Christina Jones
Field Notes: 03/23/2020 at 10:56 p.m.
Watching a Fully-Recorded Version of DJ D-Nice’s Global Dance Party from Saturday, March 21, 2020
DJ D-Nice says, “Wassup Bernie… Janet Jackson’s in here. Bernie Sander’s in here! Oprah’s in here. Michelle Obama’s in here! We are killin’ it. … Joe Biden’s in here. This is UNITY right here. This is unity. This is unity.”
DJ D-Nice spins with his left hand over his heart, directly after making his unity comments. He says, “Yo, gosh, we are united right now. This is incredible.”
Explicit version of his song, with the N-word playing for all to hear. → let’s think about what this means for unity.
He says that he has one more song for us because Janet Jackson is joining us and, “we love you, Janet.” He starts playing a Janet Jackson song, bopping and moving his arms to the beat, and he says in a calm but impassioned low timbre, “United we stand.” … Then, he says, “Barack Obama, we love you forever.”
I love that this virtual dance party turned into a kind of celebration of the unity of the Democratic Party. A salute to our former (and forever) president, President Obama, as well as respect to the two potential Democratic candidates for the 2020 election, Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden.
“80,000 people in her right now.” - DJ D-Nice
Hearts of all sorts of colors flowing upwards on the screen the entire time. Endless, ceaseless, digitized love pulsing around the screen.
Really cool to see people’s comments in real time, flowing upwards on the screen. Many fire emojis, lots of people tracking the number of people attending the virtual dance party → now at 84.3 K
A sax gets blended smoothly into the Janet track before DJ D-Nice says, “Wassup, Kevin WIlliams?!” And then a moment later, he says with clear excitement, “Dr. Jay is in here! Oh my gosh, the legendary Dr. Jay!”
Lalah Hathaway, a personal favorite and jazz role model of mine, graces us with her presence.
I notice that so many of the comments that are not purely constituted by emojis are written in languages other than English. Then, about thirty seconds later, DJ D-Nice says, “We turning this into a global party.” He speaks very smoothly.
“Wow, Elizabeth Banks is in here. Mark Zuckerberg is in here.” With a laugh, “This is crazy!!!!!!!! … This is the biggest party in the world right now.”
Soul music funkin’ us out. DJ D-Nice says, being the cool cat he is, “This song’s for all the healthcare workers out there that we’re supporting.”
Lots of star emojis in the comments.
“It’s the biggest party goin’ on in the world right now, and we’re home.”
I keep thinking about DJ D-Nice’s comments about unity, unity, unity at the opening of the set. This is a concert for all of the world’s people to enjoy at once, together, in real time, from our homes. → what an experience and what a gift. This might very well change the way we think about parties, forever.
With a big, toothy smile, and while waving the fingers of his left hand in his hand, he says, “We’re at 90,000 people.”
… “100,000 people. Let’s go!”
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