April
2007
dj bakasan - relay racing
Redman - Put It Down Too $hort - Blow The Whistle Christina Millian - Say I Digital Underground - Humpty Dance (Ultimix) Shaggy - Shut Up And Dance Baby Bash - Na Na Ne-Yo - Because of You Gnarls Barkley - Crazy Maroon Five - Makes Me Wonder Nelly - Say It Right Jay-Z ft Beyonce Knowles - Hollywood Chris Brown - Poppin’ Ciara - Promise Kelis - Lil Star Jessica Simpson - Public Affair Akon - Don’t Matter Diddy ft Christina Aguilera - Tell Me (DFA Club Mix) Herve - See Me –
Thoughts I originally wasn’t going to do a mix last night but I ended up having a ridiculously stressful end to my workday, so after a nap and a bite to eat I decided to hop onto the decks to release some stress. If I’m on the decks I might as well turn on the recorder and see if something post-able came out of my session. The mix is solidly executed in general but my song selection was a bit more haphazard than I would normally like. I started off just grabbing records and tracks and seeing where I ended up–by mid way I figured out the next topic I could bring up for an accompanying blog post.
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If DJing were a sport, in many ways it’d be like running. Depending on the individual or the venue, a DJ may be the only “competitor”, the soul source of music to keep a crowd dancing for an entire night–maybe even 5, 6 hours straight. Other times however, the DJ is but one of several that will be performing that night. The DJs will each take their turn to throw down a set and add their own touch on the night. Excluding situations where multiple DJs are djing simultaneously, you’re generally talking about one dj at a time for a single dance floor–the DJ is no longer running as an individual but he or she is now in a relay race and control of the turntables and mixer is effectively the baton.
I used to do a little bit of track back in high school, including trying my hand at the 4×100. I never excelled at the event and eventually decided I was a cross country runner anyhow. Even in my short stint as a relayer though, I quickly learned that the passing of the baton between runners was critical in the success of the team. Handling a dance floor amongst several DJs isn’t much different–there’s actually a lot that goes on during a DJ switch.
Do the DJs play the same kind of music? Do the two types of music that they play mesh at all? If I’m playing 1970s Swedish disco hits and the guy after me wants to throw down his collection of rare 1990s German death metal we might have a slight problem as cultures collide. Do the DJs intend to share needles (turntable needles, not hypodermic 
)? Assuming we sort out gear issues and we sort out that we have musical tastes that can work somehow… we still now have to actually reach our hand out and pass that baton over to the next dj.
Good form amongst djs is to discuss how the handoff is going to work. “Hey, I’m going to play 4, 5 more songs.” “What kind of music and tempos are you going to play in your set?” “My last song of my set is going to be X, it’s a super long song w/ a long instrumental portion toward the end to work with” Communication about the hand off is critical to make it seamless to the audience out dancing and having a good time. Just putting on a random record that lasts 45 seconds and going to the next guy “yo, here, go, I’m done now” would be the equivalent of a relay racer getting 30 feet away from the next racer and just throwing the baton as hard as he can at the guy’s head.
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In my set, around the time I played the Jay-Z and Beyonce track the set up to that point had been a straight mainstream hip hop and R&B set. To illustrate how a handoff between djs might work, I decided to put myself into a hypothetical that the next DJ just came up into the booth and told me he or she wanted to do a house set and asks me if I could set them up for their set. I then use the next several songs to accomplish a couple things. I need to transition the overall tempo of the music I’m playing to match the tempo that house music carries. Secondly, I need to start playing some songs that can start to bridge between the two genres of music. The set basically goes hip hop -> r&b -> mainstream pop -> disco-y remixes of mainstream songs -> straight up house. In my hypothetical hand off, the next DJ has officially taken over once the Diddy DFA track ends.
So the next time you’re in a club and there’s just some crazy shift in music that you’re hearing there’s a real possibility you just witnessed a dj transition that just didn’t go too well or you’re seeing a DJ starting to prep the baton so they can make an orderly transition.
I’ve prattled on long enough. Hope you enjoy the mix and are digging these little sneak beaks into the mystery of the dj booth.
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bakasan 
jiggy, house, bakasan 
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