DJs – these are the people that make our parties awesome and unforgettable. They are the people that make us feel and forget things. They are the most important part of the parties and events, because music is the thing that makes everything special, and DJs are the people, who give us best music and vibes. But DJing is not only playing cool tracks for crowds and making music, it has an amazing history behind it and it has been a huge part of club culture since 1930s.
Mainly, nowadays, DJs are the ones who creates extended mix of music, but in 1935, commentator, Walter Winchell was the one who invented the term “Disc Jockey” and 1943 was the year, when world’s first DJ dance party was launched by playing some jazz records in England. After all this first official nightclub opened in Paris, which is considered to be the world’s first commercial disco.
Later in 50s, sound systems were developed and DJs threw parties in the streets and the center of the attention was DJ, who was called selector and was playing dance music from huge sound systems. And the DJs, who were hosting the parties (nowadays, called promoters), used to sell food, beverages, admission and this led to competition between DJs. They compared who had biggest sound systems and newest records and after this, in 60s, beat-matching technique was creating, which is seamless transitions between records that have matching beats or tempos.
Mid-70s was the time, when Hip-hop music started to become part of DJs’ life. DJing was one of the main elements of Hip-hop culture, which also included graffiti, b-boying and MCing (rapping). And in 1975 one of the Hip-hop DJs coined scratching technique.
While 70s was Hip-hop decade, 80s turned out to be the birth time of disco-influenced electronic dance music. The roots of this go to Chicago, Warehouse Club, where DJ Frankie Knuckles, now considered as father of house music, used to play and mix good old disco classics. And like this, House music was born, which is essentially disco music with different electronic beats. In late 80s first national DJ music magazine was published and also, around these times, first DJ track reached top 10 on the Billboard hot 100 and this was first exposure of electronic music and as well as the concept of the DJ to the mainstream audiences.
End of 90s was really important time, because firs MP3 digital audio player was released and people where able to download the tracks they liked and this was the first step of the new digital DJ revolution. One year later, Napster was released and this was first massive file sharing system, also, during this period, license was announced, which meant that DJs had the right to perform publicly the tracks that were stored on their hard drive instead of having huge disc collections with them.
The fact that high tech digital sound mixers were introduced in 2000s, made a whole new culture for electronic music, also, the birth of internet have created new groups on social networks. And the whole DJ industry became more about the atmosphere that has to go along with a music they perform. Nowadays DJs do not only play good music, lights and effects go along with it, too. And this is called VJing which is very important thing in clubs, because nobody wants to listen to good music in bad atmosphere and the effects create such good vibes that none of us have imagined going to the basic events without good effects and lights.