Working as a deejay comes with a lot of juggling.
However, Micah Master Thorny Thornhill does his best to make sure he stays on the beat.
That’s how the 25-year-old contextualised the fast-paced profession which keeps him on the go.
“My work goes from Sunday to Sunday. I don’t got off days. Sometimes, on Mondays, I got two jobs. But you have to make the commitment to the work because that is what gine bring the money,” he said.
“So success wasn’t given to me. It comes with hard work because me and partner (DJ Pun) work hard. We push real hard.
“I spend a lot of early mornings and late nights working. I even have a shirt that says ‘from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m.’. I would leave home late at night and this morning, for example, I get home at 5,” he said.
Although the job takes up a lot of his time, it’s a sacrifice he is willing to make.
“You’ve got weeks that you will only see your girlfriend for a couple of hours, especially if she works during the day. There are days you will not see her at all because of your job. So that is a big, big challenge,” he acknowledged.
He made those comments to the Weekend Buzz as he reflected on his journey and shared some of his goals.
Thornhill, who attended Wesley Hall Junior School and The Lester Vaughan School developed a love for cricket at primary school and accompanied his father sports broadcaster Andi Thornhill.
“I really wanted to be a cricketer at first. Wesley Hall is known for cricket, so any boy who went to Wesley Hall got introduced to cricket more so than any other sport and being with [his father] at sporting events, encouraged me to want to be like the people that he interviewed,” he said.
He played for several years and intended to take that route, however, his love for music and entertainment eventually bowled him over.
“I was making sport during my Lester Vaughan days with other deejays and if I was at cricket and deejays were there, I would get a mic and start to vibe,” he said.
He briefly studied management at the University of the West Indies but admitted that was not the direction he wanted to take.
However, he said it was only when entertainer Marzville gave him encouragement that he decided to take his career as a deejay seriously.
“I started DJing only a couple of months before the lockdown. Marzville was the first who said ‘Thorny, I think you got to take this thing serious’.
“Then Marzville had a beach party in 2020 where I start my deejaying career,” he added.
“The ghetto is really what pushed my career. I used to always get bookings from the kids, but one night on a cruise, on the DreamChaser, was the turning point for my career. I was playing at every cruise from 2023,” he said.
He said several established deejays also gave assistance along the way.
Since then, he landed deals and he can be heard on Hott 95.3 FM.
He is scheduled to play at the Caribbean Music Festival on Sunday and these are the types of opportunities he does not take for granted. He made it clear he works hard to ensure he connects with his audiences who may want to hear various genres of music.
“A deejay normally get booked for an hour and you could get ten people that come to you and say ‘I want to hear this or that’, that is a challenge because you trying to please everybody.
“You have to know to rotate and make it make sense so you could get a crowd response from everybody. That’s why interacting with the crowd is the most important thing. If you are a deejay and can’t interact with the crowd that is a big fail,” he said.
While attributing ambition and perseverance to his success, he said his family’s support was also important.
“Once you put your heart to it, even if when you start you don’t get as much as you want, if you keep at it and work hard and be dedicated you will be successful
“But my family does back me 100 per cent and everything that I do is dedicated to my grandmother, Sheila Thornhill. She is the body that raised me from pampers. She was always running up and down behind me. She believed in me from day one,” he said.
She passed away in May 2024.
When asked what plans he has for his career – he said he hopes to continue taking it worldwide.
