We recently connected with DJ BERN and have shared our conversation below.

DJ BERN, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about how you learned to do what you do?

I’ve been DJing for 16+ years, and at the beginning everything was all self-taught. I spent a lot of time watching YouTube videos and just experimenting with different techniques until it sounded right to me. I also spent time soaking up knowledge from DJs I would work events with, but most of my knowledge came from trial and error. Knowing what I know now, I would’ve definitely spent more time interacting with as many DJs as possible to learn from a variety of perspectives. I also would’ve practice more routinely, because in the beginning I didn’t spend as much time practicing the technical side of DJing as I should have.
The most essential skills when learning the craft are simply song selection and mixing. To me, this is what makes a great DJ and should be the foundation of any DJ career. Knowing what songs to play and when, and how to make smooth transitions from one song to the next, are vital to mastering the craft.
There are two major obstacles when it came to learning more. In this field, there is no blueprint or roadmap to success, so in order to navigate it’s important to have a guide. A solid person you can lean on for questions and advice. I wasn’t able to find anyone who was willing to help consistently. I also was lazy when it came to practice, so setting up my equipment every day and packing it up on the weekends for gigs was a chore. I wish I would have put more effort into setting my equipment up at home after a gig to practice more!

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I consider myself a creative, with my primary outlet being a DJ. I have been a DJ for 16 years, originally getting into the field with the plan of using money from gigs as a way to pay for college. However, as soon as I purchased my DJ equipment, I dropped out of college and dove head first into DJing. Since 2007, I’ve performed at thousands of events across the country, including club nights, weddings, fundraisers, festivals, birthday parties, and even a funeral. My clients come to me for my services because they know I excel at setting the vibes with music, no matter the crowd. I pride myself on being able to read the crowd and tailor the music accordingly, on the fly, for crowds of all ages and backgrounds. I am most proud of the events where I can get old and young people from different cultural backgrounds to dance and party together as one; I feel like this is what sets me apart from other DJs. The diversity and range in the music I play covers people from all walks of life. I want people to know that I consider myself to be one of the most well rounded DJs; from playing music, to MCing events, to producing other creative content to supplement the DJ experience such as recording and editing recap videos for events, making audio mixes for daily consumption, creating flyers and other promotional material for events, and creating / organizing events. If there’s one thing I want people to know about me, is that I’m going to do my best to make sure everyone enjoys themselves.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I built my social media audience once I realized that these outlets were the best way to showcase my talent to those who weren’t familiar. I used to make DJ mixes all the time, but it’s hard to convince strangers to commit 30-60minutes to listen to a stranger play music. However, people are constantly browsing social media, and if I could showcase my music taste and DJ talent in 60 seconds or less, I would gain new fans. My advice for anyone who is just starting to build their social media presence can be summed up in 3 things;
1) Be consistent. It wont happen overnight, and even if one post goes viral you need to create more similar posts to keep new fans engaged
2) Be specific. Your content should reflect how you want to represent yourself. If people know what to expect from you music wise, then they’ll keep coming back for more
3) It’s okay to be inspired. Look at other social media accounts that you personally enjoy, and examine WHY you like them and find out what you can incorporate in your own content.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I don’t think people understand how powerful social media is, and how much support comes from a “like” or a “share” online. The music industry is a numbers game, so to help creatives improve on their numbers the best and easiest way to support artists and creatives is to like and share their posts online. Doing so puts their creative work in front of potential new fans, and things go viral usually based on the initial shares of a few. Also, all of this is FREE.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.djbern.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/djbern_
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thedjbern
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/dj_bern
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DJBERNYT/videos

Image Credits
Kevin Rigby
Julie Jackson