James Maiga

I think this whole issue has a lot of factors that need to be considered, and the answer will be different for each DJ. In a perfect world, I think we would all be playing one or two hour sets in a club or festival only playing the music we love. For me that is not realistic. As a mostly mobile DJ, I am expected to have every song under the sun. Obviously I don’t, but I try my best to have what I think the people might ask for, and learn the tracks I am unfamiliar with before my gigs. I am 35, and I DJ events for my peers. I feel like I need to have every (or most) popular, dancey top 40 track from the past 25 years so when I get a request I don’t get an eye roll and snarky comment when I am honest and say I don’t have the song (or the requestor is looking over my shoulder when I am searching and sees I don’t have it).

I belong to several record pools (three actually). I probably spend more on music than I should. But it also lets me feel more free with the music I select. I download based on three criteria…do I like the song, could this song be a possible request, or is it a song that I would be “expected” to have. Maybe I download song I like that I would never play out, but I might use it in a mixtape for myself or another who likes that genre. I belong to three because one has a huge variety (BPM Supreme) and has some latin tracks that I need for DJing in SoCal, a second (Beat Junkies) has a lot of old school hip hop and such that is hard to find, and a third (DJ City) which I am new to but I like their selection of remixes and edits. Now there is some overlap between the three, but this way I feel like I am not missing anything. I used to belong to another (mymp3pool) that has a lot of DJ-centric edits (Hype or Acapella intros/outros, scratch tools, etc) but I canceled in favor of DJ City to see how that goes. Plus I like the other features of their website so I want to support their efforts.

The iTunes thing for individual tracks would probably work for the Latin tracks (regional Mexican to Reggaeton to Tribal, etc), but BPM Supreme does a decent enough job that I leave it at that. BPM Supreme does put out some Reggae tracks (maybe 10 or so a month, maybe less) so I don’t know if that is enough for your needs, Kai.

The 10 tracks per month thing is good when you have your established base collection, but when you are first starting out that won’t get it done!

I saw a video of Laidback Luke talking about something similar and he says as DJs we should play “2 for them and 1 for us.” I like that mantra. If I can play a commercial track that is a request and mix into or out of it in a creative way to a song I like that maybe my crowd doesn’t know, I usually get a good reaction. “Civilians” sometimes just want us to be a beatbox, but it is up to us to show them better than that.

Holy crap this is way longer than I intended it to be.