SO YOU WANNA BE A DJ?

Whenever I’m asked about my earliest encounters with music, one hazy but profound memory always comes to mind. In the winter of 1987, I was six years old, sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor in the living room of my family’s home. Content and settled in front of the TV, a 40-minute, Disney-produced Valentine’s Day special called DTV Doggone Valentine held my attention for the moment and introduced me to a feeling that I’d chase and try to recreate for a lifetime. 

Throughout the broadcast, brief cartoon vignettes were paired with popular songs from the past and present. At one point during the show, The Flamingo’s 1959 doo-wop masterpiece, I Only Have Eyes For You played over a clip of The Lady And The Tramp. With its dreamy, moonlit harmonies and Flamingo’s singer, Tommy Hunt’s gliding, effortless lead, the song was unlike anything I’d ever heard before. A tingling sensation blossomed at the top of my head and a wave of unfamiliar feeling came over me. Despite being young and having no experience with the romantic longing and yearning The Flamingo’s sang about I understood the emotion and depth of feeling behind the song. This may have been the first song that I ever loved, and that love set me on a lifelong journey to share and spread the joy that I experienced in that moment.

Beneath the technical skills, business acumen and relationships that can make or break a DJ, an indefatigable love of music lies at the core of our craft. As a teenager, I started making beats and creating remixes in my bedroom. I’d plug my turntables, drum machines and keyboards into a 4-track tape recorder or an old karaoke cassette deck and experiment for hours. Although I didn’t consider myself a DJ until much later, I’d make mixtapes for classmates and was developing a reputation as an obsessive listener with broad taste. Popular music in the 90s was a heady mixture of Hip-Hop, R&B, Grunge, Punk and Electronic music. My curiosity led me in the direction of all of it and my interest in sampling soon found me digging for old vinyl in record stores and thrift shops around town. Any DJing that I did around that time was limited to the confines of my bedroom, but I was building a wide base of musical knowledge that still serves me well.

My earliest public DJ gigs didn’t come until I was in my late 20s. On the weekends and in my off time from working various office jobs, I made money on the side DJing at block parties, cookouts and family-friendly events throughout the city. By playing music at these gatherings, I began to truly understand the social and connective power of music. The solo experiments in my apartment were cool, but this was something different. For the first time, I was able to take the private joy that I got from these songs and extend it out into my community. It turned out that community would prove to be a key element in my growth and future success as a DJ.

Despite my growing knowledge of music, I still had a long way to go in the craft of playing music. In my early 30s, I met DuiJi Mshinda (aka DuiJi 13) and Shawanda Spivey (DJ Aura), two mightily skilled DJs who taught me the ins and outs of becoming a professional. From setting up equipment properly to negotiating fees and agreements with venues to using music to build a “narrative” throughout an evening, DuiJi and Shawanda were great role models for my burgeoning DJ career. We launched parties together, discovered and broke new music together and navigated the politics and business of being working DJs together. At this point, my DJing work began to dovetail beautifully with my work as a music journalist. The old, obscure records that I rescued from dusty dollar bins, became subjects of my essays. I also made it a point to highlight music from new, emerging artists in my sets. Writing about music always felt like a compliment to creating and playing it. As my reputation grew, partygoers, music lovers and readers alike came to know me as a person who could play and analyze the music with equal fluidity. 

Nearly 40 years into my musical journey, I stop short of saying that I’ve truly “made it” as a DJ. I have the pleasure of playing music that I love, enjoy, and believe in. In addition to the club gigs, vinyl bars, and private events at which I perform regularly, I produce a popular weekly show called Culture Cypher Radio on the University of Penn’s station, WXPN. The simple art of playing records has not only brought me personal joy, it has allowed me to spread incalculable joy to others.