the top 3 DJs/Producers in Brazil, and even ranked in DJ Mag’s Top 100 list. The group was also recently included in Forbes Brazil’s “30 Under 30” following an immensely successful 2018 of releases and tours.

Bruno Martini is also no stranger to viral success. His debut record, “Hear Me Now” surpassed 450 million streams, smashing every record set by a Brazilian artist. In fact, the international success of his hits “Never Let Me Go,” “Sun Goes Down,” and “ROAD” have made Bruno Martini one of the few artists with half a billion plays on Spotify alone. In his short career, he’s holding 8 Platinum, Gold, Diamond and Triple Diamond Records.

Felipe Sabbá, better known as Joy Corporation, is a producer, multi-intrumentalist, singer, songwriter, and DJ. In the past few years Felipe has made a name for himself as a collaborator and remixer, including a remix of Coldplay’s The Scientist. His original track, “Do You Remember” has amassed millions of views, especially with support and a remix from Vintage Culture.

The four influential DJs recently collaborated on an absolute fire track, “Gone Too Long.” Bursting with nostalgic flair, “Gone Too Long” is another clear testament to the level of finesse demonstrated by all three budding producers. Opening with delicately strummed chord progressions and a rock inspired vocal line, the collaborators flaunt an aptitude for merging Pop and EDM as the track moves to a bass-boosted drop, proving its worth for the Mainstage.

In Conversation

In celebration of another very successful year ahead, Cat Dealers, Bruno Martini, and Joy Corporation, sat down together to talk about their careers, Brazilian music, and the funniest thing that’s ever happened to them:

What has been the highlight of your career so far? – Cat Dealers

We’ve been very fortunate and we’re really grateful for all the things we’ve been able to do so far.

In the very beginning of Cat Dealers, “Your Body” was such a moment for us, we did not expect it to go as well as it did. Even today, almost three years after the release, it’s a huge moment when we play it in our shows!

Appearing twice in the DJ Mag top 100 ranking is a great highlight and it’s also made it possible for us to tour around Asia and Europe. Obviously
we love touring in Brazil too and we’ve had the opportunity to be a part of so many great festivals such as ULTRA Brasil, Lollapalooza and
Rock In Rio. We even had the chance to be the guest act for Shakira when she was touring in Brazil and that was an absolute honor.  There are many other things we’re so proud of, but we just hope we can keep working hard because there’s so much more we want to do!

Were there any side-splitting moments during the production of Gone Too Long? – Cat Dealers

Bruno and Joy are great to work with and we always have fun when we are together, but I remember one particular thing that happened on the day that we were doing our ‘Gone Too Long’ press shots. We’re from Rio and we shot the photos here. Bruno is from Sao Paulo and Joy is from Belo Horizonte. We took them to lunch in a very typical barbecue place in Baixo Gávea (a sort of bohemian, easy going and very traditional part of the town with many bars and restaurants). Usually everyone drinks beer, but Joy decided to order white wine at 2 in the afternoon or something like that. We found that hilarious. I don’t think I have ever seen someone drink white wine there. He’s definitely a classy guy hahaha


Was there a moment that you felt was a turning point for you and your career? – Bruno Martini

I never really had the feeling of a “turning point” but I had some really important moments like playing on the Main stage at EDC Mexico, releasing “Hear Me Now” and playing at Tomorrowland in Belgium. I had a lot of successful gold records in Brazil, reaching almost 1 Billion streams , etc… I can’t really say which one was the most important moment until now…

Funniest text message you’ve received from Cat Dealers – Bruno Martini

I was doing a photo shoot in Rio with them to promote our release. I arrived at the place and the taxi driver told me it was in a really bad area so he did not want to drop me off at the place. I was scared, so the boys started to send me a lot of messages like: you should take care of yourself, it’s a really dangerous area, bla bla bla… they were making fun of me!

How did this Brazilian power collaboration come about? – Joy Corporation

The idea came from Cat Dealers, who showed me the original song by Him Self Her, which I didn’t know and fell in love with immediately. We started working on the song together, with me singing initially. A few months later Lugui and Pedrão played the song to Bruno in their studio, he also loved it and wanted to collaborate with us. Of course we said yes, because we all love Bruno’s music and respect him as a producer. Bruno brought a new and more rock voice to us, by Johnny Franco, and that was the final touch that was missing. In the end, we found a perfect balance between our 3 artist styles. It was what we really wanted.

Funniest thing to ever happen to you on tour? – Joy Corporation

One time my videographer jumped from the top of a speaker and fell on his feet, the problem was that the speaker fell on the ground, causing the sound to stop for 1 full minute. It was not funny at all at the moment, but now we laugh at this. Luckily no one got hurt.

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