A crowd can tell when a DJ has pas­sion and skill for their craft, el­e­vat­ing dee­jay­ing to an art form. A good DJ must know their au­di­ence, have the abil­i­ty to 'read' the crowd, mix­ing and blend­ing the mu­sic to the crowd's taste.

A tal­ent­ed DJ can in­flu­ence the mood or at­mos­phere at a gig or par­ty, trans­form­ing a 'qui­et' par­ty to a swing­ing event, or push over the top an al­ready elec­tric dance­hall to a rol­lick­ing par­ty.

Kristie Brew­ster, DJ Punks­ta, from Fyz­abad, who just turned 14 on Fri­day, man­i­fests the qual­i­ties it takes to be both in­side the DJ booth and on the air­waves.

She is mak­ing her mu­si­cal mark in what is viewed as a pre­dom­i­nant­ly male in­dus­try.

Speak­ing to the Kids' Guardian Kristie said "I got in­to Dee­jay­ing from my fa­ther who is al­so a DJ, Ja­son Brew­ster, DJ Ja­son-X, by just watch­ing him go to gigs and blend­ing all these dif­fer­ent gen­res in a way that makes a par­ty a par­ty.

"I start­ed dee­jayjng around eight years old, my men­tor and biggest in­spi­ra­tion is my fa­ther. I pat­tern my­self af­ter my fa­ther's DJ style.

kristie Brewster

"My role mod­els are DJ Ja­son-X and DJ Char­lotte Se­lec­tah Ker­ry. I love the whole idea of just mix­ing mu­sic and be­ing able to move to dif­fer­ent gen­res in the coolest way ever.

"I play and prac­tice at my fa­ther's stu­dio, Thrill En­ter­tain­ment Stu­dios, where I al­so host my own show 'Z-Gen­er­a­tion Live' on an on­line ra­dio plat­form called ilive­caribbean every Sat­ur­day from 10 am to 12 noon."

She said she had lots of DJ friends, but the one she was the clos­est to was her co-host on her show, Chelsea Craw­ford, DJ Se­lec­tah Chels, an up­com­ing DJ who mics for the show.

Kristie Brewster

Kristie likes food, in­ter­act­ing with peo­ple, spend­ing time with her fam­i­ly and her very few friends. She al­so en­joys meet­ing new peo­ple who share the same in­ter­ests as her, such as play­ing the pan.

The Fyz­abad An­gli­can Sec­ondary School Form Three stu­dent's favourite sub­ject is Mu­sic.

When asked how she would feel see­ing her school friends and teach­ers in per­son af­ter such a long time when school fi­nal­ly re­opens, Kristie said that it might just make her tear up a bit see­ing every­one, even though she nev­er re­al­ly got to be around them since sec­ondary school start­ed as school has been closed be­cause of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic.

She was still un­de­cid­ed as to what she want­ed to be when she grows up but dee­jay­ing was nev­er leav­ing that al­ly.

Kristie dis­closed that her favourite food is any­thing with pota­toes or piz­za and her favourite dessert is choco­late ice cream or sweet smooth­ies.

She ab­solute­ly loves the se­ries Grey's Anato­my and Once Up­on a Time. Her all-time favourite movie is Toy Sto­ry.

Kristie de­clared that she loved all gen­res of mu­sic and that was prob­a­bly what made her a great DJ.

Ja­son Brew­ster, Kristie's fa­ther said that they al­ways en­cour­aged her in her pur­suits.

He de­scribed her as very dis­ci­plined when it comes to her school work, and she al­ways loved school.

Kristie's moth­er, Anal­isa Brew­ster, said they al­ways as­sured Kristie that she was a very in­tel­li­gent and well-round­ed per­son.

Their daugh­ter con­tin­ues to make them proud in every as­pect of her life and gives them hope that de­spite all the chal­lenges par­ents are faced with, they can still raise re­spect­ful, well-man­nered and am­bi­tious chil­dren.