MAC & CHEESE is a new DJ collective that provides a platform for up-and-coming producers/DJs to perform to the larger part of Los Angeles and San Francisco. We specialize in the future R&B/hip-hop space and serve free mac & cheese at our shows. (We always say, you can come for the music and stay for the food - or vice versa).

The collective was founded by Yoav Zimmerman and myself - we grew up together in the Bay Area and have been best friends ever since we met in middle school. The name was formulated from when we would go to our friends' house  - Thomas Kenney - and his mom would make us this killer, butter-infused mac & cheese for lunch, every Friday. It was a staple in our childhood so thought it'd be a fun and tasteful way to name the collective. 

We were music kids then too - Yoav played the French horn and I played the trumpet in our middle and high school bands. In college, we both transitioned to the beat making space...it's what everyone was doing. Then Yoav bought a Traktor controller and started to mix songs - I have never used one before so he taught me the way around the Traktor, the knobs, the EQ, the effects, etc, so it wasn't long before I bought my own controller.
Post-college, we were both getting good at mixing. We'd performed at a few house parties but that was it. We posted some mixes on Soundcloud but no one listened to them! At one point, we realized that we wanted to throw a party where we were the DJs, but also put other up-and-coming producer/DJs on the bill to give the entire party more clout. (After all, everything we do is for the clout, duh). We knew we needed a few shows under our belt before we started doing the big parties...

We planned our first show for September 2017 in a pretty small bar in San Francisco. We started reaching out to friends that we knew were producers/DJs and gave them an opportunity to spin whatever genre of music they liked. There were about 7 DJs over the course of the night, with genres from hip-hop to trance - every DJ brought their friends so the bar ended up getting pretty packed. Ultimately, we just wanted to see what our vibe was. And for several shows after that, we were still testing out the waters. In Los Angeles, where I'm running the collective, we were really into funk house/disco music, but found that our "funk house" parties didn't yield a big crowd. 

Some of our main inspirations came from Soulection and Brownies & Lemonade (insert food item & food item = good name apparently) - which were largely hip-hop/trap based. We tried out a few hip hop shows in both SF and LA, and both were super fun energy....who would have thought...?
Starting MAC & CHEESE has given us the opportunity to reach out to some of our favorite new artists and throw a party with them. We're coming off a few shows from 2018 that have been a great success and are super excited to keep the momentum going. We've recently supported Mura Masa and Anna Lunoe, and have featured artists such as DEFFIE, JR Jarris, yugi boi, Lucid Monday, and quickly, quickly.
We thank everyone for their support thus far - we're not selling out arenas or anything, but it means a lot of us that you come out and support us!

Come check out our next show! It's in LA on Friday, January 18th. As it's falling on the weekend of MLK Day, we're donating all door proceeds to the NAACP and ACLU. So please come bring your friends and your ID! 

Check out our Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/mac_and_cheese_official/

-Jon Jon Wong