Salah Ananse does it for the love.
The DJ spoke to rolling out at the 2024 House in the Park in Atlanta about the house music genre and celebrating 20 years of the annual summer event.
What was this year’s House in the Park event like?
Right now, we’re in the later hours. We’ve got Kai Alcé playing on the main stage, and down on the disco stage, we have the one and only Danny Krivit.
It’s an amazing event. Both stages are crowded. Everybody’s enjoying themselves; this is a tremendous opportunity for people to understand how dance music connects to the Black community. We have ViiV sponsoring our stuff. Shouts out to rolling out; they sponsor The Atlanta Weekender. We really love what rolling out is doing for the community. We’re just trying to take this music and galvanize this community so we understand each other and understand this beautiful experience.
How did other artists inspire your merchandise?
We try to connect with people who are music lovers, so the merch is always music-inspired. The great designers are from Blue Node and Verve. We just try to connect people to something solid, something they remember, and make them feel nostalgic because this House music takes you back, and it can also take you forward.
We’re just trying to make a connection, galvanize the community, and also bring young people into what we’re doing. We have a lot of young people here this year, and they’re enjoying it. They’ve come from all over. People come from Europe, Japan, and everywhere to [attend] this party every year. And it’s a beautiful thing. Twenty years of doing this.
What impact did Drake and Beyoncé making house albums have on the genre?
It opened everybody’s ears.
Young people were just tuned into trap. Beyoncé went out of the norm. Drake went out of the norm. Usher went out of the norm. A lot of R&B artists went out of the norm to bring people into dance music. So salute to them because what they did worked. We’re looking out here [at the event], and it’s not just older people; younger people are out here enjoying this experience, and it’s an experience to have.
What are you spinning right now?
A lot of African music. My family comes from Sierra Leone, but I spin a lot of South African music. I spin a lot of Nigerian, Ghanaian and Sierra Leonean music.
We are all just trying to connect communities from Europe to America to Africa to South America. I play Brazilian music. We’re just trying to find ways of connecting.
