Is DJ an ARTIST ?

 

People often ask: is a DJ an artist? This is a difficult question. Sure, there is a certain skill involved in DJ'ing, but does that make the DJ an artist? There is skill involved in driving a car but no-one would call driving an art-form. Is the same true of DJ'ing?

I believe that DJ'ingis a form of art. The purpose of this short piece is to

explain my reasons for holding this belief. My goal is to convince the skeptics

that DJs should be put into a similar category with other artists. Musicians,

composers, painters, and photographers are all artists that have learned a

skill. They use their skill to bring about emotion in other people. They do this

by either creating something new, or by capturing a unique scene or moment

in time, and then making the result available to an audience. DJs are the

same. They use their skill to create mixsets, and in doing so they are capturing

something unique which can be made available to an audience. To strengthen

my point, I will draw an analogy between a photographer and DJ. I believe that

if photography is a form of art, then so is DJ'ing.

So, what does a DJ actually do? At its most basic level a DJ selects a range of musical pieces and plays them to an audience. The primary goal is to make people dance.