DJ Tea and Two Sugars is a friend of Amsterdam Vinyl Club and plays regularly at our shows. With a box of guilty pleasures and a spontaneous setlist, he always gets the room jumping!

An interview with DJ Tea and Two Sugars

What are you going to be playing for us at Amsterdam Vinyl Club tonight?
I'm going to mix it up a little bit. There are going to be a lot of different genres. I've got Northern Soul, some disco, some high energy – a little bit of cheesy stuff, you know! Guilty pleasures, that's what I'm about. But it's all positive stuff – for me, that's the best thing about DJing.

Has music always been important to you?
My background is a mixture of Caribbean and South American roots. My dad used to set up a sound system in our street back in Jamaica and played all sorts of music – we'd hear a lot of lovers rock, which is something I'll play tonight. The music was all positive and meant to get people up and dancing and feeling good.

Growing up, I also heard a lot of strong female singers – my mum was into artists like Dusty Springfield, and I like to incorporate that where I can.

How do you choose your records for a DJ set?
I just have a mixture of records and I don't really plan what I'll play. I never think, "I'm going to play this," or "I'm going to play that." I normally just have a crate of records and then I see where it takes me. If you take bolognaise and pasta and you throw it against the wall, then you see what stuff sticks and what doesn't – that's my approach!

Have you been buying vinyl for a long time?
Since I was a kid. The first record I bought was a disco track – 'Knock On Wood' by Amii Stewart. I loved the song when I heard it and ran to a store called Woolworths in the UK – I remember going to the casher and saying, "I'd like to hear that track." But she played the B-side and I was like, “Nope, it's the A-side I want!” But I still have that record all these years later.