Prodding my DAW

     There comes a time in every mashup djs life when he realises that the art of performance djing will never be what it once was. AM is dead, Z-trip is now underground, and people are shovelling cash and accolades at dudes who admit to doing nothing more than 'pressing play' when they step behind their non-existant 'decks'. why? cause they create amazing music. Some of my collegues believe this is a trend, and soon enough we'll go back to the 'good'ol'days' and people will again start caring about fast cuts, innovative mixing, and the ability to bridge music styles, rip through multiple genres and truly innovate behind the decks. While this might be true, its deffinitely only part of the picture. The reality is that, as far as the digitization of music is concerend, we are only at the tip of the iceberg. Computers and exponential increase in computing power is rapidly changing the enire world, not the least of which the world of art, and in particular music. This isn't slowing down any time soon.

     Computer music is here to stay and here to grow, and while DJs (in the conventional sense of someone who jockeys discs for your entertainment) no longer run the DJ market, musicialns (in the conventinal sense of 'someone tat plays an musical instrument') no longer run the music market. Even though I'll probabbly never love producing like I love performing, its time for me and other djs like me to get on board, to cast off into the sea of online music and start generating original content alongside the bizzillion other people banging away in home studios. Franklly, I'm excited, I've got a long way to go,but there's more power and software in my new laptop than most full sized studios had in the 90s, and I'm sure its gonna be a bumpy road but, but hey that's nothing new in the music biz. Below is a original remix of mine, one of many to come as i learn, experiment, and try to find my sound. hope you enjoy it

Original Production by DJKENYA

Messin around in the studio...

      NEWS FLASH: working class DJs are under seige. Unless you are a mega producer or celebrity of some sort., consistently gigging for income is becoming more and more difficult. Dj skills that command a fair wage are unfortunately being superceeded by in-expensive DJs that own a laptop, have lots of friends, and can read billboard charts. This might sound like a rant, but really it's not. Simply put:  The 3-way combination of the 'alluring dj image', the simplification of basic dj technology, and the availability of laptops is lowering the relative value of 'djing for most promoters and club owners. Not juniors, promoters, owners, or experienced DJs are to blame for this, it's 'only business' and thats the truth.

      All we can do as oldschool DJs is fight back fairly, by flexing some skills, and praying that the public still retains a shred of understading and respect for djing as an artform, and as a technical skill that takes an enormous amout of time and dedication to truly become good at.

Untitled from Dj Kenya on Vimeo.

MUSIC is my LIFE. A tale of love, loss and gain by Old Man Kenya

     Myself, Having come from the previous era of djing: 'the vinyl days', I can definitely appreciate this guys struggle. Way back yonder, when I was a young whipper-snapper, i would giddily spend hours and hours 'digging', as it was called, through stack upon stack of records at the 'long-gone but never-forgotten' stores like Boomtown and Bassix, and the 'somehow-still-surviving but way-past-their-former-glory' stores like, Beatstreet and Vinyl records. Countless hours would be consumed looking for that one track that no one else would have, that would destroy the dancefloor.

     Then as technology moved in and took over the all mighty mp3 has left us with no choice... but to move on... like him. sniffle* sniffle*

     Am I complaining? no. Digging still exists; just now its done on hype M, beatport, and croolynclan servers rather than in the flesh. And djing on serato it the shit if you like quick mixes, doubles, and creative blends, live mashes, and personal edits and remakes. aaaand you can always still dig in a store then dj that record or upload it to your comp (but few djs do that, trust me).

     Has djing quality suffered as a result? sort-of... now there is no such thing as 'that one track' cause any one track can (and always is) now be multiplied to infinity and played by anyone and everyone whether you've djed for a day or a decade, and tracks and entire sets often become homoginized, over played, and booooring. But, unlike in the past, you can re-edit, remix, re-drum, stuff YOURSELF now and imput a much more personal flavour and dig for tracks accross the world instead of just down the street.

     At the end of the day you can't fight technology. So PAUL, basically you should start uploading that shit (thats hopefully past copyright) and make it downloadable from a website! 3 Mil in da Bank, no prob!

responses welcome! kenya@djkenya.com :)