• Nightlife Home
• What's On
• Features
• 
• 
• Bookmark this site

Tina Lee speaks with Timabaland's main man, DJ Freestyle Steve

Miami’s Freestyle Steve has quite the resume, having spun at Shaquille O’Neal’s celebrity party, the MTV Video Music Awards, and even at one of Hillary Clinton’s presidential fundraisers. As personal DJ to beats superstar Timbaland – the current ‘it’ producer for any pop-star in search of an insta-hit – Freestyle’s growing popularity has landed him gigs touring alongside Justin Timberlake, and work with artists such as 50 Cent, Madonna, and, er, Shayne Ward.

As a kid, Steve Johnson had his heart set on a football career, but at one high school game he sat next to the school band and the music took him over. Practicing every day, mixing CDs, he went from holding the booths for resident DJs while they took bathroom breaks, to spinning for major NFL and NBA bashes.

Freestyle keeps his sounds fresh by mixing mainstream tracks with classics, giving hip-hop a twist of disco funk accompanied by old school lyrics. Aside from the hype that rubs off from the high-profile company he keeps (halfway during the interview, for instance, he puts this reporter on hold to catch up with Chad Johnson, star wide-receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals NFL team), Freestyle has always been an independent individual, sticking to what he likes no matter the scrutiny.

“I used to do these all black parties, and one time the DJ was looking through my CDs while I was setting up and he pulled out the ‘N Sync album,” says Freestyle. (And this was before Justin went solo.) The DJ wasn’t impressed. “He was like, ‘What the hell is this?’” Freestyle says with laugh. “I gotta play a little bit off everything!”

Fast-forward to the present and now Timbaland – the man who washed the ‘N Sync outta Justin – won’t do a show without Freestyle by his side. The boys – Freestyle, Timbaland, JT and Fiddy – spend so much time together they know each other like brothers.

In a dance-off, Freestyle reckons he’s still got a ways to go before catching up to JT but he would skool both Timbaland and Fiddy. “Timbaland doesn’t dance, he two steps,” he says with a chuckle. “Now, you put Timbaland and Fiddy in a dance-off and that’s a toss-up.” He can picture it – Fiddy would be holding a wad of thousand-dollar bills in one hand and 20 car-keys in the other, while Timbaland, a man of understatement, would have a single million-dollar bill (yeah, we don’t think that exists) in one hand,  and one car key that matches all of Fiddy’s in the other.

And what would Freestyle be holding? He’d have one hand in the air with the other on his headphones while he shows off his moves in and, if you’re lucky, out of the DJ booth.