My DJ Debut

As my introductory post mentions, around the age of 17 I downloaded some free software on my laptop and began to teach myself the basics of DJing. This led me to buy a very cheap second-hand controller on eBay, with which I practised some more at the start of my time at university. With lack of money to invest in better software /equipment, and lack of spare time due to settling in at uni, the DJing took a back seat, but has always been a brewing interest for me.

So, when dancing in one of the rooms of this party, having spotted that the DJ had disappeared for a while, my friends ushered me behind the DJ table. This is where my spontaneous, unrehearsed DJ debut began. My big moment had arrived (which in reality consisted of a crowd of about ten). I began frantically searching artists on the laptop in front of me, and ended up mixing songs for about half an hour. It could have been completely coincidentally, but the room did fill up during my moment playing the tunes. It was a lot of fun!

Which songs did I decide to play? I knew that a lot of people in the room loved Hip Hop, because I had seen their positive reactions to the occasional Hip Hop songs the DJ before me had played, so I ran with this. It is important to find the sweet spot of playing songs that both most people will know the words to AND that are actually really good songs too. Here’s a few examples of what I picked:

• Antidote by Travis Scott
• Hotline Bling by Drake
• T-Shirt by Migos
• Father Stretch my Hands Pt. 1 by Kanye West
• Swimming Pools by Kendrick Lamar

Who knows when I’ll next have this sort of opportunity again, but for now I am happy with my list of DJing gigs finally going up to a total of one!