50 Fun Facts About DJs and DJ Culture

Grand Wizzard Theodore discovered scratching when which relative told him to turn the music down?

His mother was scolding him from the doorway while he held the record still with his hand, and rubbing it back and forth made a sound he liked enough to build into his sets.

DJ Steve Aoki's father Rocky, a former wrestler, made his fortune founding which restaurant chain?

Benihana brought teppanyaki, cooked at the table, to the United States when Rocky Aoki opened his first New York restaurant in 1964. Steve was born in Miami and raised in California.

Which former NBA centre tours dance festivals playing bass-heavy sets under the name DJ Diesel?

Shaquille O'Neal was already nicknamed Diesel as a player, and his 1993 rap album Shaq Diesel went platinum decades before he started touring the world as a DJ.

Masked DJ Marshmello played a 2019 virtual concert to millions of players inside which video game?

Fortnite drew over 10 million players to the in-game show, the first of the virtual concerts that later brought far bigger pop stars into the game.

Which Cleveland radio DJ popularised the phrase 'rock and roll' for the rhythm and blues he played?

Alan Freed also organised the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball, generally accepted as the first major rock concert, which police ended early when thousands of ticketless fans stormed the arena.

Which American Top 40 countdown host was also the original voice of Shaggy in Scooby-Doo?

Casey Kasem began voicing Shaggy in 1969 and launched American Top 40 a year later, on the Fourth of July weekend of 1970.

Which star of Luther and The Wire began DJing as a teenager at his uncle's wedding business?

Idris Elba started his own DJ company within a year and worked nightclubs as Big Driis, a name he still performs under, before he began auditioning for television roles.

Chart-topping DJs Tiësto, Armin van Buuren and Martin Garrix all come from which European country?

Netherlands towns raised all three: Tiësto was born in Breda, Armin van Buuren in Leiden and Martin Garrix in Amstelveen.

In 2004, Tiësto became the first DJ to perform live on stage during which global sporting event?

Olympic Games organisers in Athens approached him after seeing his concert DVD, and he played for 90 minutes during the opening ceremony.

Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips was the first to play which future superstar's debut record on the radio?

Elvis Presley was 19, and Phillips asked him on air which high school he had attended, a question that told listeners in segregated Memphis that the singer was white.

Frankie Knuckles, called the godfather of house music, was resident DJ at the Warehouse in which US city?

Chicago clubbers shortened the Warehouse's name to describe the records Knuckles played there, which is one account of how house music came to be called house.

Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson, the Belleville Three, created the techno sound of which US city?

Detroit lies about 30 miles from Belleville, the small Michigan town where the three friends met at high school, which is how the trio got their nickname.

Which DJ's 1973 party at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue in the Bronx is celebrated as the birth of hip hop?

DJ Kool Herc played the party in the recreation room of his own apartment building, with his younger sister Cindy as co-host and promoter.

Sound system parties, with a selector playing records and a deejay toasting over them, began on which island?

Jamaica's sound systems took off in 1940s Kingston, and by the mid-1950s they were more popular at parties than live musicians.

Which Mediterranean island's superclubs inspired British DJs to launch acid house nights in 1987?

Ibiza was where acid house first became popular in Europe, and the DJs who holidayed there that summer went home to start the club nights behind Britain's Second Summer of Love.

Which comedian played real-life Armed Forces Radio DJ Adrian Cronauer in the film Good Morning, Vietnam?

Robin Williams improvised most of the radio broadcasts, in a story only loosely based on Cronauer's time on air in Saigon.

Which gravel-voiced DJ, who broadcast from Mexican border stations, played himself in American Graffiti?

Wolfman Jack's border station was powerful enough to be heard across much of the United States, and George Lucas gave him a share of the film's profits that paid him for life.

Which gossip columnist is said to have coined 'disc jockey' in 1935 to describe announcer Martin Block?

Walter Winchell was describing Block's Make Believe Ballroom, a show that played records while creating the illusion of a live broadcast from a ballroom full of top dance bands.

Which brand made the SL-1200, the direct-drive turntable that became the club standard for DJs?

Technics gave it a motor that kept spinning at the correct speed even when a DJ wiggled the record back and forth, which opened the door to scratching. More than 3 million were sold.

Which helmeted duo behind Around the World and One More Time announced their split in 2021?

Daft Punk disguised themselves as robots from 1999, one in a silver helmet and one in gold, and parted amicably after 28 years as a duo.

Avicii, Alesso and Eric Prydz are all star DJs who come from which Nordic country?

Sweden renamed Stockholm's globe-shaped arena the Avicii Arena in 2021, three years after the DJ's death.

David Guetta and DJ Snake are both chart-topping DJs who were born in which European country?

France's capital shaped both careers: Guetta began as a disc jockey in Parisian nightclubs, and DJ Snake grew up in the suburb of Ermont just outside the city.

Calvin Harris, the hitmaking DJ born Adam Wiles, grew up in the town of Dumfries in which country?

Scotland's Dumfries is where he stocked supermarket shelves and worked in a fish processing factory after leaving school to pay for his first DJ gear.

Deadmau5, the DJ who performs in a giant mouse-head helmet, comes from which country?

Canada's Niagara Falls is his home town, and his name comes from the dead mouse he found inside his computer when it began to smell.

Black Coffee, the house DJ whose album Subconsciously won a Grammy, comes from which African country?

South Africa's Black Coffee lost the use of his left arm in 1990, when a car drove into a crowd celebrating Nelson Mandela's release, years before he made his name as a DJ.

