Team DJ

Sometimes it seems that many aspiring artists firmly believe in the uniqueness of famous DJs who manage to release 40 records in a year, tour the whole world and even, what’s more, create their own series of parties or even a club. And we, they say, are suckers, we barely have time to fill a folder with fresh material and organize a performance in a local pub for three thousand rubles. But can't we do that? Of course we can, we just need to look at the work of a DJ as the work of an entire enterprise, and not just one person. Don't understand? Everything is very simple. Let's build a model of how you need to organize yourself and your associates in order to create one, but high-quality product called “Super DJ”. First you need the artist himself. Let him be a charismatic and cheerful DJ who happily rushes for the turntables and is liked by girls. Why like this? But because, as in any other area, the most active consumers are girls. There is no point in arguing here, that is their nature. In any city, a Russian DJ is always met with skepticism, especially from the “local” residents, but if all the “glamorous party girls” with their friends show up for the performance, then everyone will have to come, and if the “crew” works correctly, everyone will enjoy everything. The second person who is needed to promote a cool mega-DJ is a project manager. Such a person will kick all the other “workers” and promote the artist “to the masses.” Plus, he will think through the artist’s development strategy and monitor market trends (marketing is generally the main weapon in any business). Without a manager (he can, by the way, combine the functions of a booking manager), any project threatens to self-destruct due to lack of coordination, because without a “boss” there is no responsibility, such is the nature of creative people. The next thing an artist will need is a personal A&R manager. Why does an artist need such a person? And then, when the tour schedule is scheduled for every day (and many actually work like that), there is no time left to sit on “recording” and download “music”. Thus, a special person appears who deals with the repertoire, sends already selected high-quality tracks, which only after that the artist watches. Where is the freedom of choice, you ask? And where comes the fashion for one track, which can be heard from all the cracks, or the fashion for a whole style, which is played even in rural discos. There is no freedom of choice, if you want to achieve commercial success, there is only the illusion of this freedom. So where do exclusive and unique compositions come from, you ask? And here we come to the fourth element of our wonderful “team” - a sound producer-musician who writes exclusive and unique compositions, moronic format remixes and other jingles with mixes. This is a studio person who, for a certain fee, creates music for the artist. There are plenty of examples - Joakim Garraud for David Guetta, Manuel Schleis for Dabruck&Klein and many other “electro-gurus”, Alessandro Benassi for the project Benny Benassi and Benassi Bros., Jesper Dahlback for Tiga, Dennis Waakop Reijers for Tiesto, Chris Reese for a good half of progressive -artists and other options when the music is created without the participation of a DJ, but in the end it comes out signed with his name. Is this fair? Of course yes! Using the example of pop music, one can understand that the public is primarily interested in the final performer, and not the composer and author of words. It’s the same here - it doesn’t matter which studio goblin has been poring over the composition for a month, the main thing is that this track will be signed with the name of a cool DJ. Of course, many write music on their own, but most often it is polished and produced by specially trained people. The next person needed in the team is an administrator. This is a personal organizer with a battery for the artist. He follows the DJ everywhere, sorts out all the issues regarding the rider and accommodation on tour, draws up the daily routine and torments the artist with all sorts of “you can’t mix cocaine with beer” and “stop staring at chicks, you just didn’t have enough children in this wilderness” and so on. Sometimes this function is performed by a manager, but if the manager has more than one artist, then you cannot do without an administrator. Next on the list is a PR manager, who now often also combines the functions of an Internet administrator. This person runs forums, myspace, promodj, vkontakte, facebook, livejournal and other resources that are necessary to create the image of an artist. Such a person will be there all the time, and often does almost more work than everyone else. After all, now is the time of images, advertising and other enticements. A beautiful wrapper is sometimes more important than the content, but this is not a bad thing - not everyone is given the gift of being a brilliant artist, but any person can create an image, even if he is scary, stupid and without a sense of rhythm. And finally, the last point is the stylist. After all, a DJ with a bad haircut is simply a disaster for the industry. Of course, any of these roles can be taken on by the DJ himself, as can be seen in the case of Mason, Bass Kleph or Ian Carey, but some things cannot be done physically - time in our lives has no pitch, the speed cannot be reduced. So it’s best to start assembling a team from the very beginning of your career, and then it will be much easier to achieve success.

The author of the article is m-clis, when using article materials, a link to the author and DJ school www.djfamily.ru is required.