How one DJ became the driving force behind the Latin music movement in the South……….
At Mercedes-Benz Stadium, it’s game day. World Cup champion Thiago Almada exits the Atlanta United FC bus. Before going directly to the DJ booth, he shakes hands with the audience and signs a few autographs. DJ EU, also known as Eumir Gutierrez, has been motivating the crowd outside the stadium by fusing classic Bad Bunny tracks with classic Atlanta hip-hop tunes.
A warm embrace, a firm handshake, and their mutual camaraderie serve as examples of DJ EU’s interactions with the athletes and his function as a team member.
DJ EU was rearranging playlists at college parties about twenty years ago. The hope was that the abilities he had been honing at home would be useful if one of the resident DJs at the club didn’t show up when he was running wires for other DJs in the city sixteen years prior. He is now performing in front of the league’s largest soccer home crowd, which on this particular day was 71,635 and included the 2018 MLS Cup victors.
Gutierrez, who was named after a Brazilian musician and was born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, spent his childhood performing classical music in his high school band.
His older sister, Yasiris Gutierrez, claims that “music is in his veins.” At one time, “he even dreamed of becoming a rock star back home.”
When Gutierrez reached 18, he relocated to Atlanta. Gutierrez attended Georgia Perimeter College with the intention of becoming a mechanical engineer. He developed the urge to use music to establish the tone at gatherings there.
While still a student and working a part-time job at a Verizon Wireless store, Gutierrez spent $2,500 on his first turntable while playing around with playlists. He quickly secured a position in promotions at the Spanish radio stations of Clear Channel. Gutierrez traveled the city from club to club as part of his job, running cables to assist other DJs in live broadcasts promoting Atlanta’s Latin nightlife.
However, in the South in 2008, “Latin nightlife” was a highly specific term.
DJ pioneers like King Tito, Fernando Fernandez, and Carlito Nova had already been paving the road and opening doors. However, in Atlanta, Latin music could only be heard in tiny back rooms of clubs, in particular areas of the city’s outskirts, or in shopping malls at Latin eateries that stayed open late.
The types of music were as hard to find as the places. Latin music usually meant regional Mexican, bachata, and merengue nights. DJ EU claims that “club owners were afraid to let me play anything else.” The crowd frequently rejected it because “they said it wouldn’t work.”
According to Randall Ruiz, better known by his stage name DJ Nica, “kids like me who were raised on their parents’ Latin music, and then went to school and listened to mainstream and other genres in English, we lived in between both worlds.” “Just salsa wasn’t enough for us. We desired a smattering of everything.