Striptease and beavers

The Red Bull Turn It Up is also interesting because there are no judges and the audience decides everything. The music ring is divided into two zones - red and blue, in each corner there is a pair of professionals at the console. After each round, like in gladiator fights, hands with glowing bracelets rise up.

This time there were eight participants - they could choose their partners. But they didn't know the themes they would have to mix the tracks to. Total improvisation!

The first battle - a pair of DJs Shegi & Maxodeum against the fragile Na3 & Sagintaev. There are more and more girls in the Kazakh DJing segment.

- There is still an opinion that this is not really a woman's craft, and not much is expected from girls. It makes it easier to surprise the audience, - smiles Nazym AKHMETZHANOVA (Na3). - There is a story: I was playing in a bar and one of the guests passed me a note. It said: “Thank you for this evening! My father is in music, and you helped me reunite with him. I am enjoying it, music is a matter of honor.” I kept this note as a reminder that music can touch hearts.

The youngest DJ, 23-year-old Maxim SUVOROV (Maxodeum), immediately declared: the audience should also work - recognize the tracks and react if they went well. And then, without waiting for a reaction from the audience, he decided to add his charisma to the mix. Leaving Shegi at the console, he jumped on the table, danced, sang along to legendary tracks. In a word, he rocked. The boy is very charismatic - he came to DJing in his father's footsteps.

- If you don't interact with the audience, there's nothing to do in DJing, - Max is sure. - So, young DJs, don't look at the console - charge the audience and be charged by it!

Their opponents tried to keep the music going, and then they even pulled out a cardboard... coffin from somewhere under the console. Either to scare their opponents, or - as they explained - they wanted to play on the popular coronavirus meme coffin dance.

The next four DJs - QRBoy & Nurboogie versus Aspirin & SleepyTalk - faced the fact that they had to show their vision of Afrofuturism. And then they played out a kind of embarrassment of musical taste, when it is embarrassing to admit that you would not mind having a blast, for example, to the Nanai “Faina”. The DJs polished it all off with a compote of popular TikTok tracks, and the heated dance floor danced quite well to the “beaver” theme, which is currently trending.

Nurbek MAKSOTOV's (DJ Nurboogie) path to DJing was not easy: he dropped out of university for the sake of the console, then there was the test of quarantine, when all performances were cancelled. But he did not give up.

But Rustam KIMA (DJ QRBoy) has a really cool story about his loyalty to the DJ craft:

- Once I was playing in a summer bungalow. And then the bartenders set off fireworks - everything is on fire, someone grabs a fire extinguisher and pours it all over everything. And I don't know whether to play or run. I'm left - all in foam, as is the equipment. Because if you're a DJ, you have to stay calm in any situation.

Obviously, it helped in the final, when DJs Shegi & Maxodeum against QRBoy & Nurboogie tried to rethink traditional Kazakh motives through electronic rhythms. It was not easy to withstand all these tasks, and also a striptease from Max, who, to the delight of the female audience, tore his T-shirt. But the last battle became a triumph of freestyle - to show how a DJ works when he creates the mood of the audience, what he is capable of, what he breathes and lives. And here the audience was determined - they liked the performance of QRBoy & Nurboogie the most. They will represent Almaty in the national final.

- This battle was a real test of flexibility and ability to keep the rhythm. Each theme is a challenge, and the audience did not leave any room for mistakes, - admitted Rustam Kim.

Yulia ZENG, photo by Vera OSTANKOVA, Almaty