Nigel A Camp­bell

A new com­pe­ti­tion was added to the land­scape of com­pet­i­tive events in the short 2016 Car­ni­val sea­son. The first In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca DJ com­pe­ti­tion (IS­DJ) was launched last week to the me­dia as a plat­form to cel­e­brate the "gate keep­ers of the mu­sic and cul­ture," ac­cord­ing to Ha­rand� Elie, head of Full Moon Ltd.

This com­pa­ny along with Per­cep­tion Man­age­ment, head­ed by An­dre Jef­fers and An­drew Bai­ley, make the case for pro­mot­ing the sta­tus of the DJ as part of the mix of tal­ent that draw crowds to par­ties in the sea­son and be­yond.

Elie, Jef­fers and Bai­ley were part of a me­dia con­fer­ence that laid out plans for this new event which has as its goals, the rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing of the phe­nom­e­non of disc jock­ey­ing, em­pow­er­ing young DJs by cre­at­ing the in­fra­struc­ture for a pos­i­tive show­case of their tal­ent, and be­com­ing a tool for not on­ly cul­tur­al brand­ing but al­so for des­ti­na­tion brand­ing, much like In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca Monarch has done for so­ca.

Elie is a for­mer op­er­a­tions manger at So­ca Monarch pro­duc­ers Caribbean Pres­tige Pro­mo­tions, and the tem­plate set there has been copied with the po­ten­tial to pro­mote the art of turntab­lism in the con­text of Car­ni­val: "the way in which mu­sic is played and mixed by a DJ is one of the most in­stru­men­tal ve­hi­cles for hav­ing a good time. It is a cat­a­lyst for per­son­al ex­pres­sion that is not of­fi­cial­ly recog­nised with­in Car­ni­val," he said.

Jef­fers who said the DJs have ten min­utes to show off their best skills. He was keen to say that the com­pe­ti­tion will be an ex­pe­ri­ence: "Pre­sen­ta­tion has a lot to do with suc­cess, we'll be cre­at­ing a bit of the­atre in the show."

For their ef­forts, suc­cess­ful DJ will get prizes rang­ing from $30,000 to $10,000 for the top places with every­body guar­an­teed an ap­pear­ance fee of $5,000. Twen­ty DJs will be se­lect­ed from video sub­mis­sions by DJs from here and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly to move to the fi­nal per­for­mance at the Queen's Park Sa­van­nah Car Park on Jan­u­ary 30.

Elie said, "Every­thing is live. En­ter­tain­ment val­ue is key so there is no lim­it to what can be on stage."

The crit­er a to de­cide the win­ner will in­clude show­man­ship and pre­sen­ta­tion, beat jug­gling skills, crowd re­sponse and con­trol, ar­tic­u­la­tion and ar­gu­ment for the mic man, dub­plate cre­ativ­i­ty, and so­ca fu­sion. Judges will in­clude for­mer So­ca Monach head judge Josephine Tau­rel and mu­sic pro­duc­er Dar­ryl Brax­ton.

Elie al­so stress­es that the In­ter­na­tion­al So­ca DJ com­pe­ti­tion will not fol­low a sound­clash ap­proach.

A sound­clash, more pop­u­lar in reg­gae and dance­hall, is a head-to-head com­pe­ti­tion where the aim is to "kill" the com­peti­tor.

Bai­ley, how­ev­er, recog­nised that there is ri­val­ry be­tween DJs reach­ing to the point where pro­mot­ers won't hire DJs if they are af­fil­i­at­ed with cer­tain ra­dio sta­tions, but he point­ed out that this com­pe­ti­tion was aimed at lev­el­ling the play­ing field lev­el.

THE IN­TER­NA­TION­AL SO­CA DJ­COM­PE­TI­TION 2016 FI­NAL­ISTS

TRINIDAD

1 Del­e­gates In­ter­na­tion­al ft Ringo Starr (94.1 BOOM Cham­pi­ons)

2 Black Heart In­ter­na­tion­al

3 DJ Ana ft Hype Man Patrick An­tho­ny (HOTT 93)

4 Ju­nior Mafia Sound ft Nigel Snipes

(The Street 91.9FM)

5 DJ Quick­star In­ter­na­tion­al ft War Dog

6 The Art­form ft DJ El­e­ment & Fro Hum­mer

7 Su­per Fresh Sound ft Se­lec­tah Kieon & Rat­ed R

8 DJ David 868 ft Rome

9 X Cal­iber Int'l ft Dawg E Slaugh­ter

10 Ul­tra Sim­mo & S Carter (RED 96.7FM)

11 DJ Tri­ni Spice

TO­BA­GO–12 DJ Re­do & Kil­la

BAR­BA­DOS–13 DJ Kirk Brown

GER­MANY–14 DJ Mi­ka Raguaa

CANA­DA–15 Dee­Jay Siz­zla

PUER­TO RI­CO–16 DJ Silen­tkil­la

USA-NEW YORK–17 DJ Spice (Team So­ca)

18. So­ca Rebel

UNIT­ED KING­DOM-LON­DON–19 DJ Mar­kee

AUS­TRALIA–20 DJ Fasmwa