DJ lessons - One on one tuition

Learn how to DJ!

... From a profession club DJ with over 10 years experience playing in some of London's top night clubs, bars and festivals.

Learn;

- Beat matching
- Scratching
- Using FX
- CDJ mixing (with CDs)
- Virtual DJ (laptop DJing)
- Sets and playlist development
- Getting bookings
- Joining promo music mailing lists
- PA set up
- and more

My History:

I started Dj-ing hiphop, rnd and old skool jams in about 2000 through learning from a friend. I then bought my first pair of decks from another friend for £90 mainly for my house warming. Following a house fire I started moving house quite frequently and left my decks at my friend’s house for him to look after. In the mean time I practiced as regular as possible anywhere I could as long as there was a deck and a mixer.

I later teamed up with two other incredible DJs from the area who played reggae, Dancehall and soca and the three of us created an heavy hitting crew called 'Special Selexionz'. We went on to attract numerous bookings around the UK focusing mostly in London with regular appearances in celebrity parties, single, album release parties, concert after parties and endless roadblock sets at Notting Hill Carnival.
More recently we have had consistent bookings in Malia, Jamaica and a sprinkling of European countries... The way we see it we've only just begun!

THE RADIO YEARS
It was only until 2002 when my housing situation settled that I really started taking the Dj-ing thing seriously. It all started when I was at a Christmas do at a pub with my Aunt Jean, I was talking to the Dj there and started selecting some really eclectic tunes and he turned round and asked if I was a Dj, reply with surprise he went on to tell me about a guy he new who was starting his own radio station Style UK and was looking for Dj’s. He gave me his number and to cut a long story short I got a show on Tuesday mornings 1am – 3am. I held this show down for almost a year and after a series of raids on the station we just didn’t come back on air.

A few months later I heard of another station Bounce Fm that was about to launch through a Dj named Skyjuice and tried to get a slot, it took me a couple months but I got a peak time Friday night show but the broadcast wasn’t consistent enough and management weren’t as professional they should have been so I left.

2003 my cousin in Harlesden all the while was setting up a organisation called BANG EDUTAINMENT, which essentially works to educate and empower young people.
One of BANG’s projects was a community radio station Life Fm broadcasting mainly on the internet but were regularly been awarded RSL’s (temporary licenses to broadcast on air for a 5 mile radius around Harlesden/ Wembley).
The first time I went on Life Fm I had a Weds afternoon show at 2pm-4pm, the show was OK but I didn’t promote it like I should’ve.

I stayed on for a few month’s but other projects started getting in the way as well as a new breakfast show on Genesis 91.6fm on Tues, Weds & Thurs mornings 6am-10am, this later changed to Mon – Fri (which was blimmin hard work!). After a couple months I had to change, I then secured a Thursday drive time 4pm – 7pm.

In summer 2004 I rejoined Life Fm for their RSL (air broadcast), this time holding 4 shows (2 mixed music breakfast shows, an Rnb & Hiphop show and an energetic Bashment show) and supporting an afternoon talk show with another cousin.

All my show are energetic, edgy and plain crazy during the last weeks broadcast we had listeners from all over the world which tallied up to 65,000! That chat room had people from various States and from non-English speaking countries spanning all the way from South America to Indonesia.

The strangest thing that happened on air was a caller who phoned in half way through me interviewing someone, thinking it was someone wanting to ask a question I put him through directly live on air.
The first thing he said was…
“Is this the dry cleaners on Church street”
Baffled and dumb founded all I could do was repeat myself again saying
“Life Fm, caller you’re live on air”

The caller went to tune into us – confused and apologetic started laughing along with half the listeners probably. He funnily enough went on to ask if I knew the number of the dry cleaners on Church St.

Life FM has since rebranded and is a prominent radio station cover 70% of Metropolitan London on 103.4FM playing the best in street music 24/7 365.

THE RAVE SCENE
This was around the time that my bookings really started to increase, especially in the west end. A friend hooked up with a Promoter named Jo who runs a Promotions company called
HOTLIPS MUSIC PROMOTIONS

After a gleaming proposal email, being quite subtly boastful, then playing for her Jo made me one of her number one Dj’s and up until now she gets me slots wherever she can. Jo also showed me about the whole guest list game in the west end and how to make money from nights that other people were running and not even have to be there. If I ran a paying guest list, I would get a percentage of however much each person paid to get into the club. So I could play in one or two clubs and still make money of as many other nights as I had guest lists at. Hence the beginning of my mailing list and my following.

Opportunities and links just flooded in after hooking up with Jo Hotlips, everything from Single/Album release parties to VIP party’s and exclusive guest list only celeb after parties including Busta Rhymes, Roc-a-Fella, Kanye West, Jay-Z, the list is endless.

We (Special Selexions) have played at almost all of London’s top night Clubs from Cameo’s to 10 Rooms to Click and Rouge, and secured residencies at some of these high profile venues.

Sessions are £20 each (one on one tuition)