Features

Richie Balboa is one of the freshest up-and-coming DJs in the breakbeat scene. It all started in 2007 when he co-founded the popular Social club night in London's Soho and took over the running of NSB Radio not long after. He soon established it as the first ever breakbeat radio station operating a 24/7 live schedule broadcasting from every continent on the globe.

At the recent Breakspoll awards Richie won Best Breakthrough DJ and Best Radio Station for NSB for the third consecutive year. We spoke to him about this and to find out what else he has planned for 2010.

Massive props and congratulations on your success at Breakspoll, what was the initial feeling upon snapping up those awards?
Winning Best Breakthrough DJ felt very special. I appear to have connected well with the audiences I've played to in the last year in a scene I'm so passionate about, which is really rewarding. I love DJing so much and to receive some kind of recognition that other people have enjoyed what I do is nice. I've also been to the last seven Breakspoll awards parties and looked up to a lot of the previous winners, so to be part of that elite group is something I'll always look back on with pride.

In terms of NSB Radio this was our third award in a row so it's good to see that we're consistently doing the business and providing a high quality service to our global fan base. I guess you could say I've got used to winning that award so this year I took the team up with me, including Kid Chameleon who manages our programming and Mjoogoo who heads up our web team. It was good to get them on the stage at Fabric because they put in a lot of hours behind the scenes, which goes unnoticed so I'm pleased for them, all the hard working DJs and our loyal listeners.

What's the secret behind the success of NSB Radio?
The whole NSB family is a massive worldwide community of people interacting on the forum and the radio station. I think Jimmy Brayks does a great job of providing this platform for so many people and then just sitting back and letting everyone have some fun. With NSB Radio, despite being predominantly a breaks station, all that we ask is that the DJs play good music and present it with a professional approach. As we've grown there has been a diversification into all forms of music of music from drum & bass to dubstep, UK funky, tech house, nu funk and chillout.

Your mix series over at Juno has also proved popular, how did that come about?
The Juno breakbeat podcast kicked off at the end of last year and was nominated for a Breakspoll best podcast award after only three editions which we were both really proud of. It's hard work balancing the station, podcast, radio show and my live schedule but I think that's where the passion kicks in and somehow I find a way.

To be honest it's really opened my eyes to the depths of breakbeat and broken beat music because I've tried to represent the funkier 110 bpm elements right through to 140 bpm tear-out. There's a lot of really good music out there and I really look forward to digging deep in the Juno site every month and pulling out all the gems to go onto the mix. It's charted really well on iTunes, getting as high as number 34 in the podcast music chart and I've received a lot of positive feedback both from listeners and artists which really makes it worthwhile.

What can we expect from NSB in the next few months?
More live broadcasts, a brand new website which has just gone live and even better shows. Last week we were live from Melbourne with Nick Thayer and DJ Cheeba who is one of the world's leading AV DJs and we're also broadcasting live from my event at the WMC Miami.

The summer season sees us live from Bass Kitchen in Bristol which just picked up the best small night category at Breakspoll as well as Glade festival which is the best dance music festival in the UK. We're also hosting an NSB Soundsystem Haiti Fund Raiser in Tiverton in South West England on April 30th with DJ Jusme lining up with Ben n Lex and DJ Chamber so fingers crossed that goes well and we can make a contribution.

There are lots of events in the pipeline and it's a really exciting time to be involved in internet radio, stay tuned for more announcements in the near future.

You're off to the Miami Winter Music Conference soon, what are you doing there?
Having experienced the WMC last year it wasn't a hard decision whether to go back or not. WMC is an awesome few days, it's basically pool party after pool party in the day and big club nights in the evening all set in the South Beach sunshine, I'd recommend anyone to go there!

I got approached a couple of months ago by a US based DJ / producer / promoter Johnny Dangerously with regard to getting involved in the Tru Skool Breaks concept. We're throwing an event on Wednesday 24th March to showcase a lot of new artists in the scene alongside a couple of legends by the names of Ed Solo, Baby Anne and Scratch D. I'm co-hosting the event with Johnny Dangerously, Farace of Kick It Recordings and more.

Words: Nick Bleeker

Download Richie Balboa's mix

Tracklisting