Being a dee-jay is so intoxicating. I’ve been addicted to it since I was 17, and today decades have gone by where I’ve seen various stages of music and dee-jay technology shift, change and transcend into mesmerizing and instant-gratification future we see today. I’m clearly an old school dee-jay, I was playing dances with turntables, mixer, amp and speakers as early as ’79 at age 17. Like many old school dee-jays from that era, I started by playing pausing cassette tapes to edit on-time mixes, graduated to playing records on belt-drive turntables, upgraded to Technics Direct-drives, then came CD’s and mp3’s then new amazing controllers new online music platforms like Serato and Apple Music and of course, Serato with their digital arena and stem technology which would change all previous parameters. 

So you will be able to read my story here, but my dj story covers several genres. As a champion promoter of Black music, I was able to play for some of the coolest junior high schools and high schools in Toronto in a time when school dances excluded Black music. The dee-jays who dominated the high-school dj market were r, eock and pop dee-jays. They ignored all Black music, despite the growing Black population. I was able to sneak into schools in Scarborough and Jane and FInch and bring my Black music to those areas of hight demand. I was able to give them their dose of pop yes, but I played funk and rap and later what would become hip-hop. This made a different to the kids there who needed a musical cultural flavour they could identify with.

Later down the line, I would get a radio show on CKLN that would make history. My promotions at the Concert Hall was crazy. As a dee-jay, I would bring all these amazing groups to town, but I would wear two hats come concert nights, being both dee-jay and promoter. Again, playing and promoting Black music for the people was my agenda. I wanted to share this music with the radio audience and the growing heads who wanted to see and hear this music at events and shows. 

I will say too that I have been one of the few who adapted from being a top Toronto hip-hop dee-jay, over to a top Dancehall-Reggae dee-jay in Toronto. When in…. my prime, I was playing at least 2-3 times a week at strictly reggae events. This story will continue…..