Let’s talk about DJs. The concept of DJ’ing has so many interpretations depending on the culture where you currently live or grew up. Older Americans tend to view the DJ as someone from the 1980s/90s hip hop era that features a lot of scratching and mixing. Today’s youth culture views a DJ as someone who is a performer, writing their own music, remixing pop hits and going out on the road. There is also the traditional European DJ of the 90s blasting house music for hours straight to a warehouse full of dancers. In Jamaica, DJs are often referred to as selectors. And none of this is even discussing the idea of a Disc Jockey, the radio personality behind the mic (a job I held for a few years in high school) who not only has to play music but commercials and announcements to keep the lights on.
During quarantine I’ve tuned into a lot of online radio like NTS and Mixcloud. I’m surprised to see these UK and European based DJs not so much worried about mixing or beat matching, but more about finding forgotten songs in all styles (disco, latin, soul, jazz, funk) and blending them all together in a way to get people moving.
This led me down a rabbit hole of adding some additional “flavor” to my DJ sets. My DJ gigs are usually for friends who just want a great soundtrack playing continuously in the background. Often they want to hear songs they recognize which I can handle, but I enjoy taking people off the beaten path musically and then surprise them by coming back full force with a hit song they remember.
All of this to say that I’ve been digging for new music, but still not in stores unfortunately. I’ve been scouring the internet looking for new musical ideas and found a few that I’d like to share with you below.
