Mo Chaudry: Farewell to Ibiza's force of nature

The recent sudden death of Ibiza promoter and good friend of Mixmag Mo Chaudry has shocked the dance music world.

There’s been an outpouring of love, grief and sadness from DJs, friends and colleagues whose lives were enriched in someway by Mo’s eternal energy and cheeky scouse streetwise charm. Tributes to this colossus and catalyst of the Ibiza club scene were led by Armin van Buuren, who told us: "I’m shocked about the news of the passing of a good friend. I’ll always cherish the memories. Thank you for everything you've done for me and Ibiza."

After graduating from Liverpool John Moores University, Mo’s media degree led to him getting some experience working for the BBC. But it was the knowledge he gained at dancefloor level at Bootle rave venue Quadrant Park in the early ‘90s which proved the most useful. Inevitably, like so many of the rave generation, he was drawn to the ‘Isle of Dance’ and arrived in the early summer of 1998, to work as a PR for Cream.

A statement from the club reads: “When we needed a leader to run our nights in Ibiza he was the obvious choice. Through his natural charm, charisma and professionalism he helped build the brand.” When a young Berlin-based trance DJ landed in Ibiza for the first time in 1999, it was Mo who took him under his wing and filled him with confidence; still a resident of Cream Ibiza 17 years on, Paul Van Dyk takes up the story: “It was my first time on the White Island playing for Cream. Mo took the UK event brand concept and really established it as one of Ibiza’s biggest dance nights”. Above & Beyond tell a similar story: “Mo was the first promoter we ever worked with in Ibiza and we’re still with Cream all these years later.”

Paul agrees: “Mo was significantly responsible for its success due to a deep understanding and love for our music and scene. He treated every guest and DJ like a friend, making sure they had a great time and safe party.”

This is an epitaph any party organizer would be proud of. As another long standing friend of Mo, Judge Jules, pointed out, living in Ibiza while remaining successful and sane isn’t easy. “It takes a special type of person, full of drive and charisma to win the respect of the locals and act as the driving force behind such giants of global club culture – he will be greatly missed.”

One of Mo’s survival secrets was to refuse to play the status game. Equally at home in a superclub VIP section surrounded by the higher echelon’s of club royalty or sharing a spliff with a penniless artist at a hippie gathering in the hills. Like the island he lit up, Mo was a contradiction; on one hand promoting big name nights in superclubs for the planet’s biggest brands, while at the same time organising parties, with the aim of raising consciousness and spirituality rather than revenue.

Very much an old-skool club promoter (he would often describe himself as a street fighter), Mo preferred to work his magic face-to-face rather than with corporate jargon-infested conference calls and endless round robin emails. His texts reflected a staccato steam-of-consciousness; brief call-to-action cluster bombs of exclamation marks to express his heartfelt conviction in the matter under discussion.

When Mo walked into a room everyone noticed. His entrances were memorable; he wandered in everywhere like he owned the place, halting to slowly survey those present like a fearless Eagle or Eric Cantona after scoring that goal (a comparison he wouldn’t be happy with given the Liverpool Football Club blood running through his veins – sorry Mo). Some mistook this as arrogance. It wasn’t – it was pride.

Like any Pakistani youth growing up in the late 1970s, Mo encountered racism and bigotry on a daily basis which he refused to be defined by or prevent him from immersing himself in the culture which fed his passions; football and punk rock. As one of the few non-white punks, he would hitch hike and bunk trains around the country, following bands like The Clash and Dead Kennedys as they toured the UK.

Forever dreaming and scheming, Mo’s restless energy could be relied on to keep Ibiza on its white sandy toes. His optimism was such that he refused to be talked out of any idea he believed would work. Usually, he was right: who else could get Paul van Dyk to play a pool party at Kanya for free? Or reopen a forgotten basement in San Antonio and have queues around the block? Or take on Cocoon on Monday night, as he did with Onyx at Space last year? Mo was a fearless operator whose will was often the sole reason the clubs he ran survived and grew. Other times his vision was too much – even for Ibiza. He dreamed of establishing an annual extreme sports event (complete with real snow, naturally) to attract a different market to the island in early May. He rented a fairground and planned to create an open-air ‘fan zone’ with huge screens so people could enjoy Euro 2016 beneath the stars. Recently he was involved in planning the Rise Up Ibiza festival to promote world peace and unity and had plans and ideas far too numerous to list here.

He loved to observe how people behaved and greatly enjoyed observing and playing his part in the annual superclub merry-go-round; a crafty corporate clubland chess game which, more often than not, would play out just as he predicted it would. He could read Ibiza like no one else.