From the rise of radio DJ-personalities around mid 20th century, to club DJs in the 1970s, to hip-hop and battle DJs in the 1980s, and electronic music festival and rave DJs in the 1990s, the DJ has become a prominent figure in the music industry and on a global scale. The rise of the DJ has contributed to the creation of innovative technologies, hybrid music genres, alternative performance practices, diverse audience responses, new marketing strategies, and major changes in music recording and production.

Regarding the DJ: Music Technology, and Resistance, focuses on the DJ and the place of the DJ figure on the prairies and in Western and Northern Canada.

  Research Questions:

    * What is the significance of the DJ to life on the prairies?

    * How does the DJ foster community?

    * How does the DJ create a regional identity?

    * How do the DJs that have a voice on the prairies contribute to a national identity?

    * How does the global impact the local? In other words, what is the impact of globalization on DJ culture?

    * How do satellite radio, the web, performances by international DJs, computer music software programs, and the development of home studios impact DJ culture on the prairies?

    * How does the development of an institution like the Scratch DJ Academy in New York City, Los Angeles, and Miami, whose mission is “to unify, legitimize, validate and extend the role and importance of the DJ into new arenas, by extracting the value of the DJ as an art, a hobby and a profession, and constructively disseminating it to the public,” impact DJ culture in western Canada?

Merky Waters

© Chris Graham Photo