The 2nd Annual DJ/Producer Battle was held in Exhibit Hall at 7 p.m. on Feb. 3, to let A&T students showcase their DJing and producing talents to the public.

The space of Exhibit Hall began to fill up quickly as people entered to see who would finish out on top as the number one DJ and producer.

“I feel like it’s going to turn out pretty well…I think there is a lot of people that are excited about this event,” stated Bernard Cooper, a participate in the producer battle named BC Dubb.

Both the DJ and the Producer Battle were divided into three rounds. Round one consisted of utilizing their abilities into mixing a song.

In round two the contestants had to showcase their ‘scratching’ talents. The last round pertained to free styling.  

Competing were three DJs (DJ Inhibitions, DJ JD, and DJ Dutch) and five producers (Devin, Quinn Anthony, UV Progress, Four Hundred StAx and BC Dubb).  

Each of the contestants were judged by  D. Cherie Lofton (Program/Music Director, Webmaster at NC A&T State University/WNAA-FM),  Boss Bank (Diamond Dynasty Record Label), J. Flex (DJ Flex at 102 JAMZ), and Dr. Sims.  

Each producer had to draw from a hat to see who goes first.  After numbers were drawn, the 2nd Annual DJ/Producer Battle finally began.    

D’Mitri Boutty, who also participated in the producer battle named Four Hundred StAx, expressed how he felt about the event. “I expect to have fun, branch out and allow people to hear my talents, but mostly to experience music and new talents.”

In the first and second round, each DJ played a song choice to mix and scratch. While music was being played by the DJs, there also were fellow students of A&T who were showing off their amazing break dancing skills.

DJ Inhibitions was the first contestant in both rounds, mixing Keri Hilson’s ‘Pretty Girl Rock’ and ‘Teach Me How to Dougie’ by Cali Swag District.  

Second to mix and scratch was DJ JD who mixed the songs ‘Shawty Say’ by David Banner ft. Lil Wayne with Ester Dean’s ‘Drop It Low’. Last to mix and scratch was last year’s champion DJ Dutch.

In the third round, each DJ had a total of two minutes to freestyle a song of choice, but it could not be a song from 2009 to the present.

In this round, songs such as ‘This Is How We Do It’ by Montell Jordan and ‘Before I Let Go’ by Maze ft. Frankie Beverly were free styled.  

The purposes of playing the songs in this round were to get the crowd moving and dancing to the DJs freestyles.  

Each round during the producer battle, a producer contestant had to play a beat that they created for thirty seconds.

After all three rounds of the competition, the judges determined that the participants going to the final round for the DJs consisted of DJ Inhibition vs. DJ Dutch and the producer battle Four Hundred StAx vs. BC Dubb.

After the performances, the judges announced DJ Dutch as the winner of the DJ battle and Four Hundred StAx as the winner of the producer battle.

The 2nd Annual DJ/Producer Battle was full of energy, excitement and plenty of entertainment and crowd participation.  

As stated by D’Mitri Boutty (Four Hundred StAx) when he found out that he won the producer challenge, “It feels good, being my first time. It’s really humbling, knowing that yours is the best. It feels good on the inside.”

Each contestant gave their best performances in this competition and proved that once again, Aggies have a wide variety of skills and amazing talent.

• Shannon Brooks