Peggy Gou, a Berlin-based DJ who studied fashion in London, was born in Incheon in which country?

South Korea was home until she was 14, when her parents sent her to London to study English, and she later built her DJ career in Europe.

Alok, the DJ who broke through worldwide with the 2016 single Hear Me Now, comes from which country?

Brazil's psychedelic trance scene is the family business: both of Alok's parents are DJs, and he started out in a trance duo with his twin brother.

DJ Khaled made his name as a Miami radio personality, but he was born in which other US city?

New Orleans is where he was born, to Palestinian parents who had immigrated to the United States.

DJ Screw created the slowed-down 'chopped and screwed' style of hip hop in which Texas city?

Houston was where DJ Screw began his trademark slowed-down mixes in 1990, and he went on to release more than 350 mixtapes before his death in 2000.

The Haçienda, the acid house nightclub run by Factory Records, stood in which English city?

Manchester's most famous club lost money for years, partly because its ecstasy-taking dancers bought so little alcohol, and New Order's record sales helped keep it open.

Fatboy Slim's free Big Beach Boutique II party drew about 250,000 people to which English seaside resort?

Brighton became his home when he moved there to study in the 1980s, years before the former Housemartins bassist reinvented himself as a superstar DJ.

Electric Daisy Carnival, a huge dance music festival, takes over a motor speedway each year in which US city?

Las Vegas hosts the flagship edition on a dusk-to-dawn schedule, with each night's final sets ending at sunrise. The festival began in 1997 in a Los Angeles exhibition hall.

Which Indian state, a hippie capital since the 1960s, gave its name to a psychedelic style of trance music?

Goa trance emerged in the early 1990s, decades after the state first drew its hippie crowds, and the wider psychedelic trance scene later developed from it.

Serato, whose software lets DJs mix digital music files with controllers, was founded in which country?

New Zealand's Serato was started in 1998 by two students who met in a computer science class at the University of Auckland.

Which huge dance music festival, dreamed up by two brothers, is held in the Belgian town of Boom?

Tomorrowland held its first edition in August 2005 in a provincial recreation park, a year after brothers Manu and Michiel Beers came up with the idea.

Which Berlin techno club, housed in a former power plant, grew out of an earlier gay club called Ostgut?

Berghain is named after its location near the border between two Berlin districts, Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, and opened in 2004 after Ostgut closed.

Radio DJ Steve Dahl blew up a crate of disco records at a 1979 promotion night in which professional sport?

Baseball's White Sox had to forfeit the second game of the evening because the explosion and the rioting fans left the playing field too damaged to use.

New York DJ Murray the K called himself the fifth member of which band during their 1964 arrival in America?

The Beatles made him the first DJ they welcomed into their circle when they landed in New York, having heard about him and his stage shows from the Ronettes.

DJ Jazzy Jeff shared the first ever rap Grammy with which rapper, who later became a Hollywood star?

Will Smith, then billed as the Fresh Prince, teamed up with Jeff at a 1985 house party when he filled in for the DJ's missing hype man.

What name was given to the 1950s scandal over record labels secretly bribing radio DJs to play their songs?

Payola was coined by the magazine Variety in 1938, joining 'pay' to the '-ola' ending of brand names such as Victrola and Pianola.

Which BBC Radio 1 DJ, on air from 1967 until 2004, gave unknown bands exposure with studio sessions?

John Peel once launched a career over lunch: after he said on air that he was hungry, Billy Bragg's publishers drove to the studio with a mushroom biryani and a copy of the singer's record.

Which pirate station took to the sea in 1964 to get around the BBC's monopoly on British broadcasting?

Radio Caroline was never illegal as such in its early years, because its ships operated in international waters outside any nation's jurisdiction.

Francis Grasso, a New York club DJ of the late 1960s, was among the first to use which mixing technique?

Beatmatching became practical once Grasso had turntables with pitch controls, which let him hold two records at the same tempo for an extended period while he faded between them.

Which BBC Radio 1 dance DJ's name became British rhyming slang for things going wrong?

Pete Tong's name was reputedly first used that way by fellow DJ Paul Oakenfold, in a late-1987 fanzine article about acid house.

Which DJ is best known for a decade-long residency at the New York nightclub Paradise Garage?

Larry Levan's club, a converted parking garage, put the DJ at the centre of attention and is cited as a direct inspiration for London's Ministry of Sound.

David Mancuso's invitation-only New York parties, first held in 1970, became known by what name?

The Loft was literally his home at 647 Broadway, and many of the famous private discotheques that followed in the 1970s and 1980s were modelled on it.

Which seven-second drum solo from a 1969 B-side by the Winstons became a staple of jungle and drum and bass?

The Amen break has been used in thousands of tracks, making it one of the most sampled recordings in music history, yet the Winstons received no royalties for it.

Which Roland bass machine, a commercial failure when new, became the foundation of the acid house sound?

TB-303 units were built to replace a bass guitarist, sounded too unrealistic for the job and were discontinued in 1984, so dance producers snapped them up cheaply second-hand.

The 1982 electro landmark Planet Rock used, without permission, the music of which European electronic band?

Kraftwerk approached the record label about the borrowing, and its boss eventually agreed to pay the band one dollar for every copy sold.

Which jazz musician's 1983 hit Rockit, with scratching by Grand Mixer D.ST, won five MTV Video Music Awards?

Herbie Hancock went to hear club DJs play at the Roxy in New York before making the track, and D.ST arrived at the studio with his own vinyl to scratch.