The disc jockey began as a radio host and became a musician
The phrase disc jockey was supposedly coined in 1935 by the gossip columnist Walter Winchell to describe a radio host who introduced records on air. The disc was shellac, later vinyl. Today a DJ might never touch a record at all, mixing digital files on a laptop while reading a festival crowd.
The core craft is blending. DJs use gear that can play at least two recordings at once, lining up the beats so rhythms and tempos do not clash and one track flows into the next. A DJ mixer with a crossfader handles the handover, while headphones let the DJ preview and adjust the next song before the audience hears it. Beatmatching is the key technique for seamless transitions, but a good set also depends on choosing the right records at the right moment, a skill known as reading the crowd. Mixing itself began with hip-hop in the 1970s before spreading to dance music.
The title covers many jobs. Radio DJs present music on air, club DJs keep a nonstop flow going at venues and festivals, and mobile DJs bring their own sound systems to weddings and block parties. Resident DJs play a venue regularly, often on Friday and Saturday, and shape its identity. Turntablists, also called battle DJs, treat the turntable as an instrument, with scratching the best-known technique, and compete at events such as the DMC World DJ Championships. In hip-hop, DJs also build beats from sampled percussion breaks and basslines for MCs to rap over. Jamaican usage flips the meaning: there a deejay toasts or sings over an instrumental riddim, while the person choosing the records is called a selector.
Some vocabulary is specific to the scene. An unreleased track played in a set is called an ID, a label that can also refer to an anonymous producer whose name may emerge later. In German-speaking countries women DJs are sometimes called DJanes.
Women remain a minority behind the decks. A 2013 article in Sound on Sound reported that ninety-five percent of music producers are male, and writers such as Mark Katz point to a culture of male technophilia around turntables. Researchers argue the gap stems from how boys are socialised toward technology rather than from any lack of interest among women, who are steadily carving out space in DJ and dance culture.
Source: Disc jockey
