Manny Norte

Manny Norte Bio

Manny Norte is labelled "the name you can trust".

You could say Manny was born into the game from a West African musical family growing up listening to High Life, Reggae, Calypso and Pop. Manny started his career as a dancer back in the day, where he used to dance in music videos, college fashion shows and battles.

Manny always had an ear and taste for music which dictated his life. He knew all the tunes that were hot, but never really knew how to execute them in terms of playing them and mixing them. So he would practise mixing, buy records, make mixed tapes, eventually giving them to friends and family for feedback.

Manny also had older cousins who were big in the music management industry looking after well known groups such as The Young Disciples and Dodge City Productions, and moving with well known sound systems such as The Good Times Sound System. So after school and college, Manny used to go to his cousins house which was used as an office as well as a home to look, listen and learn about the goings on in the business.

The early 90s saw a movement called “Rotation” which was a collective of DJs, artists and friends throwing one-off parties in warehouses and school halls just to get a buzz on the London streets. By 1994 “Rotation” had a weekly club night in the world famous club Subterrania, now known as Neighbourhood, in the heart of west London. This club always had the who’s who of the music business and regular clubbers coming down every Friday.

In 1998 “Rotation” won the Mobo award for the best club night in the UK, so from here on there were queues of 100s of people. Manny was involved in this movement from the off in terms of doing the cloakroom, doing the mailing list and guest list etc. After a while he was resident at the club every Friday. From here on Manny had been recognised as one of the country’s top urban DJs spinning hip-hop, r&b, reggae and party classics.

He has travelled to countries like Malaysia, Hong Kong, Sweden, Geneva, Russia, Ghana, Kenya, Barcelona to name a few, as well as to the top other clubs in the UK like Ministry of Sound, Love Dough in Newcastle and Milk and Hip City in Belfast. Finally, Manny Norte won a Mobo Award for the Best Club DJ in the UK in 2004.

The rest they say is history…

Videos