The inaugural Digicel Amateur Disc Jockey (DJ) competition ended in the wee hours of Saturday morning at the Cliff Anderson Sports Hall tarmac, with Selector Keston juggling all the popular hits to win the crowd and the judges hearts as the best DJ.
Keston Tyrell, popularly known as ‘Selector Keston’ outplayed Travis Hart (DJ Vybz) and Cletus Smith (DJ Smidjit) who secured the second and third spots respectively.
Tyrell walked away with $200,000, a Pioneer console, a pair of Beats headphones, hard drives and one year free credit from Digicel, while DJ Vybz received $150,000 and the same accessories and DJ Smidjit took home $100,000 as well as the other prizes.
The other DJs that made it through to the final were Jefferson Meusa (DJ Spotlight), Shequille Sparman (Selector Shaqq) and Brian Joseph (DJ Bentley). DJ Smidjit made it to the final after he won a wildcard sound-off against Dwain Bowen (Mix Master Toney).
The DJs were judged on their style and ability to play across the various genres; a change in the final – they were given flash drives which contained varying genres of music which they had to incorporate into their own track list.
Speaking after the announcement of the results, the winner felt his success was due to him being unique from the other competitors while adding that overall the competition was a great learning experience.
“I felt I was more creative than the others, I played songs that they did not expect, the competition taught me a lot, different crowds you have to play different music, and you need to learn how to adapt quickly,” he said.
Tyrell further stated that the prizes won will ultimately help him improve on his endeavours going forward in the entertainment sector.
Meanwhile, Digicel’s Advertising Manager Ramesh Roopchand disclosed that a second edition is on the cards and promises it to be “bigger and better”.
“As you can see, the amount of people that came to support these DJs, it has been overwhelming; this was just a pilot project and it came out excellent and I can guarantee you come next year, it will be bigger and better”, Roopchand said.
His advice for those desirous of competing next year is to get in as much practice now, adding, “We want DJs to be more versatile, you must be able to mix all genres of music and apart from that, they should be able to mix music on the spot”.
The competition lasted six weeks and featured over 100 participants from across the country.
Below are some scenes from the event captured by INews photographer, Carl Croker.
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