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When DJ Chaach was first learning how to spin records in the ’90s, he was taught by a supportive community back in New York. As he established himself in Portland starting in 2009, Chaach spun cumbia, salsa and Cubaton records on dance floors dominated by dubstep.
“I was dead set on having all these white people dance to Brown people music,” he says.
Chaach is part of the fourth wave of DJs, having learned from people who only spun vinyl. He came up at a time when technology was just starting to allow digital music to be played on turntables.
“It revolutionized everything,” he says. “That’s why every single person I know is a DJ now. When I was a kid, nobody was.”
Trump’s first term got Chaach interested in keeping the vibes right in politics. U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) hired Chaach to DJ an event, as have politically oriented organizations like the farmworkers advocacy group Pineros y Campesinos Unidos del Noroeste. Chaach got his start in music education teaching kids how to use the software program Ableton. He started a DJ open-mic night at Night Light Lounge that ran 2018 to 2019 and inspired other DJs to host similar events.
After taking a few years off from the event when Night Light closed during the pandemic, Chaach has recently restarted his open-mic DJ series at Afterlife (3632 SE Hawthorne Blvd., afterlifepdx.bar). On the last Thursday of each month, DJs of all experience levels just need to be able to connect their music to the bar’s turntables, and they can play anything they want. Chaach has been known to help anyone who shows enough potential to get stage time at White Owl Social Club, even if he’s unfamiliar with them.
“Almost all our people are unbelievably talented, unbelievably brave, also very hungry to get heard, even if it’s going to be heard [by] seven to 30 people,” Chaach says. “I gave five DJs their first gigs at White Owl, and they’re so excited to see this giant sound equipment for 200 people, and it made me remember this is what the people in New York did for me. That’s the way to pay it forward.”
See the rest of Willamette Week’s Best of Portland 2025 here!
