DJ Softserve

Concept

Inspiration

I got into Djing after hearing Flamingosis’s Bright Moments record in 2016. Around this time, I was going out a lot in South Korea and really just enjoying life as much as I could. I had been in to a lot of alternative types of dance music since I was a teenager, but I never really understood what a DJ was doing or the appeal until much later. My biggest influences at the time were hip hop of all sorts, particularly J Dilla inspired drums, funk and jazz.

The positive energy of Flamingosis’s music and contemporaries like him were my initial driving force.

The Philosophy of DJing and Dance

I realized very early on that DJing was not that much different than teaching at its very core. In both cases, you’re capturing the attention of a group of people as a leader and helping them reach a certain goal. In the case of DJing, the goal is connection and release.

It took a lot of going out and reflecting at the afters, but I inevitably came to understand that dancing socially was an extremely powerful form of connection with music, with others and most importantly, one’s self.

In my practice, a DJ’s function is to behave like somewhat of a religious leader. I don’t think it’s an accident that religious ceremonies and dance/music clubs tend to take the same overall format. You have a leader or a band in front and a large audience in various states of focus on the leader. In both cases, people are generally there to connect to something outside of themselves. Dancers and religious observers both have historically used substances like alcohol and other drugs to facilitate this connection.

The DJs job is to guide this ritual. Dance takes on many forms and fundamentally all club DJs are doing the same thing. They are leaders; connecting folks with each other, the music and of course, themselves.

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Learning

How I Did It

Apprenticeship

In 2017 through an ex, I was connected with a pro DJ in South Korea who agreed to take me under her wing. I told her I was trying to learn and she told me to come in after work the following Tuesday to her hip hop bar.

DJIng is a surprisingly difficult thing to learn alone in your room, haha.

Knowing that this was a rare opportunity, I studied up as much as I could on the basics of the Pioneer CDJ gear they had and tried not to look stupid. My Korean was decent but the language barrier was going to prove to be a bit of a hurdle. Regardless, I showed up diligently every week to learn.