| DMC World DJ Championships | |
|---|---|
 DJ Fly at the DMC championships in 2008 | |
| Genre | Hip hop, Turntablism |
| Location(s) | Various |
| Years active | 1985–present |
| Founders | Disco Mix Club |
| Website | www |
The DMC World DJ Championships is an annual DJ competition founded by the Disco Mix Club (DMC) which began in 1985. [1] It has been described as a "pre-eminent competitive DJ event". [2]
Competitors are each given 6 minutes to perform, with winners selected at the end. [3] Championships were sponsored internationally by Technics, but in 2010 Technics was replaced by Serato and Rane. [4] Since 2011, the vinyl emulation software Serato Scratch Live can be used during the competition in addition to traditional vinyl. [4] [5]
The first championship, held in the London Hippodrome in 1985, was won by Londoner Roger Johnson. [2] [6] From 1992 to 1994 American DJ Qbert dominated the competition, until being asked to step down in order to "level the playing field". [3] In 2017 the Bronx-born Puerto Rican DJ Perly became the first woman to win the DMC United States finals. She went on to earn fourth place in the world finals in London later that year, the highest-placing female to that date. [7] [8]
In 2020 and 2021, the tournament was held online due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The 2021 event also attracted media attention due to one of the competitors being a 9 year-old girl from Dubai. [9] [10] [11]
Kalib Strickland from New Zealand, under the name DJ K-Swizz, won both the 2022 and the 2023 world events. Strickland, who had previously at age 14 won both the DMC Battle for World Supremacy and the 2017 IDA Technical to become the youngest person to win a world championship, was the first winner from the Southern hemisphere. [12] [13] [14] He also won the 2018 DMC Battle for Global Supremacy, which he failed to defend in 2019 when he was beaten by DJ Matsunaga in what Mixmag has described as one of the "best DJ scratch battles". [15]
The competition was founded in 1985 by the Disco Mix Club. The club was founded by Tony Prince in 1983 as a DJ remix label which targeted professional disc jockeys and enthusiasts instead of the mass market. [16] [17] It resold megamixes and remixes, and published a weekly magazine. The company also began the magazine Mixmag before it was sold to the British media group EMAP in January 1997. [18] The club founded the world championship event "for DJs to test their skills against their peers". [17]
Musicians who contributed megamixes to the company included Alan Coulthard, [19] Les Adams (who was a judge on some of the earlier DMC championships), [16] Chad Jackson, Dave Seaman, Steve Anderson, Peter Slaghuis, Paul Dakeyne, and Ben Liebrand.[ citation needed ] The Disco Mix Club itself went into voluntary liquidation in April 2023. [20] [ non-primary source needed ]
A disc jockey, more commonly abbreviated as DJ, is a person who plays recorded music for an audience. Types of DJs include radio DJs, club DJs, mobile DJs, and turntablists. Originally, the "disc" in "disc jockey" referred to shellac and later vinyl records, but nowadays DJ is used as an all-encompassing term to also describe persons who mix music from other recording media such as cassettes, CDs or digital audio files on a CDJ, controller, or even a laptop. DJs may adopt the title "DJ" in front of their real names, adopted pseudonyms, or stage names.
Scratching, sometimes referred to as scrubbing, is a DJ and turntablist technique of moving a vinyl record back and forth on a turntable to produce percussive or rhythmic sounds. A crossfader on a DJ mixer may be used to fade between two records simultaneously.
Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating new music, sound effects, mixes and other creative sounds and beats, typically by using two or more turntables and a cross fader-equipped DJ mixer. The mixer is plugged into a PA system and/or broadcasting equipment so that a wider audience can hear the turntablist's music. Turntablists typically manipulate records on a turntable by moving the record with their hand to cue the stylus to exact points on a record, and by touching or moving the platter or record to stop, slow down, speed up or, spin the record backwards, or moving the turntable platter back and forth, all while using a DJ mixer's crossfader control and the mixer's gain and equalization controls to adjust the sound and level of each turntable. Turntablists typically use two or more turntables and headphones to cue up desired start points on different records.
