DJ Adé – Full Biography
DJ Adé is a selector, cultural historian, and community-rooted artist who channels the energy of underground Black dance music through live sets, curated compilations, and immersive sonic installations. From his earliest days dancing at Boston park jams to his current work in Los Angeles, Adé treats sound as sacred lineage — an act of remembering, a method of movement, and a ritual of return.
Raised in Mattapan after migrating from Ayiti, Adé came of age in an era shaped by immigrant resilience, vinyl crates, and community block parties. A lifelong student of culture and resistance, he began digging for records as a teen, inspired by soul, house, kompa, hip-hop, and global Black expression. The dancefloor wasn’t just where he played — it’s where he studied humanity.
In the 1990s, under the name Eric Neff, he produced reissue compilations for Rhino and MCA Records, including Give Your Body Up: Club Classics & House Foundations, Message from Beat Street, and The Best of One Way. Give Your Body Up received a rare 10/10 from Spin magazine, noted for its masterful sequencing and historical insight.
Adé’s work has also extended into immersive sound practice, most recently through CongoSonic, a diasporic collaboration bridging Haitian, Congolese, and Black American soundscapes.
Now as DJ Adé, he blends deep house, Afrobeat, gospel, broken beat, soulful edits, and late-night disco into sets that are portals — rooted in ancestral memory and lit with future vision. He co-creates events like Utopia, Dirty Disco, and Nũ-DEI, holding space for collective release and sonic healing.
Beyond the booth, Adé is the founder of Ride On! Bike Shop/Co-Op, a social enterprise that champions mobility justice and community ownership in South LA. For him, movement is sacred — whether on the pedals or in the booth.
At heart, DJ Adé is a ritualist. A bridge. A reminder that music, when held with care, can heal and transform.
Contact:
www.omoade.com
ade@omoade.com
Los Angeles, CA
Brand Values Manifesto
Sound is Ceremony
- Human First, Artist Always: The music matters — but the way I show up as a man matters more.
- Liberation Through Rhythm: Dance is freedom. My mission is to move bodies while unlocking hearts.
- Community Over Celebrity: I’m not here to be famous. I’m here to be of service — to moments, movements, and the people in the room.
- Presence > Perfection: I don't need to be flawless. I need to be felt. Realness always wins.
- Reverence for Ancestry: Every beat I drop is a thread in a lineage — from Ayiti, to Mattapan, to Leimert, to the stars.