The Story Behind the Greatest Quarantine Party of 2020

Over 100,000 people attended Derrick ‘D-Nice’ Jones’ Instagram Live fete on Saturday. LEVEL tracked down some notable folks to relive the monumental jam.

Bonsu Thompson
LEVEL

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Derrick “D-Nice” Jones. Photo: NurPhoto/Getty Images

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His name is D-Nice. Taking out you suckers and you don’t know how he did it.

In 1990, Derrick Jones, Bronx native, dropped “Call Me D-Nice.” While the song was appreciated, lyricism would not prove to be his calling. Instead, over the past three decades, he’s become a hip-hop Renaissance man — photography, production and now Contagion-era party starter.

His IG Live party, aptly named Homeschool, premiered Tuesday night (March 17), entertaining just over 200 guests. But word spread like the dreaded Covid-19.

The energy grew organically, with a typically generous D-Nice set chock-full of Black and Brown music — from Atlantic Starr to Tito Puente to Burna Boy to Nate Dogg — that mutated into a rare strain of happiness that reverberated throughout the following day until the next Homeschool.

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Bonsu Thompson
LEVEL
Writer for

Bonsu Thompson is a writer, producer, Brooklynite and 2019 Sundance Screenwriters Lab fellow.