If you’ve been keeping up with me on this website, on Facebook or onTwitter, then you probably know that for the past month-and-a-half I’ve been on tour with the Red Bull Thre3 Style DJ competition. I’ve had an incredible time as a performer and judge in each city/area; seeing talented DJs of all styles take a shot at rocking the decks for packed rooms across the country. We’ve had a tight crew for the long haul : host/MC/rapper ternt sanga Mr. Curtis Santiago has kept crowds informed and under control, the multi-talented Fokus Productions visuals team has made it look incredible, and young photo-phenom David Lang has taken pictures of it all.
At the start of the year, I filmed some video breaking down the details of the rules of the event. I showed those earlier this month in another post, so I’ll skip that this time and get right into a full recap.
It all comes to a (national) close this Saturday at Sound Academy in Toronto. The 10 regional champions will be in town to duke it out for the Canadian 3-Style crown and the rights to represent Canada at the world finals in Paris, France this December. They are: DJ Flipout (Vancouver), DJ Echo (Edmonton), Fordinho (Calgary), DJ Fin-S (Winnipeg), DJ Mensa (Toronto), DJ Drastik (Kingston), DJ M-Kutz (London), DJ A-Rock (Montreal), DJ Payce (Quebec City) and DJ IV (Moncton) will compete along with last year’s champ DJ Cosmo. Exciting line-up. For a whole lot of pictures and other info about the regionals, visit the Red Bull Thre3 Style Facebook page or David Lang’s dedicated Flickr page.
It’s going to be a really interesting final. In 15 minutes, there is a lot of time to shine, and also a lot of time to screw up a lil’ bit here and there. Who will be the cleanest? Who will be successful in balancing creativity, originality, skills, stage presence and crowd response? Who will be able to win over the out-of-town and tough Toronto crowd? I suppose Mensa has homefield advantage, but after he placed second last year it’s obvious that that doesn’t mean everything. With competition being thick, I’m looking a lot towards originality and skill; I want to see those things that separate the DJs from the rest of the pack. Who’s going to risk losing the crowd with a difficult transition, only to have them have their mind blown as the DJ takes the party to another level? With 11 DJs and 2 hours & 45 minutes of bangers, which DJ will have the most original music? I think everyone has to step their game up a little bit. This is the last chance to dance and I want to see some fireworks! I’ll report back next week.
Below are the videos of each regional winner’s set. As you can see, there is no clear winner. Below these, are some previews of the headliners. Who are they? read on…
Showcasing at the final will be the world famous Montrealais DJ A-TRAK, battle veteran DJ KLEVER and myself. A-Trak played the Canadian final last year and SLAYED it; I’m sure Klever will be wrecking shop as well. I will be performing my BRAND NEW video mixing set. Throughout the tour, I have been working with Fokus show-by-show to develop visuals for a video mix set and this will be where I test it out in final, on Sound Academy’s gigantic stage setup. To see some fan footage of the set in it’s early stages at Montreal’s final, check this clip:
If you’re in Toronto, we’ll see you there.
