Two decades ago, KRizma was working as a promoter for one of the most well known night clubs in New Orleans – Club Ampersand – and serving as the lead promoter for many of the top global DJ’s who played sets there. 

That brought KRizma to numerous after parties, and he used to stand next to the DJ’s he promoted and watch them at work. 

With what he learned, he soon became an in-demand DJ himself, and spent the next several years doing sets at the club he promoted and various parties and other venues before getting married and having kids and putting his music career on hiatus. 

But three months ago, a promoter he used to work with asked him to play at a clothing line party on a rooftop hotel in New Orleans. The experience reinvigorated KRizma enough to end his hiatus and get back into the house music scene. 

“Over the past decade I’ve gravitated more towards that house genre style and then I gravitated even more into a niche with the funky disco retro house beats with girl and guy vocals,” KRizma says. “That’s my niche right now, that’s what I played at this party three months ago and the crowd just absolutely loved it. To the point I was having people give me their business cards asking me to come play at house parties.”

At the performance he also met some promoters from Miami who were eager to bring him down. The experience opened KRizma’s eyes and he’s spent the last few months connecting with promoters and directors of music from clubs, restaurants and hotels around Miami. He even performed a set in South Beach at Bagatelle this summer, and at several parties in New Orleans. 

KRizma’s first love was old school Tampa Bay/Orlando and south Louisiana breakbeat music thanks to his work promoting two iconic breakbeat DJ’s in DJ Trashy and DJ Skyhi at Ampersand. 

“I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s and really fell in love with that old breakbeat music,” he says. “It brought such great energy and passion. People in those areas still gravitate toward that music to this day.”

He gravitated to the evolving genre of house music around 2008 and incorporated electro house, progressive house and indie dance music to his sets after Ampersand house DJ’s Trent Cantrelle and Marshall Monica introduced him to the new styles. 

“It has the same feeling as breakbeat,” he says. “That build up and break off energy, if you will. I still love my old school breakbeat music and I do play that at a certain setting, but for the most part this generation of people where I”m playing, they want to hear more of the house music stuff. Now my portfolio is old school breakbeat music from the mid 90’s all the way through 2012 and then I’ve got a huge vault of house music over the last 15 years that’s really taken precedence.”

KRizma’s mixtapes Rirty Dice Set 1 and KRizma Set 2, both nearly 90 minutes long, are perfect examples of what he’s playing these days.

“It’s mostly electro house, progressive house and indie dance and a lot of it has that retro 80’s disco funky buildup breakoff energy which really is groovy. It’s really good vibe music and it’s a mix of energy and then I bring it down to where it’s more that funky groove. It’s a really good hour and 30 minutes of just great bliss and energy.”

It’s not just the music he enjoys, but the fact that he has the power to choose tracks that are going to invigorate a crowd. 

“It’s a very rewarding feeling to know that you have stuff that you like and you see other people really liking it too,” he says. “That’s what I love, just making people happy and knowing the stuff I like makes people happy.”

KRizma is currently booking new gigs in the New Orleans and Miami areas and is open to performing in other places like Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, Houston, Phoenix and Nashville. 

“Once people hear the music and they hear the set, the word’s going to travel,” KRizma says. 

Make sure to stay connected to KRizma on all platforms for new music, videos and social posts.  

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