Ricardo Villalobos: Forever Young

“I don’t want to be the biggest, I don’t want to be the best, it’s bullshit. Let’s just do things.”

"Staying out of competition is for me the most important sentence in my life."

"The reality, and music shows it, is that we all belong together...that we all come from the same culture."

"It’s very important for us to go on producing vinyl - the artist gets money for it, the distributor, the record store - this is what we want to provide and protect because this is financing our whole scene, our whole culture."

"At the club, there is no place to put the records anymore, because no one is playing with records anymore, which is very sad."

"The protect idea is very important - the conversations, writing a letter, reading a book - to have an intimate situation of life. The computer knows much more about me than my wife, about my needs - my inner thoughts - my everything."

"Depeche Mode : The Beatles of the 90s... explaining to a bigger mass of people that electronic music is also music; the synthesizer is also an instrument; this can also belong to our perception of pop music…music of everyone."

"The first parties I was going to were the kitchen parties of my parents…what I remember more than anything was the dance situation - the rhythms."

"When I was 20… my father was sitting in the kitchen and in the basement there was Carl Craig playing - he was 22 years old and he was playing one of the most amazing sets I have ever heard."

"The party decides about the next party – this is the only promotion existing and the only promotion necessary."

"The get-together with the people, the absence of aggression and conflict – this is why I really want to be there. That’s why I'm a DJ... I want to be part of something, belong to something."

"People who belong to each other they take care for each other - this is the most important thing rescuing our world, otherwise I don’t know in which direction it goes…not a good one!"

"If I would be deaf, I would have to find another job, to do something else to help my family to go on."

"There’s no source of advice - your whole musical experience is deciding about what you are doing in a certain moment, the music you are listening to, your friends who have this common interest, helping each other, buying the first synthesizer…"

"When I’m sitting here in the studio and I press the record button I don’t have any concept about how it should be. I’m not following any sound or style…I don’t want to realize or define what I’m doing."

"The worst thing you can do is to declare music as good or bad because good and bad music doesn’t exist – there is music you understand, or the communication failed and you don’t understand this music…that’s all."

"It doesn’t matter how the culture is. You play all over the world but with the rhythmical formula you can convince anyone in the whole world of dancing, just dancing - this is how you describe the success of a DJ."

"Music is like a language - a hearable form of language - an anti-Babylon - that belongs to anyone."

"I'm trying to be as innocent as possible to be creative."

"Modular is for grown ups but I’m standing in front of it like a little child – what happens if I am connecting this thing with that…"

"Not that you get better, you get less nervous."

"When we meet with the boys and we go to party – suddenly everyone becomes a child, it’s not serious anymore, that’s why I love so much the parties we are living in. We are doing everything for these parties because going to these parties is like going to the Kindergarten, going there and being a child."

"In music (and in whatever you do) you have to be free of pressure… innocence is free of pressure - this is the nice thing to see with my children."

"My children…they are my biggest idols. How they handle not to be responsible, how they handle to be innocent – not to have to take really intelligent decisions - they just decide, they don’t know why they have a connection to their subconscious stream of information which is there anyway."

"The consciousness is more or less my biggest enemy - to think about the future and the past and what will happen."

"I give all responsibility to my wife. Thank god I found someone who is completely different from me...she gives me this shelter where I am free."

"If you have to explain what you’re doing next, if you have to define it, then it gets complicated... I just go on doing what I do, not trying to reinvent myself. I really love the party, I really love to produce dance tracks… and I will go on doing that."

(A snapshot into Ricardo, taken from RA Exchange series, 2012)

August 6, the birthday of an epochal figure. This forthcoming weekend, Ricardo Villalobos joins Zippy, Sammy, Baby Ford and Akufen for a near to 24-hour session at Panorama Bar. Celebrating at a party with friends, amidst the Berlin setting that dates back to pivotal moments for DJs alike.

Ricardo Villalobos: Forever Young

Photograph by Ogarev