Is DJing an art?

Not the way I did it

(This piece originally appeared on my Substack, Artless. Subscribe to that here.)

I was a bad DJ. Not as bad as the DJ who climaxed his memorial set at Trade to house legend Tony De Vit by playing Cher’s ‘Believe’ and got chased out of the club with whatever the muscle Mary equivalents are of banjos and pitchforks. Or as bad as the DJ at a rave so ferociously coked up he kept snapping at successive petitioners, “Soz, don’t do requests,” apparently unaware that for the past half hour he’d been playing the Ghostbusters theme on a loop. Reading the room (or dance floor) is one of the more advanced DJing skills. I, though, was bad even at the basics: beat-matching (you can forget key-matching); choosing a DJ name that won’t make you blush in years to come (say, Fatboy Saleem).

Music not only is the most time-bound art-form but in the purest way, more so than the narrative arts (which really are about cause-and-effect), and in a particular and technical way when it comes to DJing. Particularly DJing with vinyl records: without having audio waveforms visualised for you or a computer to do the job. If it’s an art then it’s one of timing on several levels.

You have to listen to the tempo of the record playing on the speakers (or monitor) and the tempo of the record you plan to put on next playing on your…