Last summer, Chicago radio figure Julian 'Jumpin' Perez announced his bid for alderman of the 26th Ward.The veteran house-music DJ knows how to make people dance, but can he inspire them to vote? | ✍️ imLeor
Perez for 26th Ward alderperson. He’s received one other big endorsement: the Chicago Fraternal Order of Police.
Perez often attended a teen night at a disco in Addison called the Galaxy, where he befriended the DJ who ran the party. “When he went to college, I took over as the resident DJ there,” he says. “So Sunday nights we would pack in 700, 800 kids.” At age 17, Perez began his radio career at WRRG, the station for Triton College in River Grove.
“I was lucky enough to win the battle, and that got me on the radio,” Perez says. “I think I’ve been the only one in Chicago radio that had to win a spot to be a mixer. Most of the guys were handpicked.” Perez also parlayed his DJ career into several businesses, including a chain of record shops called Jumpin Musik. “I’m an entrepreneur,” he says. “I’ve had 17 different businesses since I was a kid. I had a restaurant. I had two magazines—a bar magazine and a kids’ sports magazine. I had a salon and spa. I had 16 different locations of Jumpin Musik retail outlets. I started my own mortgage company; I started a real estate company. I’ve had two nightclubs.
Carlos Claudio is a lawyer who works as deputy general counsel for the Clerk of the Circuit Court of Cook County. He was 16 when he saw Perez spin for the first time, on the tennis courts at Humboldt Park. “I like to say I was a DJ before I was a JD,” Claudio says. “Part of that was because I saw him mix when I was young, and it got the bug in me. I saved my money, got some turntables, and was mixing in my basement—and that kept me out of trouble, in a way.
In September 2019, Perez launched the Julian “Jumpin” Perez Foundation, a charity that provides for families in need via clothing and food drives. His adult children—Bianca, Bella, and Dominic—serve on the foundation’s board, along with Bad Boy Bill and Perez’s fiancee, Jessica Rodriguez. They’re all among the people Perez consulted when weighing a run for alderperson, and most of them thought he should do it. “I had one person that said, ‘You’re nuts,’” Perez says, “and that was Bad Boy Bill.
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