In the wake of Coronavirus, DJs turn to live streaming

In the past week the world has responded in many ways to express their feelings, frustrations, and confusion around social distancing/self-quarantine due to coronavirus which leads to Covid-19. No other community has been more vocal and active about how this virus affects their current situation than the entertainment community. 

This includes all of our singers, song writers, producers, audio engineers (Live & studio), DJs, and Electronic musicians. Let’s not forget the service workers from this either, such as bartenders, bar-backs, waitresses, promoters, club owners, beverage distributors – the list goes on and on.

How are musicians dealing with Covid-19?

In the past week alone such prominent figures such as Chris Martin (Coldplay), Keith Urban, Ben Gibbard, Pink, Diplo, and John Legend have performed for their fans/followers via IG Live. South African House & techno phenom Black Coffee broadcasted from his home in Johannesburg via BandsInTown and a live-streaming partnership with Twitch. DJ D-Nice opened up his IG Live and broadcasted to over 100K people including being joined by celebs like Jennifer Lopez, Drake, Naomi Campbell, Diddy, Mary J. Blige, DJ Khaled, T.I., Queen Latifah, and Tracee Ellis Ross were all in attendance on the social thread.

How is it impacting DJs and scheduled sets?

Last Saturday, on March 14th, a group of House music DJs in Atlanta (Stefan Ringer and Kai Alce) got together and performed one of the first impromptu parties via livestream. Swedish DJ Amir Alexander was in town for the first leg of his U.S. tour and the venue closed due to concerns around the spread of the coronavirus. 

After finding out the venue intended for the Amir Alexander party was closed, the two DJs put on their thinking caps and initiated a plan to launch a live stream the following day for those who had planned to be at the party. Kai originally considered recording the set and broadcasting it later to the public. At that point, Stefan had another idea and showed up at Kai’s house with the cameras and gear to test the setup for a livestream. 

When the two got word that DJ Lauren Ashley (another Atlanta-based deep house DJ) had a set canceled in Berlin where the venue decided to invite the DJs who were supposed to spin for a closed door, live broadcast to fans and ticket holders, Kai and Stefan were committed to doing their own live stream. In terms of archiving, the set was recorded to an SD card.

What solutions are Atlanta house DJs finding?

I took the time to interview two of the DJs responsible for putting together the livestream in Atlanta. Both Stefan and Kai own record labels which specialize in deep house. Stefan and Kai put together the live streaming event in under 16 hours. 

Kudzu is Live right now on YouTube link in bio! Ft. @dj.amir.alexander @kaialce @ihopeyoufindsomeone

110 Likes, 5 Comments - Stefan Ringer (@stefan_ringer_fwm) on Instagram: "Kudzu is Live right now on YouTube link in bio! Ft. @dj.amir.alexander @kaialce @ihopeyoufindsomeone"

The stream brought Kai to a place where he knew he had to update and upgrade his own website so he could eventually host content (mixes & streams) on his own without having to adhere to the practices of larger sites (mixcloud.com, Soundcloud.com, Twitch.com, BoilerRoomTV, etc) which distribute DJ sets and mixes globally. 

The 10 DJs who were at the event, including DJ Zaida, posted the link to the stream on their social media profiles. Kai and Stefan estimate that they received over 500 views while the stream was live. YouTube was the host of the livestream, but shut down access to the stream 30 minutes after the stream was completed. This meant that those who did not experience the stream live would not be able to see the DJ set until Kai and Stefan posted the stream on their own sites. This of course was a hurdle they had not foreseen. 

What are the challenges with live streaming DJ sets?

The main concern with the live stream was not to make money. For Kai, first and foremost, it is about the music. In a perfect world, folks will gravitate to Kai’s online store and purchase his music on vinyl, digital downloads, or purchase his t-shirt and custom framed glasses from his merchandise store. The monetization was only for Amir Alexander. “He was the most important person to help”’ stated Stefan. Stefan posted the Swedish DJ’s PayPal information into the livestream so Amir could walk away with some money in his pocket while he still figures out his stay in the U.S. during the coronavirus outbreak. 

Stefan took it upon himself to interact with people on the YouTube social feed. He was responding to people who had questions about Amir and his story. As Stefan puts it, “It was definitely LIVE in the Chat Room”. 

“[We’re] building our own brands. These are the things that corporations tend to look out for themselves. But they [the corporations] are made up of all these small parts (The DJs, artists, and creators) and when these small parts begin to move away, the corporation will have to find a way to loosen up the DMCA laws to allows DJs the ability to express their art within their DJ sets.”

Will DJ Kai Alce and DJ Stefan Ringer do another live stream in the future?

Kai and Stefan said that they would definitely do the broadcast again, maybe on a monthly basis. They will most definitely use Facebook LIVE for the next broadcast as their primary point of broadcast/distribution. Or better yet, they may stream simultaneously on Facebook Live and YouTube. Kai states, “Now that we are more fluent with streaming, we plan to host the stream after the live broadcast on our individual websites for fans/followers to engage directly with the DJs and not through 3rd party sites.” 

Kai Alce went on to say, “[We’re] building our own brands. These are the things that corporations tend to look out for themselves. But they [the corporations] are made up of all these small parts (The DJs, artists, and creators) and when these small parts begin to move away, the corporation will have to find a way to loosen up the DMCA laws to allows DJs the ability to express their art within their DJ sets.”

It’s times like these where everyone in the music industry must come together and think outside the box to find new ways and new methods to still create and inspire and still get that music out to fans.

DJ Kemit