Sama­ki Fe­li­cian

Free­lance Cor­re­spon­dent

D J Pri­vate Ryan (Ryan Alexan­der) has ce­ment­ed his place as one of the most in­flu­en­tial DJs in the so­ca in­dus­try. His jour­ney start­ed in child­hood when he would sneak in­to his fa­ther’s mu­sic col­lec­tion, spin­ning records on a turntable and blend­ing tracks from the ra­dio. It was his way of teach­ing him­self the art of DJ-ing long be­fore he even knew what it would be­come.

By the time he en­tered sec­ondary school at St Mary’s Col­lege, Alexan­der had al­ready found his crew of like-mind­ed mu­sic lovers who formed the sound sys­tem Detri­men­tal. As a teenag­er, he was play­ing at events, gain­ing ex­pe­ri­ence and recog­ni­tion. His tal­ent quick­ly earned him prime-time slots at clubs and on the ra­dio, some­thing that rarely hap­pens for DJs so young.

When he moved to the US for col­lege, Alexan­der didn’t stop. In­stead, he found a new au­di­ence at col­lege par­ties, and that’s where his mix­tapes took off. His mix­es weren’t just about play­ing so­ca, they were about telling a sto­ry, blend­ing cul­tures, and keep­ing Caribbean peo­ple con­nect­ed to home, no mat­ter where in the world they were.

Over the years, Alexan­der has seen so­ca evolve. He’s watched as each era brought a new sound, from ca­lyp­so to the so­ca of the 90s, dom­i­nat­ed by artistes like Ron­nie McIn­tosh, to the rise of Machel Mon­tano, and lat­er the wave of stars like De­stra Gar­cia, Bun­ji Gar­lin, and Fay-Ann Lyons-Al­varez. Now, the mu­sic is shift­ing again, with fresh sounds emerg­ing and tak­ing over both lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly.

What makes DJ Pri­vate Ryan stand out is his ap­proach. He rarely plans his sets. In­stead, he plays off the en­er­gy of the crowd, mak­ing every per­for­mance unique. But that doesn’t mean he doesn’t pre­pare. He does what he calls “brain re­fresh­ers,” go­ing back to dif­fer­ent mu­si­cal eras and pulling out for­got­ten gems so his sets don’t be­come pre­dictable.

“For me I freestyle, I freestyle my sets, I hard­ly ever plan, the on­ly time I will plan is if it’s like a stage show with light­ing and fetes and things where you have to hit cues. For me, prepa­ra­tion, where I do brain re­fresh­ers, so if I know, let’s say I am play­ing for a crowd that’s look­ing for in­ten­tion­al­ly some­thing from a cer­tain era, I will go and look through and be like okay there are cer­tain songs I want to pull be­cause what hap­pens if you don’t do that, you will just do mus­cle mem­o­ry and you find your­self play­ing the same things, so you want to be able to keep your neu­ropaths ac­tive so that you can cre­ate new and ex­cit­ing ex­pe­ri­ences mu­si­cal­ly,” he said.

Be­yond DJing, Alexan­der has stepped in­to mu­sic pro­duc­tion. He start­ed in 2018 with the Roads Rid­dim, which fea­tured artistes like Preedy, Nes­sa Prep­py, and Ker­win Du Bois. Then, in 2020, dur­ing the pan­dem­ic, he cre­at­ed Feel the Love Rid­dim, a project that re­flect­ed the emo­tions of the time. While tour­ing had slowed down due to the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic, pro­duc­tion gave him a new cre­ative out­let. Many of the beats he worked on then are still be­ing re­leased to­day.

Col­lab­o­ra­tion is a big part of his vi­sion. He wants to merge dif­fer­ent mu­si­cal styles, bring­ing so­ca to­geth­er with dance­hall, Afrobeat, and even French and Latin in­flu­ences. A per­fect ex­am­ple of this was Pep­per, a track fea­tur­ing Machel Mon­tano, Dru­patee Ram­goon­ai and La­dy La­va, where he fused tra­di­tion­al chut­ney, so­ca, and steam­punk aes­thet­ics in­to one project.

Even with all his suc­cess, time man­age­ment re­mains one of his biggest chal­lenges. As a DJ, pro­duc­er, and event or­gan­is­er, he’s con­stant­ly jug­gling mul­ti­ple projects. He’s ful­ly booked every Car­ni­val sea­son, run­ning events like So­ca Starter, The Cel­e­bra­tion, and So­ca Brain­wash - Com­ic World, a one-of-a-kind Car­ni­val cos­play event.

When Guardian Me­dia asked Alexan­der what ad­vice he would give to up­com­ing and young DJs, his re­sponse was mo­ti­va­tion­al.

“Be con­sis­tent, en­gage with your au­di­ence, stay true to your brand, and re­mem­ber there’s a dif­fer­ence be­tween be­ing tal­ent­ed and be­ing a brand. It’s not just about play­ing mu­sic, it’s about how you present your­self, what you’re known for, and how you con­nect with peo­ple.”

For Alexan­der, stay­ing in one place cre­ative­ly isn’t an op­tion. He’s al­ways look­ing for ways to push bound­aries and in­spire the next gen­er­a­tion. His lega­cy is still be­ing writ­ten, but if there’s one cer­tain thing, it’s that Alexan­der will al­ways be re­mem­bered as a game-chang­er in the so­ca in­dus­try.

Asked what’s, he said “Un­de­fined, the sky’s lim­it­less it’s not even the lim­it, you know right now we are in the space era, you know so if you thought the sky was the lim­it, then you didn’t ex­plore space.

“So for me, it could be as cre­at­ing new fes­ti­vals to cre­at­ing or­gan­ic tiny desk-like things, win­ning a Gram­my to mak­ing more mu­sic with more peo­ple around the Caribbean, and to you nev­er know, stay­ing silent for one year and then com­ing up with some­thing new and re­flect on the next lev­el and where we need to go.” he said.