The original concept of Red Bull Thre3Style began 3 years ago as a Tuesday night experiment at a small club. With a steady supply of Red Bull, the concept found its wings in 2007 and became a fully-fledged DJ battle. In 2010, the event went global. Going by the past years’ events, Red Bull Thre3Style 2011 hopes to send the international DJing scene spinning like a record on a turntable. How it works is participating DJs play a set no longer or shorter than 15 minutes. Their set must incorporate 3 different styles of music. The style could be any that makes the party go wild. Judges evaluate each set according to criteria that includes track selection, creativity skills, stage presence and audience response. If a DJ cannot rock the house, s/he doesn’t stand a chance.
To select a participant from India, contests were held in different cities and the finals in Mumbai at Canvas, Palladium. One of the judges was MissMalini who has been a music DJ at radio stations and knows exactly how to party like it never stops. Her friend VJ Juhi, another party animal, alongwith Mukul Deora, a musician, singer, conceptual artist, film producer and entrepreneur made up the judging panel. One can’t forget DJ QBERT, the Filipino-American Turntablist and composer credited for being the world ambassador of the DJ and one of only two DJs to be Knighted by the Grand Masters of the Hip Hop culture. He judged the competition and performed a 30 minute set at the end.
The regional qualifiers for the finals were DJ Ricky & DJ Tinu from Pune, DJ Vanshi from Bangalore, DJ Blaze from Chennai, DJ Rishabh from Hyderabad, DJ Dippi from Kolkata, DJ Skip & DJ Rickoo from Delhi and wild card entry, DJ MoCity.
It was my first time at Canvas and the setup for the Thre3Style India finals was pretty cool. Peeps had sauntered in by about 10 pm and after the sound check, the party kicked off with the mentioned DJs strutting their stuff. The crowd took a little while to warm up but as they started to dance, the action really got going. Unfortunately, at one point, the club lost power during a DJ’s performance. While he waited for his time, a hip hop hustle broke out on the floor with everyone trying to catch a glimpse. The DJs were pretty darn good and my favourite moments were when “Lakdi ki kaathi” and the Super Mario soundtrack were mixed and played. MissMalini seemed to be having a good time judging the event too. DJ Dippi was announced the winner and he will be flown to Canada where he will battle out with international DJs. Are you rooting for him?
