MATTHEW REATE / ABOUT
About
Where the taste came from, what's on the shelf, and what a working day looks like from the booth.
I'm a record collector who DJs weddings — about forty-five a year, mostly New York and the wider Northeast.
Origin
Where the taste started
The radio station was Magic 92.5 in San Diego. I grew up there in the 90s and early 2000s, and the segment that did it was The 5 o'clock Boogie — soul, funk, disco, the warm end of R&B. Most of what I still pull at a wedding traces back to that hour.
The other moment was a Supertramp record on my mom's shelf. Cinematic poetry with pop-rock intuition. It was the first time I noticed an album was making decisions — that records were composed all the way through, not just stacked tracks.
Everything since has been chasing both of those: the warmth of a 5 o'clock radio set and the architecture of a side-A/side-B record.
Pillars
What I draw from
Six families, none of them mutually exclusive. These are the artists I reach for first.
Soul — Otis Redding, Teddy Pendergrass, Marvin Gaye.
Funk — Sly & The Family Stone, Fatback Band, Jamiroquai.
Jazz — Bob James, Grover Washington Jr., Dorothy Ashby, Cortex, The Blackbyrds, Donald Byrd, Eddie Harris, Lonnie Smith.
Rare groove — Starvue, Poncho C. Saint Fingers (“When I Come Knocking,” the holy grail with the underwater octave), High Fashion, Magic Circle Band, Tommy McGee, Jimmy Ross.
Disco — Donna Summer, Cerrone, Earth, Wind & Fire, Salsoul almost across the board, Sister Sledge, Sylvester, Chic, Kashif, Evelyn “Champagne” King, The Whispers.
Global cuts — Letta Mbulu, Mina, Kiki Gyan, Oby Onyioha.
Influences
What else shapes this
Records aren't the only thing. The list below is honest, not curated for the page.
Labels and archives — Athens of the North, Numero Group, Awesome Tapes from Africa, Jazz Dispensary.
Voices I keep returning to — Rick Rubin (people tell me my voice sounds oddly similar), Werner Herzog, Ken Burns, Paul Thomas Anderson, Chopin, Bernie Sanders, Julia Child, Anthony Bourdain.
Shelf
Where this lives
Around five thousand records, mostly in the dining room. Overflow in the basement. Jazz-funk and global cuts get the top shelf because that's what I reach for when I'm cooking dinner or trying to focus on something else — music that holds the room without asking for attention. The digital library is mostly FLAC. I'm a file snob.
A working day
What it actually looks like from the booth
Two hours before guests is when I get there. Most gigs are in the city, so half the day is the commute. Load-in is a tight, battery-powered mobile rig I built specifically to fit in a Nissan Leaf — black-on-black professional gear, no logos, no frills. The kit is small enough that NYC parking stops being an excuse, which is part of why I can take Manhattan and Brooklyn weddings other DJs avoid. I like working in the city.
Soundcheck is two passes. First, I play through every cued moment — first dance, processional, recessional, parent dances — to confirm timing and key. Then I run a few records I know cold (“I Feel Love” usually) to hear how the room actually behaves before guests arrive. Mic check, wired backup mic standing by, ceremony rig set.
The room turns on for me once ceremony guests start coming in. By then I've already built three or four contingency setlists for every phase — that's an ADHD-driven prep habit, and it's what gets me to autopilot on the day. What most couples don't notice is that I'm matching key and BPM through every transition, prelude through last dance. They feel it without knowing it. I care about not redlining and keeping levels right for the room I'm actually in, not the room I imagined.
Saturdays usually belong to my family — they walk into town for lunch, gymnastics in the morning. I'm at the booth.
Not for me
What I don't do
If you're thinking dancing-on-the-clouds or CO2 cannons, I'm probably not your guy.
Booked through Non-Traditional Wedding DJs.
Every wedding I play is booked and handled by NTW. To check a date or start a booking, reach the team: