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He just wants to dance: The celebs' DJ is talking Israel today

2021-09-13T10:15:54.704Z


Nadav Spielman, who is behind the Irish melody in the hit "She Just Wants to Dance", has over time become the unofficial DJ of Israel's best celebrities. About the breakthrough in his career after the transition to the secular world, and what he thinks of singers who enjoy dancing to the sounds of their own songs


On the face of it, Nadav Spielman's story is no different from that of quite a few other DJs in Tel Aviv.

A natural connection to music from an early age, you will absorb class parties, experience on the radio, and from there enter the nightlife and a professional world that is very familiar to those who like to dance people for a living.

So far a pretty standard DJ story.

But in his case he started in the heart of Bnei Brak, with a kippah, tassel and chassidic music at home. 

"I was in a religious kindergarten until the age of five," says Spielman, 33.

"I hear Jewish music, I go to the synagogue every Friday and Saturday with my grandfather. Exactly 180 degrees from my life now. I have always had an attraction for music. "Very dancers. You would listen to them and jump for myself at home. There are the children who would hear 'Hoppa Hi' in the secular world. I would jump at home to Carlebach and be stolen from the music. When I was little I had a dream of being in a Hasidic band. I really wanted to fit into this world."

Spoiler: As already mentioned, Spielman has indeed integrated into a rich musical world, and he is certainly very well known today in his field.

But plans changed a bit when his mother, who had been divorced from his father for several years, fell in love with a secular man from Ramat Aviv.

"Suddenly I find myself not understanding what's going on. I hear music in English, watch MTV and start to understand what I'm actually hearing," he says. 

With Noa Kirl.

Nadav Spielman, PR

Sounds like a culture shock.

Probably for a five year old boy.

"It was completely a culture shock. Within a few months we suddenly moved into an apartment in Tel Aviv. My mother broke up with religion even before we moved, but we stayed to live in Bnei Brak and she raised me in religious education because it was very important to my grandparents. Suddenly I started going to a secular school. "At that time in the nineties, all kinds of Spice Girls played like that. I was exposed to another world. We also stopped keeping kosher. In all respects, it was strange."

As a teenager, you have no remnants of the religious world left in you?

"Not really. On the contrary, we became completely secular. We don't go to synagogue anymore, we don't wear a kippah. I fell in love with the secular world, I felt much more free in it. In the end you are still a child, so you are wrapped in a certain innocence even when you are in the secular world. I still did not understand one hundred percent the madness that goes on in it and the lack of boundaries. But I always had in my heart some affection for this music, for the Hassidic melodies. "In the music I wanted to do here. This music has always remained in my heart. And following this music, I began to hear melodies from the Western world, Irish, Balkan melodies."

With Ilanit Levy and Eliraz Sadeh.

Nadav Polak, PR

The connection between the Jewish and Irish melodies will become critical in Nadav's story.

And maybe even yours, if you have attended celebrations and festive events in recent years.

Because when he has already mixed well in the world of DJs, Spielman will find himself contributing his share to one of the biggest hits that have come out in Israel in the last decade.

"Six years ago I met Doron Medley at a party, and I asked him why there is no Irish melody in an Oriental song, a song by Omar Adam. He showed interest. After a year he calls me and says' Nadav, I am now making an Irish song for Omar Adam and Moshe Peretz, and I want you to help "I had to compose an Irish tune. '

And the result - the Irish riff on which "she just wants to dance" is based, which made the song a hit of the contagious kind and made it an even more well-known name in the industry. 

With Static and Sarit Polak, PR

Today, together with Itai Gallo and Roi Leibowitz, he is one of the owners of the Akisuto company, which makes music for events. His resume over the years includes heating up at Armin van Bjorn's party, absorbing at parties at Artist 17 (even before he reached legal age to buy alcohol), and absorbing in front of tens of thousands of people at mass parties. Occasionally he also records at religious events, but it does not happen much. "It's mostly a religious audience that seeks secular music," he says. "Let's say there is a religious band, and I'm the DJ playing the part of the party. They actually like that a DJ comes from Tel Aviv, it does that for them. There are a lot of really religious types. Each one and his level of faith."

Sometime in this whole story, he also became the unofficial DJ of the celebs.

He played at the wedding of Maya Wertheimer and Assaf Zamir, and that of the newly divorced Yehuda Levy and Shlomit Malka ("I was sad to hear that they were divorcing. They seemed to me to be in love at the highest levels").

And also at the after-party party of Static and Sarit Polak, which was attended only by close friends.

With Maya Wertheimer and Assaf Zamir, PR

"I also played Noa Kirl's 20th birthday a few months ago. She and her guys really like black music from all the years, from Lil 'Wayne to Kendrick Lamar. And there were really all the industry people there. I cheered for all the singers who were there, I played them their songs." .

Isn't there something strange about seeing Noa Kirl and Margie dancing to the sounds of their songs?

"You're watching an extension and it really looks like you're watching MTV. Everyone there is dancing and singing and cheering on each other's songs. You feel like you're watching a clip."

Source: israelhayom

All news articles on 2021-09-13

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