WGR Community Forum

# DJ Nitro – New Monkey / North East Makina DJ Another DJ whose name regularly appears when digging through the surviving recordings of Sunderland's **New Monkey** is: # DJ Nitro For people who collected Monkey tapes and CDs during the 2000s, Nitro's name will be familiar. His surviving sets put him alongside MCs including: **MC Stompin MC Ace MC Trance MC Impulse MC Scotty Jay MC Rocking MC Lyric** and others. ## The New Monkey By the early 2000s, the New Monkey had developed its unmistakable combination of **fast Makina and North East MCing**. DJ Nitro was part of that period. Old recordings are particularly valuable because they allow us to document exactly who was performing together instead of relying purely on memories from more than twenty years ago. And there is plenty of surviving Nitro material. ## Halloween 2003 One preserved release comes from: **25 October 2003** and is labelled: **Halloween Pt. 02 – DJ Nitro** with: **MC Ace MC Trance MC Effect MC Stompin** The recording has since been preserved through the official New Monkey digital catalogue. That's a great snapshot of the Monkey during one of its busiest periods. ## DJ Nitro & MC Stompin One of the combinations particularly associated with Nitro is: # DJ Nitro & MC Stompin A preserved recording from **10 January 2004** is officially released as: **DJ Nitro & MC Stompin – 10th January 2004** Stompin's rapid North East delivery over Nitro's Makina selections is exactly the type of DJ/MC combination that made New Monkey recordings so distinctive. ## Halloween 2004 Another major surviving recording is: # Halloween 2004 – MC Stompin & DJ Nitro The complete release runs for around **43 minutes across 13 sections** and was later issued digitally through the New Monkey catalogue. This is one of the easiest Nitro recordings for people researching the scene today to identify. More than twenty years after the original rave, the set is still available. ## Nitro's Records Were Being Discussed Online There's also excellent contemporary evidence showing people were listening closely to Nitro's sets at the time. In **December 2004**, users on HappyHardcore.com were trying to identify a record heard in a **New Monkey DJ Nitro mix**. One poster identified it as **MS Klang – “Whatever”**, while another discussed the Ruboy mix of Groove DJs' “Emisphere” that Nitro apparently mixed with it. The discussion also directed people towards the old **UltimateBuzz** forums and shop to find the records. That's a brilliant little piece of rave history. People weren't using Shazam. They were hearing tunes on Monkey tapes, going onto rave forums and asking other ravers: **“What's this tune?”** ## Nitro, Stompin, Impulse & Scotty Jay Nitro can still be traced at the New Monkey in **2006**. A surviving recording dated **14 January 2006** is labelled: **DJ Nitro** with: **MC Stompin B2B MC Impulse & MC Scotty J** The surviving upload has attracted tens of thousands of views, demonstrating how these old Monkey recordings continued finding audiences years after the club era. ## Rocking, Lyric & Stompin Another surviving New Monkey recording brings Nitro together with: **MC Rocking MC Lyric MC Stompin** Again, this connects Nitro with several different generations and combinations of Monkey MCs. ## Nitro, Tazo & Turbo D There's also a surviving recording labelled: **The New Monkey – DJ Nitro, Konik & Maxter – MC Tazo & Turbo-D** providing another connection between Nitro and two major MCs from the classic North East Makina scene. ## The DJ Behind the MCs The MCs often became the voices people remembered. But underneath those rhymes was the DJ. Nitro was selecting and mixing the records that gave the MCs somewhere to perform. The sound could move between: **Spanish Makina Italian dance Hard trance Hardcore Fast European rave** and the North East MCs transformed those instrumental records into something immediately recognisable as the Monkey sound. ## From Tape to the Internet Nitro's recordings also demonstrate how the preservation of North East rave culture has changed. Originally people heard these sets through: **Tapes Copied tapes CD packs** Later they appeared as: **MP3 files YouTube uploads SoundCloud mixes** And eventually some of the original New Monkey material received official digital releases on streaming platforms. Without that process, many of these performances could easily have disappeared. ## Part of the Classic Monkey Era DJ Nitro deserves his place in the WGR archive because there is clear surviving evidence of his involvement throughout the classic 2000s New Monkey period. We can document him in: **2003 2004 2006** and across recordings featuring numerous established North East MCs. Rather than being remembered from a single isolated tape, Nitro appears repeatedly across the surviving archive. ## More Information Needed There's still more we'd like to establish about DJ Nitro himself. At the moment, we haven't found a sufficiently reliable source confirming his: **Real name Exact hometown When he first started DJing** Rather than fill those gaps with information from old comments or assumptions, we'll leave them open until better evidence turns up. That's what the WGR archive is about: **preserving what we can prove and asking the people who were there to help fill in the rest.** --- # Do You Remember DJ Nitro? Did you see **DJ Nitro at the New Monkey**? Did you own the **Nitro & Stompin** recordings? Were you there for Halloween 2003 or Halloween 2004? Have you still got any: **DJ Nitro tapes New Monkey CDs Flyers Photographs Videos Tracklists Posters Tickets Old UltimateBuzz pages** hidden away? Post them below. Even an old tracklist or photograph could help us fill another gap in the history of the North East Makina scene. **Weedy Garage Radio – Keeping North East Rave History Alive.**