Rich Medina is a man of many talents, poetry and music production being just two of them. But contrary to recent trends, which almost insist that a DJ's music making should be high profile, running in tandem with their growth as a DJ, it is primarily for the art of spinning records that Rich Medina is best known. And for good reason; he's truly one of the best.

He has schooled himself in soul, funk, disco and house music, but it is with the dexterity of a hip hop turntablist that he strings his multi-genre sets together.

He has been DJing internationally for two decades, equally at home playing hip hop nights as he is more uptempo disco and house nights. At home, he established a residency Jump N Funk in 2001, North America’s original Afrobeat party, dedicated to Nigerian icon Fela Kuti.

His spoken word poetry has featured on records by the likes of King Britt, Phil Asher, De Lata, Antibalas, IG-Culture and Nathan Haines. As a record producer, he has collaborated with the likes of Jill Scott, J Dilla and Platinum Pied Pipers. He also released an LP, “Connecting the Dots” in 2005, on Dutch label Kindred Spirits.

Originally from New Jersey, he now lives in Philadelphia, a city whose music scene he is fiercely proud of. He attended an "ivy league" university, Cornell University, in Ithica, upstate New York. That's a pretty big deal, his country's equivalent of going to Oxford or Cambridge.

After finishing university he ended up in an extremely high paid job, befitting of his intellect and education, in Philadelphia. Then, he gave it all up to become a DJ.

Words: Mark Dale