Babesta Beat AW 2017

HEY, MS. DJ Baby DJ School founder, Natalie Weiss, talks tunes with Babesta.

T hey say that music soothes the savage beast. The same can be said for toddlers. Baby DJ School founder Natalie Weiss insists it’s all in the mix.“DJing is about discovering music that excites you and sharing it with other people,” says Weiss. “If you can match beats or scratch records, awesome, but the most important thing is being a selector who has brought music from a broad range of genres so you are prepared for lots of types of crowds,” she says. Her current crowd is a bit smaller in stature than at the clubs she’s played in the past. Focused on kids 2 months to 5 years, Weiss began cranking it up for the kinderset with her Brooklyn based beat-driven class that mixes turntables and percussion instruments. It all started after a babysitting gig for a musically inclined toddler who took to her tunes. She had been taking him to his “regular” music class, when it dawned on her, she could create something cooler, more modern, connecting with parents who counted Diplo and Tiesto on their playlists. “The class teaches many things from the world of DJing: the names of DJ equipment, information on various genres of dance music and more. Every song we sing is cued in by the little ones using real DJ equipment,” she says. It’s a hands-on class, with no more than 12 kids at a time, and the mini-mixologists are able to scratch on the turntable, suited up with headphones and their own sets of percussion instruments. Yes, there are motor skill benefits (she’s seen babies develop their pincer grasp and the ability to perform index finger isolation earlier) and social benefits (learning to share and take turns) but the magic is really in the music. While the class touches on an array of genres and musical greats, Weiss has her own preferences that sometimes make their way in. Her go-to DJ is Kim Anh, an LA based mixmaster with whomWeiss has worked before, and she counts Ethiopian funk from the 70s, jungle from the 90s, IDM from the early 2000s and most everything on the label Warp Records and the Broke City Collective as favorites. Not just work for Weiss, the music biz is a family affair: Weiss’s husband, who goes by Jah Bones, makes some mad mixes and is part of a band called Eaters.

Before starting the school Weiss spent a decade DJing, a pastime that began when she was throwing benefit parties to raise money for her theatrical projects (she’s also a playwright and composer). After that, she was asked by other theatre companies to man the music at their events. “Then I started a party with some very established DJs and they eventually let me jump on the decks and I took it from there!” We all know, give a kid technology and they’ll be a contender in no time, their ability to conquer all things electronic legendary. No surprise, there is a new crop of kid DJs thanks to this craze, middle schoolers with the music library that spans 5x their ages. “My favorites are DJ Alden and DJ Chloe L (I teach her!). They started young, their parents believed in them enough to invest in the equipment and lessons and the kids are truly passionate about it.” Not just an East Coast thing, Baby DJ School is soon to launch in LA. We’re excited to tune in and turn it up!

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babesta beat autumn/winter 2017