courtesy | Chris 'Sauce' Sauceda DJ JJ Lopez spins with mixers, M3Ds, needles and a stack of vinyl records — no laptop full of MP3s here. He grew up on Kool and the Gang and Herbie Hancock.

HE IS: DJ JJ Lopez, 33

THE SOUND: Soul, funk, disco and boogie. At a typical gig, Lopez will spin James Brown, Jamiroquai, Curtis Mayfield and Joey Negro's Sunburst Band, a contemporary British group that creates disco-infused house music.

THE GEAR: A Urie mixer, two Technic M3Ds, Stanton 680 HP needles and a stack of vinyl records. You won't see him with a laptop stocked with MP3s. “I try to keep it as simple as possible,” Lopez said.

HIS WORDS: Lopez grew up listening to Kool and the Gang and Herbie Hancock, before dance music moved into the electronic realm in the 1980s. “It was the last of the bands that jammed to dance music,” he said. “It's still raw, it's still musicians, yet they're playing dance music.” Lopez also appreciates the message in the music of that time period. “The whole hippie love thing was very much still resonating. I think unification was a theme, I think brotherly love was a theme. I try my hardest in everything that I play to express that and leave that in the air.”

WHERE TO SEE HIM: At the Battle of the Alamo IV, a statewide break dance competition on Saturday, Sept. 1, at Semeneya Ballroom, 2899 N.W. Loop 410. He spins with DJ Chacho First Fridays at the Revolution Room. Lopez also has a new radio show, “The Diggin' Deep Soul Shakedown,” from 1 to 3 p.m. Saturdays on Trinity University's KRTU 91.7 FM.

THE WEB: myspace.com/jjlopezakasoulboy74

THE 210 TAKE: Lopez helped popularize house disco in San Antonio and was a resident DJ at the now-defunct Davenport on Houston Street. He also helped found the diggindeepquartet with Prince Klassen, DJ Gibb and Sean G to educate others on funk, jazz and soul dance music. “We wanted to preserve the music locally because no one else is doing it,” he said. “To preserve DJ culture and preserve vinyl culture as best we could.” On Tuesdays, he and Sean G volunteer their talents for Youth Advocates, a nonprofit organization that teaches kids to break dance as an alternative to doing drugs or engaging in other destructive behavior. A music business student at San Antonio College, Lopez wants one day to teach the history and evolution of soul music and dance culture at the university level. “Ultimately, I would be a very happy person doing that,” he said. “Until then, we try to DJ our ass off.”

Jessica Belasco | 210SA contributor