Craig T. Wilson · Sydney
Biography
“Absolutely sublime music which will wash over you like a big, funky disco loofa.”
— MYHOUSE RADIO, NYC
Four generations of music in the blood. A record shop owner for a father. Some paths choose you.
Growing up on George Benson, Herbie Hancock, James Brown, Lou Rawls and Ray Barretto, Soul and Jazz came first. Hip hop and R&B came later, which brought him back full circle to Funk then onto Disco and House. Everything since has been building on it.
Multiple instruments as a kid. Raised in - and later running - the family's musical instrument business. That's why he hears music in layers - bassline, drums, horns - all at once, each on its own channel.
He reads the room's energy and builds every set live in the moment - knowing when to hold, when to build, when to lift.
He came up through the underground bars and clubs of the CBD and Surry Hills in Sydney. In 2011, Soul of Sydney - the collective behind the city's soul, funk and block party scene - threw its first party, and CMAN was on the decks. An original member ever since, a "go-to dance floor filler and mood creator" with "infectious energy and signature funky feel-good sets."
“Sydney's Jazz Funk Bootleg Don, DJ CMAN, brought the house down with a mix that's pure magic. One of our original selectors since 2009.”
— SOUL OF SYDNEY
20+ Years Behind the Decks
100+ venues across Sydney and beyond - hotel lounges and rooftop bars, cocktail bars, design markets, block parties, warehouse parties and festival stages.
Residencies past and present: Opera Bar, Grain Bar at the Four Seasons, Cafe Lounge, Chingalings, Goros, The Clock, The Newport, Play Bar, Quarrymans Rooftop, Civic Hotel, Dicks Hotel and many more.
Festival stages: Vivid Sydney, Sydney Festival, Barangaroo NYE, Sounds of Afrobeats, Yacht Club Social - and official Soulfest DJ in 2014.
International sets: Madrid, Seoul, Shanghai, Guadalajara, Langkawi, Florence, Bali, Phuket, Pai, Vanuatu, Playa del Carmen.
DJ Support: D'Angelo, Maxwell, Roy Ayers, Jeru the Damaja, Eric Benet, Common, De La Soul, Leela James, Mos Def, Anthony Hamilton, Aloe Blacc, Musiq Soulchild, Angie Stone, Eric Lau.
CMAN Edits & Mixes
Top 0.1% of creators on SoundCloud. 8M+ plays across the edits and mixes.
Rotation on the Craig Charles Funk & Soul Show on BBC Radio, LA's Soulection Radio on Apple Music 1, and New York's MyHouse Radio - rated the world's best house station four years running.
The only Australian DJ to guest mix on WEFUNK Radio, with tracks featured across 9 episodes of the show - the DJ's DJ of radio shows, and an entry point for soul, funk and hip hop selectors worldwide. The edits also move through the major DJ record pools - Beat Junkies among them - and into the crates of selectors like Paul Murphy, London's original jazz-dance DJ and founder of Jazz Room Records.
“Best reworking I've heard of what is a classic track.”
— MIKEMCDJ, SOUNDCLOUD
“A must have for any dancefloor!”
— ESAN, SOUNDCLOUD
The Sound
Soul, funk, hip hop, jazz, R&B, disco, house and rare grooves - threaded together, never forced. The crates run deep into African, Latin and Caribbean territory - Afrobeat to Afrobeats, bossa nova, salsa, samba rock - and reach back through jump blues and swing. And when the room wants more familiar ground, the same ear centres the set for the crowd without losing the thread. Deep crates, and a working knowledge of where it all connects - back through funk, jazz and soul to the blues that started everything.