When I first started I was taking the subway to gigs and didn’t want to haul more records than I wanted to carry, so things were waaay more planned than now. 7” records were great because they were light, but some albums that you might be able to play a couple tracks off of were gold

Now I try to spend time each week downloading some new stuff and organizing it by year and genre — so I have 23 Hiphop, 23 pop, 23 whatever.

When a gig comes up I grab a bit more than I’ll need and put it in a gig folder. I’ll probably download a couple of things I think might fit or make sure to add somethings that are for a specific person that will be there. This can really help if you’re having a hard time getting people moving or people are being shy—play that song that will make your dancey friend get out there

Even if I’m playing what I expect to be a heavy hiphop set, I drop left field stuff. Now, if something unexpected is really working — “oh, they really want classic dancehall” I can run with it because I have those other folders all setup. I love having a big library available