Ayia Napa

Ayia Napa (officially romanised Agia Napa; Greek: Αγία Νάπα [locally [aˈʝanːapa]]; Turkish: Aya Napa) is a resort at the far eastern end of the southern coast of Cyprus.

Etymology

The name Ayia Napa is derived from a Venetian-era monastery of the same name, located in the centre of the town, next to the square that today is the clubbing centre. The word "Ayia" (Agia) means "holy" in Greek. "Napa" is archaic and means "wooded valley" or dell. In ancient times the area surrounding the town was covered with thick forest.

History

According to local legend, the now renowned original icon was accidentally discovered by a hunter in pursuit of his prey. Upon discovery, the icon of the Virgin Mary was called Virgin Mary of Napa, eventually shortened and now known as Ayia Napa. The present monastery, built in 1100, was built around the cave, in honour of the Virgin Mary of Ayia Napa. According to local tradition, until 1790 no one lived within close vicinity of Ayia Napa. The first inhabitants were from Salonica, Greece. The name of the first inhabitant of Ayia Napa was Nikolaos Kemitzis from Thesalloniki. He arrived from Greece around 1790 and got married to a village located on the northern east part of Ayia Napa and Paralimni, the name of the village was Panayia. Soon after the marriage Kemitzis had a fight with the ottoman authorities which ruled Cyprus at the time, and decided to move near the monastery of Ayia Napa.

DJ EZ

DJ EZ (pronounced E-Zed) is a DJ from Tottenham, North London, specialising in UK garage music.

Biography

At the age of 15, EZ (known at the time as Easy O) started his radio career on a pirate radio station called Dance 93FM playing house music, where he remained for 4 years. In early 1994, EZ set up his own pirate radio station based in Tottenham called Dimension FM, playing mostly rave and house music. Dimension FM didn't last long due to being closed down by the authorities. EZ then landed himself a 4-hour Saturday and Sunday morning show from 8.00am to 12.00pm on another pirate station - Freek 101.8 FM (it was at this time that he changed his name from Easy O to EZ). As EZ started getting more well known he was given extra show time and was also made a member of the station's management team. DJ EZ then started his own weekly club night called Club Z at the Gas Club in central London. DJ bookings for EZ started to soar and he was playing an average of 4 clubs a night every weekend.

Pure Garage

Pure Garage is a successful series of UK garage compilation albums. Nearly all of them are mixed by DJ EZ.

In January 2000, Warner Music chose Kiss 100's DJ EZ to mix Pure Garage, a new garage compilation CD. Pure Garage went on to receive platinum record sales and peaked at number 2 in the UK national compilation chart. The Pure Garage series is the most acknowledged and best-selling UK garage compilation series to date. The Pure Garage series has sold over 2 million records.Pure Garage Rewind Back To The Old Skool was released on 3 December 2007; after just two weeks on sale it had already earned itself Gold disc status with over 100,000 copies sold. The latest Pure Garage compilation, The Very Best Of Pure Garage, was released on 1 December 2008 and is the first Pure Garage CD that was not mixed by DJ EZ, instead mixed by Matt "Jam" Lamont. In March 2011, a new compilation was released, named Pure Garage Anthems, mixed by Jason Kaye of Top Buzz.

Pure Garage albums