Essi­ba Small

To her friends she is known as Jan­ice Ram­cha­ran. To her fans, who go to dif­fer­ent venues to hear her play, she is known as DJ Fem­mo­tion. "It means Fe­male in mo­tion," Ram­cha­ran said with a laugh about the moniker. "My hus­band (Sean Young Wing) gave me that name." To­geth­er the two op­er­ate Chantwell Mu­sic, a com­pa­ny that pro­vides rentals of sound sys­tems, fog ma­chines and karaoke ser­vices. The Ari­ma bred Ram­cha­ran is just one of the few fe­male disc jock­eys on the scene, hav­ing made her de­but in the field on­ly a year ago. As she told it, Ram­cha­ran was work­ing in the med­ical field and free­lanc­ing with her hus­band play­ing mu­sic for karaoke singers, when her ca­reer took flight.

"Dur­ing the lull be­tween karaoke per­form­ers I used to play mu­sic. Then I re­alised that peo­ple were en­joy­ing it." Ram­cha­ran's ear­ly days of play­ing mu­sic were not all per­fect how­ev­er. "I made lots of mis­takes. Some­times I mixed the wrong songs, some­times I made the tran­si­tion from song to song too fast, or I may in­tro­duce a song and it would take a while be­fore it start­ed. "But I just used to laugh it off and con­tin­ue. It's all about the at­ti­tude." It wasn't long be­fore Ram­cha­ran start­ed ex­per­i­ment­ing with mix­ing dif­fer­ent gen­res in­clud­ing so­ca, In­di­an, dance­hall and rock. "I used to study the crowd, pick up their vibe and play mu­sic ac­cord­ing to their vibe. "Then I start­ed get­ting com­ments like 'we can't be­lieve it is a woman play­ing.'"

Over time, Ram­cha­ran in­creased her mu­si­cal li­brary from a few songs to 10,000, with the help of her friends and their ex­ten­sive mu­sic col­lec­tions. In her spare time she stud­ied the tech­niques of in­ter­na­tion­al disc jock­eys via videos post­ed on the In­ter­net. As the com­pli­ments about her mu­sic in­creased, so too did Ram­cha­ran's gigs. Soon, her 8 to 4 job be­came a chore rather than a plea­sure. "I start­ed to feel bored. I knew that be­ing a DJ was some­thing I want­ed to do full time." Ram­cha­ran's de­ci­sion to switch ca­reers didn't go down too well with her fam­i­ly and friends. "Of course they tried to talk me out of it. I ad­mit that I was scared at first too but I was sure that this is where I want­ed to be. "And I am glad that I got my hus­band's sup­port." Con­trary to what peo­ple may be­lieve, Ram­cha­ran said the DJ busi­ness in T&T is a thriv­ing one.

"Peo­ple don't give this pro­fes­sion the re­spect it de­serves be­cause it is not a tra­di­tion­al pro­fes­sion as a doc­tor or lawyer. "But every­one has to make a liv­ing." Ram­cha­ran gets a high, she said, watch­ing pa­trons re­act to her mu­sic. "I am thank­ful to my hus­band for point­ing me in­to the di­rec­tion of this new ca­reer. "He saw some­thing in me in this field that I didn't even see." Asked if women or men make bet­ter DJs, she said the fair­er sex had the ad­van­tage. "Women are more emo­tion­al than men and mu­sic is emo­tion­al, so we are bet­ter at it. "We read the crowds and play ac­cord­ing­ly." The tal­ent­ed young woman's per­son­al choice of mu­sic is soft rock, which she lis­tens to on her Ipod when she is re­lax­ing. Ram­cha­ran's dream is to meet T&T's first fe­male DJ, Ali­cia The Duchess so they could com­pare notes. "Right now she is my icon." It wouldn't hurt if one day Ram­cha­ran can work her way up to the ti­tle of the Caribbean's finest fe­male DJ. "That would be nice." Ram­cha­ran will next be in ac­tion on March 30, at the Co­co Lounge, 35 Car­los Street at its Open Mic, Jam Mar­malade Ses­sion and Karaoke.