Pinoy hip hop or Filipino hip-hop is a style of hip hop music performed by musicians of Filipino descent, especially Filipino-Americans.
Richard Quitevis known by his stage name DJ Qbert or Qbert, is a Filipino American turntablist and composer who has heavily influenced the History of DJing. He was awarded America's Best DJ in 2010, was DMC USA Champion 1991 (solo) and achieved titles as DMC World Champion in 1992 and 1993.
DJ Cheese is a disc jockey and record producer who won the 1986 DMC World Final in London, showcasing the art of scratching in turntablism for the first time. He also appeared in the 1986 UK tour with Run-DMC. He is known as ‘master of the crossfader’.
The Invisibl Skratch Piklz are an American group of turntablists.
George Spivey, known professionally as DJ Scratch, is an American hip hop DJ and producer from Brooklyn, New York.
The Scratch Perverts are a collective of turntablist DJs from London, formed in 1996 by Tony Vegas, Prime Cuts and DJ Renegade.
Michael Schwartz, better known by his stage name Mix Master Mike, is an American turntablist best known for his work with Beastie Boys.
DJ Craze is a Nicaraguan American DJ and record producer who plays hip hop, Miami bass, trap, breaks, dubstep, drum and bass, and practices turntablism. He was, until 2020, the only solo DJ in history to win the DMC World DJ Championships trophy three times consecutively (1998–2000).
ie.Merge is an American hip hop turntablist who won the 2004 and 2005 DMC World DJ Championships. He has won nine American national titles and four world titles, and is known for his highly technical routines.
Alain Macklovitch, known professionally as A-Trak, is a Canadian DJ, record producer, and record executive. He came to prominence in the late 2000s as an international club DJ and remix artist, known for incorporating highly technical turntable skills and scratching into his genre-spanning work. He is also president of the record label Fool's Gold, which was founded in 2007, and is credited for developing the careers of artists such as Kid Cudi, Danny Brown, and Flosstradamus. Among other collaborative projects, he is part of the DJ duo Duck Sauce with Armand Van Helden and was nominated for a Grammy in 2012 for their song "Barbra Streisand".
A remix service is a company that provides remixed music to disc jockeys.
DJ Woody is a prolific DJ and turntablist born in Burnley, Lancashire UK.
Jerome Hewlett, better known by his moniker DJ Cash Money is a Philadelphia-based American turntablist, hip-hop artist, and record producer. He was the first inductee into the DJ Hall of Fame.
Samuel Morris Zornow, better known as DJ Shiftee, is a New York City based DJ and turntablist.
Pete Mescall, professionally known by his stage name DJ Mek or Pete Mescalero, is an Irish award-winning hip hop DJ/turntablist and producer. He has won 5 Irish national Disco Mix Club championships and remixed/produced artists like Ian Brown, The Frames, Zig and Zag and Jon Carter's Monkey Mafia. In 1989, he became the first DJ from the Republic of Ireland to enter the U.K. DMC Championships, and went on to win 5 Irish national titles. He was briefly banned from entering the championships but that decision was later overturned. His group ScaryEire were the first Irish rap act to be signed to a major label. He retired from competitive mixing competitions in 2000 but returned in 2021 to place 5th in the DMC World Foundation Finals
The International Turntablist Federation (ITF) was an organization which held a series of DJ battles during the rise of turntablism in the late 90s and early 2000s. The ITF is notable for introducing the concept of category competitions. The categories included advancement, scratching, beat juggling, and team.
Dmitry Vinokurov, also known as DJ Tactics — DJ, sound producer, and cultural figure from Russia, Moscow. His career has started in the late 1998 as a DJ and sound producer. His scene name comes from the parallel to the ways of using different tactics in approaching particular styles and genres, it sends a message of diversity that can be applied to mixing, recording and scratching. His style is described by Rolling Stone magazine as “Addicted to phat beats and making the crowd head nod over the beats”. His main styles are Hip-Hop, Electronic, Funk/Soul and Turntablism.
Since then the championships have grown to be a pre-eminent competitive DJ event with talent from across the world on show.
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