On a Friday night in January, frigid rush hour commuters hustled down Mass. Ave. in Cambridge’s Central Square as DJ MEZ.WAV’s voice echoed out from an alleyway.
“I wanna welcome y’all to ‘Currents,’” he said, inviting anyone who happened to be listening to his show for the night. “We’re gonna be playing some sleepers, some samples. We’re gonna have some fun. Vibe with me.”
Those who followed the sound were brought face to face with MEZ as he DJed behind a glass storefront. Lit up in red and surrounded by scaffolding and plywood, he was broadcasting live for Central on Air, an online radio station that has been streaming DJ sets 24/7 since last June.
Every weeknight at 5 p.m., a roster of DJs spins tunes live for Central on Air for four hours. During the day, the site reruns recorded sessions. All of them can be queued up on demand through the station’s YouTube channel.
Central on Air is part talent showcase, part act of cultural preservation, bringing in DJs primarily from the Greater Boston area to show off their art.
They perform for free, but according to Herv JeanBaptiste — the host of SILK, a traveling R&B party where MEZ is a resident DJ — this industry isn’t always about the money. “It’s an opportunity,” he explained. “It’s an amazing space, it’s something different.”
As a platform without many public metrics, it isn’t clear how much exposure Central on Air offers DJs. But they still manage to book verified legends like Rich Medina, who performed on Central on Air last summer. It’s crucial, he observed, for there to be spaces where artists can find out who they are.
“If it was the fight game, every champion starts out in a gym that gives them some place to learn how to defend themselves,” he said. “I think [Central on Air] is the same thing. It’s a training ground. It’s an incubator.”
That’s exactly how DJ Baby Indiglo, another SILK R&B resident DJ, sees it. “It allows a lot of freedom and creativity,” she observed about streaming. “Getting an hour, an hour and a half, you can give everybody a little bit of everything. It’s harder to do that in a shorter timespan.”
The station is the brainchild of an otherwise bureaucratic-sounding nonprofit called Central Square Business Improvement District (or the BID for short), which is funded by a voluntary tax on commercial properties in the area. “Our job is really just to maintain and create vibrancy,” explained Erik Sarno, program director for the BID.
His organization is the same one behind the now-shuttered Starlight Square, a temporary performance venue erected in a parking lot during the pandemic. For many neighbors, Starlight Square filled the need for an outdoor gathering and venue space, and, according to Harvard Crimson reporting, hosted more than 300 free events during its four-year lifespan. When the venue’s funding was pulled, it left behind a vacuum and a truckload of audio equipment and scaffolding that Sarno and his team needed to find a home for.
A year later, Central on Air opened in a storefront in the Central Market corridor that, according to Sarno, had been vacant for years. With help from a state grant, the BID took it over and built out the small studio and streaming setup, repurposing the Starlight Square materials and hoping to revive at least part of its spirit.
The station is modeled after dozens of livestreams that became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic. Fans looking to expand their horizons from home tuned into the streams of established DJs like D-Nice and Medina or turned to established channels like The Lot Radio and the recorded sets of YouTube channels like aprtment life and Elevator Music exploded.
Central on Air stands out among these larger platforms as a station dedicated to its locale, embodied by the fact that, even though it broadcasts online, neighbors can walk by anytime they want.
Since its start last summer, BID marketing director Manoucheca Lord estimates there have been upwards of 500 DJs who have played sets. “That just tells you there has been a demand for this,” she said.
For decades, DJs in the area have launched their careers in Central Square clubs, from the late Western Front to current-day hubs like Middlesex Lounge. A beat producer himself, Sarno got his musical start on Brookline Street outside Middle East in 2013 when he handed a CD filled with his beats to the Lawrence rapper Termanology.
The plethora of art spaces and the artists and fans they attract are part of what earned Central Square a cultural district designation from the state in 2012. It’s a distinction meant to preserve historical sites and help attract artists, primarily through grant funding.
Nonetheless, rising rents accelerated by the 2020 pandemic have led to a neighborhood that looks different from even a decade ago. The closure of Starlight Square echoed the loss of many long-standing arts spaces in the area, like Green Street Studios, EMF Studios and Improv Boston. Even storied institutions like the Middle East have faced the possibility of redevelopment.
“Gentrification is a thing,” said Lord. “How do you maintain the culture in a place that’s changing?”
As a music lover and as someone working for the BID, her concern is two-fold. “If you don’t have things happening in the community, it’s not an attractive place to live.”
For its organizers, Central on Air is a potential salve, bringing people together to share in the joys of music. “It’s a chance to not only unite and amplify the local music scene, but also bring global eyes to Central Square,” Sarno said.
As MEZ spun Frank Ocean’s “Nights,” the eyes of a young passerby lit up and they paused to pull out a copy of the record. Looking up briefly from the deck, MEZ broke into a grin.
“My dog got the ‘Blonde’ record outside,” he called out into the mic. “Real recognize real. I’m going to let this play out.”
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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