Salva Mixes Up Dance Music and Hip-Hop, Gets Famous

Things have come full circle for the 31-year-old born Paul Salva. He grew up in a Chicago run by rappers Twista and Crucial Conflict. He began DJing, making beats and rapping as a teenager. After graduating from high school, he moved to Miami, Milwaukee and then San Francisco. There were labels and groups that came and went. He worked in record stores and experimented with almost every hip-hop and electronic style you can imagine.

His career blossomed after he arrived in L.A. in early 2011. The move dovetailed with the release of Complex Housing on the similarly nascent Friends of Friends. "Mercy" was merely the tipping point. Before its release, Salva had earned a rep in underground circles as one of the best producers and party-rocking DJs in L.A., while his own label, Frite Nite, is regarded as one of the finest in funk-inflected bass music.

This resume led the British Broadcasting Corporation to offer a prestigious gig as one of the four DJs on BBC1's In New DJs We Trust.

His Odd Furniture EP, slated for release next month on Friends of Friends, blends rap and dance music in a way matched by only a few of his peers.

"It was only last year when I realized that I'm a hip-hop DJ and producer who likes dance music, not the other way around," Salva says. "I want to help draw more rap fans into dance music and vice versa. But that won't be hard because it seems to be happening right now, with or without me."

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