Whitesquare: It Doesn't Matter If You Are Black Or White

Stephen O'Brien

2011 saw the musical birth of Maurice Uzzan, A.K.A Whitesquare, the born and bred Roman who has been making waves as an upcoming House producer. When composing, he opts for chilled house beats and strong elegant vocal lines, which leaves listeners engrossed. Inspired by the likes of the Prodigy, Whitesquare decided that he would try his hand at DJ’ing, armed with a Discman complete, a DVD player and 2 channel lousy mixers.  Whitesquare had acquired these fairly modest essentials. Equipped with the necessities, a persistent accomplice in the form of a childhood friend and a burning adoration for electronic music, he began his venture into the hectic lifestyle of a DJ.

A search on Google for this DJ may stir a bit of Deja vú, leaving you immersed in the memories of Tech Drawing/graphics, in secondary school surrounded by picture of T-squares. But if you manage to sift through the unrelated searches, you are bound to discover and delve deeper into this Italian gem's house beats. The Whitesquare pseudonym transpired due to a stint of back to back mash-ups and mixes with a friend who had decided to christen the duo ‘The Black Square’. When Maurice  decided that he would solely focus on his own production it went from black to white.

An adolescence full of Soul, Funk and old-school Hip-Hop would attribute to the construction of his signature unique sound. The Prodigy’s Music for the Jilted Generation was the most significant, electronic influence that would go on to affect his career.  Whitesquare over time focused on his own production, in a more serious manner because of this. The results have been simple but great; with international gigs, support from other DJs and getting releases on Ministry of Sound and Noir, while attempting to draw inspiration from old Vinyls.

He described DJ’ing as the process through which he looks to create an atmosphere, while attempting to interact more with the audience rather than simply stringing together a few records: “Now there are too many DJs out there and instead of creating a nice set (warm up - peak - outro) they just drop hits, maybe not the coolest thing anymore…only thing is that some of them should at least learn the basics of this culture”.  Speaking about the future, he seemed very optimistic however, outlining his ambition to start a side project dabbling in some Hip-Hop beats.

With nearly 700,000 views on YouTube, complemented by a rising and vast group of aficionados on Facebook makes him one of the crucial DJs to follow.