I got to know DJ Baba, also known as Martijn van Langen, through my love. One of their common and longtime friends slash colleague DJ/producer worked as a social worker in a youth centre in Beverwijk. He had set up a DJ class. To finish the season he had organized a DJ contest, for which he needed judges. My significant other, being a very experienced DJ, as well as Martijn, accepted the honor.

After meeting Martijn, it was pretty soon obvious that we got along, despite our rather different tastes in dance genres. He prefers the hard-style, oldskool vibe, enormously up-tempo, while I prefer a little less BPM and more audible layers.

Designated driver

That night I was the designated driver home. My sons and their stepfather in the backseat and Martijn sitting next to me. I had a plan, I had the whole route set out in my mind. Which didn’t work of course when road-works forced me to snap out of it and adapt to plan B. I can do it, but I do need a minute to adjust. My partner isn’t the most patient person though, so Martijn got a glimpse of a relational car quibble that bore a lot of resemblance to the car quarrels my parents had thirty years ago. And they didn’t have navigation systems, like we do. Thank god for GoogleMaps (hate myself for saying this!) But yeah, because of good wifi and GM efficient services, we snapped out of the irritation zone pretty soon and Martijn’s first impression of me was hopefully within acceptable limits.

That same evening I also discovered that Martijn  has been around in the dance scene for quite a long time. Interesting for my segment My First Gig., which was originally realized on July 18th 2014. The Dutch version is available here.

Martijn and I have remained friends. I guess he understood the car stress. Kidding. Apart from our love for good food we share mutual respect and a good vibe. What else would we want or need?