Kid Kameleon is DJ, promoter, writer, blogger, and fan whose tastes, sets and styles have run the full spectrum of music for the past 10 years. No one genre can contain him, and as soon as you’ve got him pegged he flips the script on you, taking audiences on a ride that fluidly covers most genres of dance music from the last 30 years.

Kameleon’s identity as a DJ was formed listening to the New Science Experience on WXYC in his native Chapel Hill, NC in the mid 90s, as well as several trips to the UK in his formative musical years. College and beyond took him to the Northeast, where he took up DJing on Wesleyan’s WESU, and spent summers in New York forging connections with the Soundlab Crew. The resonances of the Illbient sound and style pioneered by DJ Spooky, Singe, Verb, and the Soundlab crew (I Sound, Critereon of Broklyn Beats, and Badawi, among others) found its way deep into Kameleon’s music, and by 19 he was mashing up jungle, hip-hop, trip-hop, dancehall, techno and ambient in his sets. The collective Soundlab mentality of doing shows that fused different music styles with video and art in disused/repurposed urban space remain strong in the Kid’s ethos, and he continues to work in the style with his current collaborators. Soundlab days saw him doing shows and playing with artists such as Spooky (form whom he work directly for a few years), U-Roy, Kool Herc, Alec Empire, Richie Devine, Dizzee Rascal, Peanut Butter Wolf, and Squarepusher, to name a few.

A move to San Francisco in 2004 brought a slight shift in The Kid’s collaborative partners and a widening of the sonic palette. A follower of dubstep since 2001, Kameleon was one of the first people in the US to champion the post-jungle fusion of deep, dubby subs, bone-rattling snares, echo-for-days and the half-tempo/full tempo switch up that’s currently on everyone’s tongue. At the same time, as a blogger he explored both old sounds (Baltimore club and it’s current infectious incarnations) and new (such as the Blog/Fidget house of Sinden and Passions). He also chronicles new singles, EPs, albums and artists for his monthly column Basic Needs for XLR8R. He has contributed major pieces on Dubstep, Breakcore, and 8-Bit scenes, as well as artists like Disrupt, The Bug, Al Haca, Dolphin and Teknoist, and Ghislain Porier among others to XLR8R. A two year stint for a Master’s degree at Berkeley’s School of Information took the Kid in a complimentary direction as he explored information theory as it applied to music and musicians, as well as new forms of musical communication such as Myspace and blogs. He wrote his thesis on an idea to monetize file-sharing on behalf of artists.

As a performer, his eclectic mixing style has seen him playing alongside a wide range of artists over the years, including: Asian Dub Foundation, Vex’d, Plastician, Flosstradamus, Total Science, Storm. Automator, Kode 9, Pole, Badawi, Matmos, Ghislain Poirier, Maga Bo, Kid 606, Drop the Lime, Mathhead, The Bug and Warrior Queen, Daddy Freddy, Matthew Dear, Todosantos, Joe Nice, Curtis Chip, DJ C, DJ Flack, WayneandWax, and Ripley. He has headlined shows in over 20 countries and on 4 European tours. He has created over forty mixes across the musical spectrum, included the much lauded Absolutely Shocking and Even More Shocking mixes for Shockout, Mashers without Borders for Mashit, Aim High and Aim Low for Mashit and Spannered, respectively, two podcasts for XLR8R, and the If Only I Could Dream tribute to Peiter K.

Most recently, Kid Kameleon has helped engineer the highly successful Surya Dub Club night at Club Six in San Francisco with Maneesh the Twister, Kush Arora, Ripley, Ross Hogg, DJ Neta, Jimmy Love and DJ Amar. An expression of his aesthetic, the night blends hip-hop, dancehall, dub, dubstep, ragga, global beats and all forms of club music, and boasts one of San Francisco’s most diverse crowds. Headliners have included Flying Lotus, dj /rupture, Dub Gabriel, the Sub Swara crew, Eskmo and many others. Surya Dub won the SF Weekly’s award for Best Club Night in 2007, and its most recent accolade was the SF Bay Guardian’s award for “Best Ambassadors of Dread Bass,” and award he and the crew wear proudly.

Above all, Kid Kameleon is a conduit, fusing beats from past, present and future though his mixes, forging connections between producers, DJs and fans through his events, and linking scenes and styles from across the globe through his words. A high energy performer never at a loss for an unexpected tune to drop, when the Kid plays he has bartenders dancing on their own bars, lovers doing the bump and grind, smiles on every face and shouts in every throat. Check out Kidkameleon.com for his blog, or find him at Myspace.com/kidkameleon, but make sure to come with an open mind and an appetite for bass!