Club Quarantine Goes Viral At Celebrate Brooklyn!

When the pandemic hit last year, D-Nice decided to hit back.  The humble DJ, known to his mom as Derrick Jones, dragged his I-Tunes collection into his Los Angeles living room and began to fashion an Instagram show.  Hoping that Home School At Club Quarantine might offer a musical alternative to lockdown frustration, the first episode, aired on March 19, 2020, drew 250 viewers.  That number would swell to 150,000, including avid fans like the Obamas, Joe Biden and Mark Zuckerberg.  But it was some of his musical brethren that really pushed QC forward.

“I got in touch with him and told him, ‘You’re not just playing music, you’re saving people’s lives,’” Donny Wahlberg says.  “I want to be a part of it with you.”  And so he was—during the weekly marathon Insta Dance Parties right on to the massive Club Quarantine Live—D-Nice With Special Guests show during the final week of this year’s Celebrate Brooklyn! Festival in Prospect Park.  While Jones spun tracks that bounced between R & B classics and Hip-Hop favorites, the busload of guests offered their own flair to the thrill the sellout crowd.  In Wahlberg’s case, that mostly was connecting directly—climbing a stack of speakers on Stage Left and hyping up anyone who would glance his way.  R & B divas new and classic were given their moment—Melba Moore twirling in a blue dress—Stephanie Mills extending “I Never Knew Love Like This Before,” proclaiming, “I’m from Bed-Stuy, Do-Or-Die!” while Estelle, charming as ever, bounced through “American Boy” from both sides of the stage to raucous shouts.

Like his broadcasts, the concert found R & B as it’s soul, but Hip-Hop was it’s heartbeat.  D-Nice joined his old-school DJ collective, “The Originals” (with Clark Kent, Stretch Armstrong and Rich Medina) to cut and scratch.  Up-for-anything host Spice Adams dancing with Destiny’s Child alum LeToya Luckett; Moore grooving on the other side of the stage. Surprise guest Common turned in a muscular, uplifting interlude before the night’s biggest moment.

That belonged, naturally, to D-Nice’s former Boogie Down Productions’ frontman, the loquacious KRS-One.  One of the greatest MCs of his era (another, Big Daddy Kane, was sadly a no-show), using the spotlight to angrily stomp through a well-curated collection of hits and pollical misses.  Celebrate crowds love a hometown headliner, and KRS prowled and spit to thunderous applause.  He couldn’t help himself, though, offering up a backhanded compliment—“When we first started, we used to give D $50 and a pizza for a show,” he snarled, then added, “Look at him now!”

As usual, Jones just rolled with it, and that’s what Club Quarantine Live is all about.  Adversity is there to challenge and overcome.  Moments big and small all are important ( Hezekial Walker, for example, bringing the church to the park for a spiritual singalong).  The virus might not be gone yet, but feel-goods were spread with equal abandon.