Making it to the finals of the 2018 Red Bull 3Style World DJ Championships is the icing on the cake for Justin ‘Jus Jay’ King after having a whirlwind of a year.
King made the announcement earlier this week via his Facebook page, expressing his excitement about making the finals of the crème de la crème of freestyle deejaying competitions.
“I remember when Rihanna first blew. She gave us hope that almost didn’t exist before, that we could do huge things; GLOBAL things in music, even though we are from a tiny place. Before her, these things were not realistic for me; for most Bajans. Today I’m happy to announce that I’ll be representing Barbados and the entire Caribbean as a finalist at the 2018 Red Bull 3Style World DJ Championships,” the post said.
The news is still very much sinking in for the local deejay, but his mind is already in work mode.
“I’m quite excited about it but it is not really showing on the surface because it’s kind of overshadowed by the nervousness. I only found out like a week ago and as soon as I put down the phone I was in practice. So, basically, the focus is overshadowing the excitement; but I’m happy to represent the country,” King said.
In an interview with Weekend Buzz shortly after the announcement, the DJ said he was most excited about the fact that he was now able to represent his country officially.
“I’ve always wanted to represent Barbados. I wanted to do so in sports, but I got two knee injuries; so that was the end of that. But ever since I’ve been representing Barbados unofficially. This is the first time I get to rep properly. It’s the only Caribbean flag on the bill; so it’s like I’m representing the Caribbean as well. For me that’s one of the most important parts of this journey. I’m really patriotic; so it means a lot to me, man,” he added excitedly.
At present, he is preparing to make sure everything is perfect for the big day. While admitting he had some doubts, King said having a strong support system made everything just a bit better.
“I think at times I’m very confident that I could win it. Then different things cloud my judgement, a lot crosses my mind; but a lot of the advice I got is to just do …. So I’m just taking that in. Originality is worth most of the points so I think that being from Barbados, and Caribbean by extension, is really going to set me apart from a lot of people and the support system is really strong.
“I have friends who have booked flights to Poland already. So I will have a strong support system there as well. Everyone may not know the music but I am bringing a group of people who will be supporting heavy. I’m definitely somewhat confident. I just need to get my routines down pact so I can be fully confident,” King explained.
And while being a deejay was not a lifelong dream for King, who was once a soca singer making it all the way to the Party Monarch Finals in 2010, he has completely fallen in love with it. But it was a marketing move last year, which propelled him further into the deejaying world and possibly landed him where he is today.
“I’ve always been into music entirely; so I kept with the deejaying, but I went into a more mainstream musical format. I made a marketing move last year after Crop Over. I decided to take on the turntables. I was grinding it all the way from January straight until Independence when I put out two videos called These Fields And Hills, and basically it was routinely Barbadian music and with scratching and tricks and so on. Not something you would generally do in a club atmosphere, but it’s a more visual something to watch.”
“The idea behind it was to showcase the island with the video. They were very extra. One was in Crab Hill, St Lucy overlooking the sea, and the other one was in the middle of the bridge in front the Parliament Buildings in Bridgetown. I actually set up a deejay bridge in the middle of there and that basically shot me into the international arena,” he stated.
Since then, life hasn’t been the same for King, and he is enjoying every last minute of it.
“I travel two to three weekends a month. I actually boarded like 50 planes this year, been to 15 different countries. This is like the icing on the cake. Basically topped off my year. It’s been a really good year for me,” he said.