Celebs as DJs and DJs as Celebs

“This is a journey…..into sound”

It’s a journey that takes us through London and other cosmopolitan centres to Witness the ongoing exploits of Usain Bolt, who has manned the turntables for his sponsors Puma and Hublot, among others. Former NBA great Dennis Rodman has also been trying his hand at the trade, joining other tabloid fodder such as Kim Kardashian and Lindsay Lohan for typically over-hyped celeb DJ gigs. As the overall profile of our athletes increases, so too will these types of gigs, as their Euro and US sponsors seek to cash in on the exploding electronic dance music (EDM) trend.

The quote above should be more than familiar to EDM fans. The lyric is a sample from a hip-hop classic, “I Know I Got Soul” by the legendary duo, Eric B & Rakim, but its relevance to our discussion springs from its further use in the dance classic, “Pump Up The Volume” (1987) by British group M.A.R.R.S.

The DJ, or turntablist to distinguish from our dancehall toasters, has completed a remarkable ascendancy over the last decade. No longer relegated to “wheel-spinning” obscurity in the back-end of the club or content to merely propel dancing hordes, DJs are stars in their own right, bona fide celebrities who are prompting celebrities from other worlds – the sporting world in this particular instance – to become DJs.

But let’s leave that world for a moment, and return to the Jamaican setting.  This part of our journey runs through radio and one station and DJ in particular. Capital Stereo, which in the early 80s, morphed into FAME-FM boasted a Saturday night dance music marathon, initially known as “Discomania” with Holford “Hol” Plummer at the controls.

Its  this trail-blazing stint that’s cited by DJ Alrick, of the duo Alrick & Boyd, as his earliest influence. Boyd, who had studied in New York City, had been weaned on the then burgeoning hip-hop movement. The connected on the latter’s return to Jamaica (By which time LArick had already logged significant musical mileage with several nightclubs, courtesy of DJ Andrew Henry) and before long, they were making their musical presence felt at several venues. Radio, as it turns out, would provide something of a base for the two as they got the opportunity to work on the aforementioned FAME –on the midnight to 5 a.m. “graveyard shift”.  By dint of an uncompromising devotion to “pure” dance music (as opposed to the US Top40-driven pap that was dominant on the airwaves, the two built a solid following.

The also built a number of links with overseas DJs, most notably Jamaican-born, German-based Rix Rax, who, on his frequent trips home, heard the shows and formed an alliance with the pair that remains to this day. ALrick & Boyd are. Like many dance DJs (if not all), intensely and actively focused on production, as they seek to join the David Guettas and Diplos of this world.

Radio was pivotal in the development of another Jamaican duo, but of more recent vintage. Dean “DJ Breach” and Shane “Firestarter” together comprise The Housing Project, an unabashedly forward-looking house/trance (and almost all in between) outfit that also recalls its antecedents. “My first introduction really came via the radio” Shane shares, “the kind stuff that was being aired on a Saturday morning through the afternoon.”

Radio may have lit the spark, but this “house” was built via the Internet. Through Breach’s regular livestreams (a pioneering move for the Jamaican market) and with subsidiary coverage via blogs, a following of reasonable size and unreasonable loyalty was built which ultimately led to the next transition. Music impresario Steve Wilson heard the duo’s work and decided to add them to this growing “Brand New Machine” party series at the Fiction nightclub, a gig the pair still holds down every Wednesday night.

The two duos are part of a growing contingent of dance spinners. Pieter Barrow has been putting in regular appearances at Red Bones The blues Café under the sub-moniker Deep Cover; DJ Archie is also an integral part of the scene’s early development and others are rapidly emerging.

Its only a matter of time therefore, before Jamaican turntablists and dance music specialists command the kind of global cachet enjoyed by the big Euro and American names, not to mention our sporting “legends”. Bolt may be triple-gold, but when it comes to the wheels of steel, even he has  lots more ground to cover.

Our journey will continue again soon.