As a fond lover of dance music, DJ Filipe grew up listening to funk, soul and disco music, and had subsequently developed a taste for other genres of music. And today, his sound spectrum is a combination of everything he loved and experienced which includes R&B, Hip-Hop, dance/electro pop, as well as various styles of house music (disco, electro, funky and Latin).
DJ Filipe got his first taste of mixing in 1983 at the tender age of 13, and soon enough he started to do mixed tapes out of his bedroom (crossing over different genre of music) which eventually took him to play for various school gigs, private parties and special events, and even a residency at the renowned Green Parrot years later.
The real deal for DJ Filipe started in Canada, where he lived for 13 years. Going by the stage names of “Fresh Fil” and “F-One“, he had played for countless number of parties at numerous venues and clubs around the Greater Vancouver area. He was also part of Poolwest (Canada), a record and DJ pool that connected all DJs in the area with all the major dance music record labels across Canada, US, UK, Germany and the Netherlands. In the mid-1990’s, DJ Filipe was also part of a remix production and radio mix show duo “The Mix Inc.” which produced numerous signature remixes of the 80’s and 90’s cantopop songs under the private label name of “Dinomix”.
Until this day, DJ Filipe is still creating his own style of remixes that are tailor-made for his mixed tape productions and live DJ sets.
== The Full Story ==
Born and raised in Macau, DJ Filipe (also a co-owner of the legendary Bex Café) has always been a fond lover of dance music, thanks to the great influences by his older brothers, Miguel and Vasco, who were both DJ’s as well. Filipe grew up listening to funk, soul and disco music, and the first record he ever played on a turntable was Kurtis Blow’s Kurtis Blow, followed by Lakeside’s Fantastic Voyage. Although today DJ Filipe is primarily associated with the slick sounds of contemporary R&B, Hip Hop and Reggaeton, his history takes in a much broader musical range that includes pop, house, Latin house, trance, and acid jazz.
Now into his 28 years of DJing, Filipe got his first taste of mixing at the young age of 13 when his brother Vasco brought his first pair of Technics turntables (direct-drive with knob-styled pitch control) and a mixer back to his room. And soon enough, Filipe was learning all the DJ skills from his brother and started mixing old school and new genres of music such as New Wave (New Romantics), Eurobeat, and British Jazz-Funk.
In 1984, Filipe had already made his first mixed tape featuring Eurythmics’ Sexcrime (Nineteen Eighty-Four). Working as a team, he and his brother Vasco were asked to play for various school gigs, private parties and other special events playing alongside the greatest DJ’s in the Macau disco scene at the time. His mixing skills and music taste have also evolved in the next few years to come after continuous exchange of ideas and hands-on experiences with other DJ’s.
In 1987, Filipe left Macau to further his studies in Vancouver, Canada, where he continued to DJ for different events and school gigs. Meanwhile, in 1989, he was back to Macau for 4 months and ended up with a residency at the Green Parrot located at the former Hyatt Regency Hotel in Taipa, Macau (now the Regency Hotel).
It was not until 1993 that the real deal started for DJ Filipe when he joined Paradise Entertainment, an events management and production company based in Vancouver, BC, Canada, that acted as an agency for Filipe. Later in the same year, and with the support of Paradise Entertainment, Filipe also joined Poolwest (Canada), a record and DJ pool that connected all DJs in the area with all the major dance music record labels across Canada, US, UK, Germany and the Netherlands.
For the next 7 years, DJ Filipe (going by the stage names of “Fresh Fil” and “F-One“) had played for countless parties at numerous venues and clubs around the Greater Vancouver area, including The Plaza of Nations, Systems, Graceland, Saturn/Mars, Pelican Bay, The Commodore Ballroom, Bar None, Luvaffair, and Viva.
In the mid-1990’s, DJ Filipe also began his studio work in partnership with DJ/Remixer Thomas M.K. Wong (a.k.a. Thomas Deejay) doing remixes of the 80’s and 90’s cantopop songs. Always believing in bridging the two distinct worlds of music, Thomas and Filipe developed a creative approach to put the cantopop (and mandarin pop) tracks onto a “Western dance music format”, which made possible to mix in and out Chinese songs and crossover with English tracks smoothly and seamlessly. The results were also overwhelming: the two DJs ended up doing a weekly live mixed show with their trademark remixes (under the name of a private label “dinomix“) on one of the major Chinese radio stations in Vancouver.
Until this day, DJ Filipe is still creating his own style of remixes that are tailor-made for his live mixed sets.