Tag Archives: Wordplay Wednesday
Starships One More Time Wordplay Mix
Here’s a classic one – “Starships One More Time” is what I call this wordplay mix. Instead of just a word, it’s a whole phrase. I use this mix when it calls for it and goes over well every time. The key is to place it in the right spot. Obviously the Daft Punk track, “One More Time” is pretty iconic. It’s a dance track that will be around for quite a while. Even an older crowd that may not be able to place the title can sing along with it because it’s very repetitive. The Nicki Minaj song “Starships” is definitely a recurrent track (meaning, it’s not quite a classic yet but still can be considered “popular”, especially in the private event world).
The key to this mix is setting what I call “bookmarks” (the technical DJ term is “Hot Cues”) with each track. There’s a spot in the Nicki Minaj song where she says “one more time” without music. This works great because I can jump to that spot whenever it feels right to mix out of any chorus. Similarly, with the Daft Punk tune, I bookmarked the acapella portion of the phrase and then jump to where the beat kicks in rather quickly. It’s an easy but an effective mix.
Let me know what you think of this by commenting on my YouTube video.
All I Do All The Way Up | Wordplay Wednesday
Over the next few weeks, I’ll share a few of my go to tracks in a series I’m calling Wordplay Wednesday. Wordplay is one of the many ways I like to segue between songs as a DJ in lieu of using effects (an echo, filter, etc.) or straight mixing. It gives you the some variety as a music mixer and shows that you are thinking outside of just tempo of the song and genre when you’re mixing – you’re thinking through lyrical content as well. Speaking of genres, this actually is a fantastic way to switch between genres.
This definitely takes some prep ahead of time. Not only do you need to think through songs that have similar words but in some cases, you may need to do some pre-production. In this particular example, I took the acapella of “All I Do Is Win” and added that the line ‘everybody’s hands go up’ at the end for a custom edit. Why, you ask?
It would sound weird mixing two “off key” songs musically together. By using the acapella, it’s not noticeable. Also, you can play with the timing a little easier as well by “snapping” (DJ term means playing that part of the song over and over) that phrase in time with the new song’s tempo. There are a lot of premixes with things like this but I like doing it live. Not every guest will make the wordplay connection, but you can always tell which ones do by the “oooh” you hear from them when it happens.
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