As one of the staples of Toronto's club music scene, Sydney Blu has established herself, her record label Blu Music, and her parties The Blu Party in the global electronic music world. Having thrown countless editions of The Blu Party all over North America with a slew of headlining DJs from house and techno, Sydney Blu has become a bonafide veteran in the electronic biosphere.
With Detroit's Movement Electronic Music Festival ahead this Memorial Day weekend, Sydney Blu is bringing her Blu Party to town for the first time with a line-up including Christian Martin, Worthy, Gene Farris, The Saunderson Brothers and Landis LaPace. I was able to chat with her about the history of the party and why she's bringing it to Detroit this weekend.
Tell me about how The Blu Party started and why you are bringing it to Detroit.
It started in Miami for Winter Music Conference in 2010. We did our first Blu Party there. It was a spin-off of my record label because I had just started my record label that same year. The whole concept has always been a stacked line-up of four or five good, quality DJs. We did like the last six years in Miami. It grew and grew and grew, the party. A couple of years in Miami, we did like 18 hour parties with 30 headlining DJs. It's been insane. We've had some really good shows over the past 6-7 years in Miami but I thought I've been going to Detroit for the last three or four years and I love it. It's my favorite festival now in North America probably for techno and electronic music in general. I wanted to do it in Detroit this year because it's authentic. Movement is an amazing festival. I have a lot of friends that go to Detroit so it all seemed like it made sense for me to do it in Detroit. We've done the party all over North America. I've done it in LA. I've done it New York City. I've done it in Calgary. It's like a traveling party now.
How did you go about choosing the line-up for it?
The line-up is always artists that I relate to in one way or another. I'm into all kinds of underground music. I like techno, but I also like house. It was a little strategic; I'm not going to lie. I know how much house is appreciated just as much as techno is during Movement weekend. I felt techno would be oversaturated and doing a cool house party with some of Dirtybird guys like Christian Martin, Worthy, Gene Ferris. Gene has played another Blu Party of mine before in LA too and he's on the record label. The Saunderson Brothers are also on my record label, so I already kind of worked with them, but I thought it was an authentic line-up that is good for the festival. It's with artists that are appreciated and loved in Detroit during Movement. Just the combination of all those guys coming together, it's great!
How did you get into music originally?
I've been DJing for 15 years, more than that actually. I started in 2000 DJing. I was a big local, Toronto DJ as a resident of this nightclub called The Guvernment up here for a long time, from like 2000 until 2008. Then, I had a really big hit on Deadmau5 record label and transferred into an international DJ where I've been traveling and touring pretty much since then, in different cities every weekend. I moved to the US for a while and I recently moved back to Toronto, but I still travel on the weekends and DJ and I throw these parties in different cities around North America. That's basically my story in a nutshell (laughs).
How's things going on in Toronto?
The scene here is popping. Summer is here right now and there's all these wonderful outdoor festivals. There's a lot of really cool stuff that will start to happening now in the Summer but all year round, you can see a big DJ here pretty much any night, any given Friday or Saturday of the weekend. The scene here is really popping. That's kind of why I came back because I like it better here. I traveled around. I lived in Miami. I lived in LA. I just didn't feel like there was any city like this. It was where I wanted to be. It's where I thrive the most too.
The Blu Party happens on Friday, May 27th at the Bleu on 1540 Woodward Ave in Detroit with special guests Christian Martin, Worthy, Gene Farris, The Saunderson Brothers and Landis LaPace.