Cassidy Durango Milton Willy Podell (born 1981), better known as DJ Cassidy, is a New York DJ. With his 24-carat-gold microphone, boaters, cricket sweaters, bow ties and color-blocked tuxedos, Cassidy is known for his work at celebrity functions, including the 50th birthday party and 2009 inauguration of President Barack Obama, and the 2008 wedding of Beyoncé and Jay-Z.
His début album, Paradise Royale, is finished and awaiting its release. It was announced for a summer 2014 release but (as of June 2015) is yet to be released.Born in New York's Upper East Side, Cassidy is the son of Jonny Podell, the music agent.
Interested in deejaying from an early age, Cassidy describes himself as a "hip-hop kid". For his tenth birthday, he asked his parents for two turntables and a mixer, and began working at teenage parties, school carnivals, talent shows.
In his senior year at high school, he began working in nightclubs. In 1999 he began his undergraduate studies at George Washington University, then transferred to New York University, graduating in sociology in 2003.
Cassidy was discovered by Sean "Diddy" Combs while working the 10–4 night shift in the basement of Lotus, a club in Manhattan. Combs wrote his phone number on a napkin and asked Cassidy to call him, which led to invitations to work at Grammy parties and the MTV Video Music Awards.
As of 2011, according to Forbes, Cassidy was performing 200 gigs a year, sometimes earning $100,000 a night. He has worked at parties hosted by Oprah Winfrey and Anna Wintour, and at the weddings of Beyoncé, Jennifer Lopez and Kim Kardashian.
After he worked at the opening party in 2009 for Oprah Winfrey's girls' school in South Africa, she recommended him to the Obamas. He worked at President Obama's first inauguration ball in 2009, the president's and Michelle Obama's 50th birthdays, and at the 2012 Democratic National Convention.
Nile Rodgers of Chic is one of 22 musicians from the 1978–1982 period featured on Paradise Royale.Cassidy's forthcoming first album, Paradise Royale, will be released by Columbia Records, and aims to "bring back the greatest and most universal dance music of all time," with new material that captures the architecture of 1978–1982 dance music.
Cassidy has brought together a 14-piece string section and 22 of the world's most notable musicians from that period. There are no covers and there is no sampling.In preparation for Paradise Royale, Cassidy created an iTunes playlist of 25 songs recorded between 1978 and 1982, then set about researching how to make his music sound like those songs.
He realized that the producers had repeatedly used the same musicians to create the sound. Those are the musicians he recruited for Paradise Royale.They include Nile Rodgers of Chic; Ray Parker Jr., who worked with Stevie Wonder and Barry White; Jerry Hey, who arranged Michael Jackson's horns and string sections; Philip Bailey, Verdine White and Larry Dunn of Earth, Wind and Fire; Robert "Kool" Bell of Kool & the Gang; and Patrice Rushen.
The album will also feature Mary J. Blige, Chromeo, Estelle ("When the Stars Come Out"), Melanie Fiona, CeeLo Green ("Light Up the Night"), R. Kelly, John Legend, Ne-Yo, Kelly Rowland, Passion Pit and Usher.
Cassidy asked the musicians on Paradise Royale to use the same instruments as in their late 70s/early 80s hits. On Calling All Hearts, Nile Rodgers is playing the same guitar as on Chic's Good Times and Sister Sledge's We Are Family, and on Make The World Go Round, Ndugu Chancler uses the same drums as on Michael Jackson's Billie Jean.
