I get a lot of DJs asking me to teach them how to do what I do. The hardest thing for me to do is teach what I hear in my head. The hows and whys on what songs I mix together. I've been spinning professionally for 25 years, so a lot of the stuff I know is hard to articulate. But within the last 2 years I have reinvented myself as a DJ, and I can tell you what I did to get to where I am now.
I go and listen to as many DJs as possible, especially "celebrity" DJs, because they are already at the level I'm working hard to attain. I listen to what they do that makes them special. How is Kid Capri so fast? How does Jazzy Jeff use the echo to transition from song to song? What made DJ AM (R.I.P.) considered greater than both of them in many people's opinion? I even listen to trash DJs, because I can learn what not to do and I think about what I would do differently.
Every time I'm in a club, I'm listening to the DJ, even when I'm talking to a woman! It's a part of me I can't turn off. I'm listening and watching for songs that work and don't work. I'm listening to the transitions from song to song. I'm hearing things I can put into my own set, whether it is a type of scratch, something that was said or the part of the song the DJ rocked.
When I was in Chicago last month, I was listening to DJs that would start the song at the chorus or at a popular phrase in the song, then bring it back to the beginning (like starting Poison near the end, then bringing it back to the beginning). I incorporated that style into my skill set, because when you do it right, it is really hot. Anything you can do to stand out, to make people turn around (in a good way) and say "damn, that was hot," that's what you do.
Take different things from different DJs and spin it into your own unique style. I like the way DJ Riz loops pieces of a song, then brings another track underneath it. I appreciated hearing DJ Chachi play chick anthems to soccer moms at Shrine. I was impressed by DJ Timbuck2 and DJ 33 1/3 in Chicago starting songs in unusual places instead of always bringing in the next song at the beginning. I love Kid Capri and DJ Ace's speed getting in and out of songs, sometimes only playing a phrase, then on to the next one. Listening to Open Format DJs opened my mind to mixing Electro with Rock with Old School Funk with Hip-Hop. I'm amazed at Clinton Sparks' mic work. All of these things I have either incorporated into my style, worked at getting great at or dusted off those skills I had let rust.
Whatever you do best behind the decks, keep doing it. Do you have a great voice? Find witty things to say on the mic and use your voice to help transitions. Are you clean with your scratches? Everyone thinks a Hip-Hop DJ must scratch, so they do it even when they do it badly. Master a few key scratches and use them in performances. Can you blend? Blending is a lost art, but if you can't do it, don't do it. Find the perfect spot to break out of a song, and then go!
Know your music backwards and forwards. It helps in so many ways. Looping or repeating phrases… going from song to song at precisely the right moment without vocals on top of vocals… blending a cappellas on top of instrumentals so it sounds like a remix… being able to get in, play a small piece of a song then get out quickly…
And know your music library! Yes, you have 35,000 songs, but how many of them are you really playing? When I was program director running 97.7 WILD-FM in Boston and Hot 102.9 in Dayton, OH, my old radio consultant used to say "tighter is righter." We may have disagreed on how tight the playlist should be, but he is right in making sure you cut out the filler. Bad DJs can get away with being bad DJs if they play strong songs. Can each song that you play stand on its own? Are you playing the best of the best songs?
Play the hits! Don't worry about playing the newest music unless you have the reputation of playing new songs and your audience comes to hear you play those songs. We all can't be Chubby Chub, we can't all be Funkmaster Flex… they have built their reputations on playing the newest music and we appreciate them for that. But even Chub and Flex play the hits when they are at the club! We all get new music that we love that we want to play right away, but you must have restraint. You have to gain the trust of the audience.
Sandwich your new music between a bunch of hits. Not one hit, then one new song, then one hit. Not even 2-1-2. I'm talking 8-9 bangers in a row, then slip in that new song, then another 8-9 bangers. By playing a bunch of joints in a row, you get the audience's trust, then you can play that new song. If they like it, they keep dancing, or if they don't, they will go to the bar and come back to the dance floor after that song is over.
Record and listen critically to your performances, not just your mixtapes/CDs/practice sessions. I have thousands of tapes, CDs, MP3s & AIFs of my performances and live mixshows I did on on the radio, and I listen to them after each performance to make sure what I thought I did I actually did! Pick apart every mix, every song choice, every transition, every talk break, and remember what you did and what the crowd reaction was. You don't want to be predicable and play the same things in the same way every time, but you do want to know what works and what doesn't so you can repeat the feeling every time.
Work towards raising your skill level to impress other DJs. When other DJs give you dap, you know the audience will love you. But don't worry if they if they don't actually say something to you. Think about all the times you listen to a DJ and you were impressed, but didn't say anything to them. You want to get to a point where when you listen back to your performance, you are impressed and you know anybody else would be impressed with what you did.
Put your crates on Serato together like you were carrying crates of records. Back in the day, Kid Capri brought 13 cases of records to every gig. None of us could ever do that, so we had to pare it down to exactly what we knew we wanted to play. Now we would never play everything in our crate, but at least we knew that everything in the crate was playable. I have figured out it is a curse to have 35,000 songs in your library. With all those songs, you can't just scroll down the list, you end up searching for the next song. The funny thing is, because you are searching off the top of your head, you end up playing the same songs you always play! But you can scroll down 1000 songs and find something quickly, especially if you have all the BPMs set.
Which is another thing… learn how to use BPMs (beats per minute). It helps you become a better, more versatile DJ. Ask The DJ Chubby Chub about how watching me use BPMs at Hot 97.7 and incorporating that into his thought process helps make his life so much easier behind the tables. It does not inhibit your creativity, it enhances it. You can put together songs together that you would have never thought possible. You don't have to guess about if the speeds are right, you just have to make sure the songs sound good together. You don't have to search your whole library for the next song, you can search through just the songs in that BPM, or the all the songs +/- 2 BPMs (anything more than +/-2 and you have to change the pitch too much, or the next song is going to be jarringly faster or slower and will sound off).
Finally, and this is something I just started doing, is to think of yourself as a performer, not as just a DJ. When you are spinning, you are performing. When you are in the DJ booth, you are on stage. The crowd in the club is the audience. When you think of yourself in that way, it naturally steps up your game. A performer doesn't go on stage with just anything on, they have outfits they perform in. A performer doesn't go on stage and just wing it… they practice extensively beforehand so their performance is flawless for the audience. A performer plans what they are going to do on stage, but has wiggle room for improvisation. A performer analyses what they did each performance so every next performance is better.
I hope this helps you get better. Any questions on what I wrote, call me at 857-249-5016.
Reggie Beas
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