Hey, DJ!

If you’ve gotten out of the house in the last six months, chances are you were hit with music selected and spun by DJ OttO.

A 30-year-old Honduras native via New Orleans, Otto Orellana has been everywhere of late: Baton Rouge Gallery, Uncommon Thread, the Storyville Fashion Show, Avoyelle’s Café, Chelsea’s Café, the Spanish Moon, The Varsity. You name it. He may have even played a song just for you.

“I’m such a profiler,” Orellana says. “That’s my thing when I DJ. I take notice of certain people and think ‘They might like this.’” When someone he has profiled approaches his station to ask excitedly, “What song is this?” that might be as good as it gets.

As a freestyle DJ he has to keenly gage the crowd response to each track and select his set list from thousands of songs in his formidable collection.

“I grew up with a heavy percussion background, being that I’m from the Caribbean,” he says. “But coming to New Orleans and Louisiana, there is such a rich musical heritage of jazz and horns, with French and African influences. I listen to it all.”

If his tastes run old-school, his execution does not. DJ OttO is completely digital. He scavenges online for new musical treasure, downloads tracks, trades hard drives with other serious musicologists and spins at events using CDJs, compact disc players that function like turntables with adjustable speeds and effects.

As a longtime Baton Rouge resident, Orellana has seen firsthand the resurgence in dance music and its growing popularity among a wide cross-section of the city. His wildly varied bookings are testaments to that. But he wants to push the boundaries even further for what a DJ can be. He has performed with live musicians, and one day soon wants to spin at a gallery show of his own work.

“I like to think of it more like audio design,” says Orellana, who graduated from LSU after studying graphic design and studio art. “I’m not creating it. I’m just picking it out for a certain space and time, a party or art opening. That’s one of my things, I want to break the stereotype of ‘the DJ.’”