DJ Irwan’s Asian Spin

 Irwan Kartosen’s Asian heritage helped him get his start as a DJ on the Dutch dance club circuit. Now enjoying a packed schedule of gigs, he put down his headphones to talk to Evi Mariani in Amsterdam. 

Through years of experience at dance clubs around the world, DJ Irwan has determined a universal truth about people, regardless of their race, gender or culture. When the time is right, the lights are flashing and the music is thundering to the perfect beat, people, whether they look cool or silly, will get down and move their body.

This is when he knows he has done his job.

"You know a DJ is good when you want to dance even when you think you don’t dance," said Irwan Kartosen.

Irwan was born 26 years ago in Amstelveen, the Netherlands, to a transnational family. His father is a Javanese who grew up in Merauke, Papua, while his mother is of Indian and Dutch East Indies’ Eurasian descent. He was raised in the lowlands of cheese and windmills, naturally taking up the dominant local culture while still maintaining an affinity toward Asia and Indonesia in particular. He speaks Dutch and English more fluently than Indonesian, which he speaks a little.

“First, I feel I’m Dutch. But if queried further, I feel I am Indonesian,” he said.

It was his Asian links that got him started in the business.

"I made my big break at Asian parties here," he said of an event about 11 years ago. "I played for free. The organizers of the party were my brother's friends. They told my brother, ‘OK, your little brother can play for 30 minutes’. But I played for two hours instead, because the next DJ was late.”

Asian parties in the Netherlands, targeted to Asian communities in the country, enjoyed their heyday from the late 1990s to early 2000. During this period, there also were a number of “Indo parties”, where Eurasians and Dutch people of Indonesian descent gathered to have fun.

"I was hired by most Asian parties back then. All over the country there was this Asian party hype. I was hired by most of them, and I think it was because I'm half-Indonesian, Asian."

The parties filled a niche in the community; although many Asian teens were not allowed by their parents to go out to regular clubs, Irwan said they could go to the Asian events.

“I went to the parties with my older brother. Back then everybody wanted to go to Asian parties. So the crowd had serious fun and I liked deejaying for them.”

Now, the only Asian party that regularly hires him is a monthly Asian event called "Santai Party" in Rotterdam. Santai Party is organized by Indonesian-Dutch citizens, and originally drew members of that community. Nowadays there are more Chinese and Vietnamese party-goers.

"I guess I have become too expensive for Asian parties," Irwan said.

In the past three years, Irwan has worked an average of 20 to 25 gigs a month, almost six nights a week, sometimes performing at three venues a night. He is so busy that it is hard to pin him down for an interview. "My girlfriend doesn't like it [his schedule]," he said of his partner of eight years, an Indonesian.

Last year his packed list of gigs took him from the Netherlands to Spain, Singapore, Malaysia and Indonesia, where he played in leading clubs like Dragonfly, Retro and Embassy. He enjoys playing Asian clubs, he said, because the crowd is “not spoiled”.

"I mean, here in the Netherlands, especially in big cities, people can find, say, six good DJs playing at the same night at many clubs. So they can choose. A big DJ is not special any more. While in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur, they hire good DJs like once every two months, so when an international DJ is special for them.

"I find DJs in Asia are OK, but not good. The OK ones, they only play what the crowd wants to hear. For DJs, that's a sure shot, they get nice feedback by doing so. A good DJ does extra. For example, the stuff I do in Asia is different, it’s new for the crowd. Sometimes, I sing. The feedback I get is more enthusiastic," he said.

He has risen in popularity and engagement fees, but he misses the old days of the Asian party circuit.

"I did like it better back then. I earned less, but I liked it better then. It's not about money, but it's about the feeling when you're standing and controlling the music and seeing people react. The crowd had real fun back then," he said, repeating the term "back then" to acknowledge the good old days.

Does he see himself as a good DJ?

"Well, I guess. I don't know. I'm shy, you know," he said with a smile.

He acknowledges there are many DJs ranked above him, in his homeland and abroad. Top of the top is another Dutchman, DJ Tiesto, who visited Jakarta last year and is rated number one in the world. Reebok has a line of shoes in his name.

Irwan's dream to be a better DJ entails producing something on his own.

"A DJ will be well-known when he produces something. I haven't done it. I want to enter the studio by the end of this year," Irwan said.

For now, he is busy making people dance.

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