On March 12, 2016, the 8th Annual Liberian Entertainment Awards will be held in Silver Spring, Maryland at the Fillmore Theater. Categories for this year’s ceremony include the following:
Best Artist
Best Model
Best Fashion Designer
Best Music Producer
Best DJ
Best Actor
Best Movie
Best Music Video
Best Radio Personality
Song of the Year
Best New Artist
Best Gospel Song
Best Athlete
Best Hipco Artist
Best Comedian
Best Film Maker
Community Crusader
As Liberian music continues to experience wider exposure, The Bush Chicken reached out to one of the people responsible for this — DJ Chirpz, a nominee in the DJ of the Year category. DJ Chirpz can be reached on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Congratulations on your nomination for Best DJ. Tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got into DJ’ing as a profession. Who were some of your influencers when you were first getting into the craft?
I started DJ’ing back in 2006. It actually happened accidentally. I was listening to a mixtape DJ and I just loved the body of work. I loved how he structured his mix and I decided then that I wanted to try and do this and that’s how everything started.
From there, I started opening up for other local DJs, then I linked up with a promoter and started doing concerts. About three years ago, when I saw that the Liberian artists were really doing well with the music but they had no outlet to showcase their music, I took the opportunity to come up with the Liberian record pool.
But at that time, there wasn’t enough music coming out so I really couldn’t get a website going. Instead, I started just passing music along through email to different DJs. Now the music is coming out every week, maybe 15 releases a week so we (Lincoln Ward of iRepLIB and I) decided to open a pool again last year and it’s been doing well.
Why or how do you feel your specific contributions to the Liberian music scene differentiates you from your colleagues? Have you collaborated with any of them on projects or do you have plans to?
I think what differentiates me from them is that I’m more than just a party DJ, I’m actually helping to move the music culture forward, the music and the entertainment business. We want to help the music get to a larger platform especially in the African market and expand from there.
As far as collaborations, I’ve been collaborating with a lot of DJs from Philly, Dallas, Minnesota and there are a lot of things in the works.
The importance of the DJ regarding the Liberian music scene can’t be understated. With only a few Liberian performers having the opportunity to travel to the US to perform live, for many Liberians, the exposure to new sounds and music is broken by the DJ. What influence do you think your profession has had on helping to expose some Liberian artists to a larger audience?
What I use to do that is probably the mix-tape that I release every so often. I select the best of the best on the Liberian music scene to showcase what Liberia has to offer. I have a pretty good following online so that’s one way I help to get the artists out there.
Also, through the record pool to distribute the music to DJs from various backgrounds. If they are looking for good African music, I link up with them and get them the music but there is still more work to be done.
We’re in a season where HipCo and Afrobeat as a whole are expanding into markets previously not exposed to the African music scene. What do you think the next steps are to help Liberian artists and musicians continue to broaden their global reach?
One thing that is missing is branding. A lot of artists haven’t branded themselves to be marketed, even to their own Liberian people. One of the things that are hurting the artists is that they’re too accessible, meaning that they’re out every day. People see them everywhere and people aren’t going to be excited to see you or want to pay to see you if you perform for free all the time.
Secondly, we need to educate the artists about the business side of music. A lot of them just go into the studio, record the music, release the music, then they rely on the DJ’s and radio personalities to make everything happen for them. A lot of these artists also need to build up a team around them, you can’t do it by yourself. You need a team behind you.
There are so many areas that young people, in particular, can be a part of regarding the growing music scene coming out of Liberia. What advice would you give to any up and coming DJs or those interested in learning more about how to be successful with their craft?
Have everything together. Have all the pieces in place. Know what you’re coming into and know your goals and how you plan to get to the next level. The music business is very hard and unfair, so you have to have tough skin to get into this business. It also takes money to make artists successful, if you don’t have the financial backing to push to you the next level for studio sessions it’s going to be hard to be successful.
The Liberian Entertainment Industry needs a lot of investors – we need Liberians to invest. Invest in getting the entertainment business to the top because we believe it can help develop the country and take us further.
The complete list of DJ’s nominated in 2016 for their contributions to the Liberian music scene include:
DJ Shine DBeast – DJ Lindon Lib – DJ Chirpz – DJ Weego Sico – DJ LIB
Featured photo courtesy of DJ Chirpz
