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Hip hop gem shines

Montreal-based DJ Killa Jewel teams up with local DJ Praiz to wow Whistler
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Double Up DJs Killa Jewel and Praiz combine styles at the turntables for upcoming performances in Whistler and Pemberton. Photos submitted.

Who: DJ Killa Jewel and DJ Praiz

When: Thursday, March 27, 9 p.m.

Where: Moe Joe’s

Tickets: $5

Julie Fainer has the element of surprise on her side when she steps up to the turntables. The pert young woman may not look like your typical DJ, but she has some serious experience under her belt, and she loves to battle.

Fainer is a 28-year-old DJ from Montreal, though she’s better known in the hip hop community as DJ Killa Jewel.

Her stage name stems from a number of meanings. The first part, Killa, represents her competitive side and her love for battling other DJs, while Jewel is simply short for Julie. Together, Killa Jewel, is a play on words.

“A kilojoule is a measurement of energy,” Jewel explained. “So I kind of associate myself as being a very energetic, entertaining kind of person when I’m DJing.”

High-energy or not, being a female DJ definitely has its pros and cons.

“People do have preconceived ideas of who you are or what you’re like,” she said with a slight hesitation. “… I enjoy surprising people and I enjoy when I get up there, completely blowing them away because they’re not expecting the kind of skill level or the kind of taste in music that I might be using.”

Jewel began studying classical piano at the age of seven, and studied it for 10 years, which helped her learn about rhythm and melody, train her ear and develop her dexterity.

“That, for me, was a really great backbone and it really helped me understand DJing a lot quicker, I think, than if I hadn’t ever had that training,” said Jewel.

She was first introduced to electronic music when she was 17, and saw DJing as a new challenge and outlet.

She threw herself into her new hobby, practising for about five hours each day. It eventually occurred to her to try and make a career out of it.

Over the years, her musical influences have changed significantly, though she still incorporates the piano into the sampling of her hip hop, as a way of keeping it fresh and original.

“I started out playing techno, house, drum and bass and breakbeats and I was playing a lot at friends’ house parties and really wherever I could set up my turntables,” Jewel explained.

After a few years, she started jamming with other local DJs and discovered scratching, turntablism, and subsequently hip hop. The connection was instantaneous — she was hooked.

Soon, she began battling other DJs, thriving on the pressure to practise and improve.

“Basically, you can almost look at it as writing a paper: you need an intro, a main body and a conclusion, and you always have to keep in mind that you’re going up against somebody else, so the choices of the samples that you use are very important and they’re usually samples that are intimidating to the other competitors,” Jewel said.

Most competitions allow two to three minutes for each round, and depending on your performance, you may or may not move onto the next stage.

“It’s a big time investment, because you’re basically putting weeks or days into one routine and you have three minutes and that’s it,” said Jewel. “If you screw up or if your needle skips, then that’s it.”

But over the past three years, she has gotten more involved in the production side of things, and is currently finishing up her CD, Saudade .

Jewel has been performing for almost 11 years now, but this is the first time she has played in Whistler.

She met Akber Taimuri, also known as DJ Praiz, almost three years ago in her hometown of Montreal, when they both performed in a band called Microtone Kitchen, a “turntable orchestra” consisting of five turntables, a keyboard and a bass.

While both are technical and like to incorporate scratching into mixes, drawing influences from rock, hip hop, ’80s, funk and soul, Jewel says Praiz is more of a harmonic mixer, choosing tracks that are in tune and remixing.

“We each do our own thing, but at the same time, if we can, we hook up and come up with routines together,” she explained.

Praiz thrives on the vast range of music brought into Whistler by international travelers.

“I get exposed to a whole bunch of different music, rather than stay in my shell in Montreal, where I’m stuck in a one music genre,” Praiz said, adding that a lot of clubs in Montreal are very trendy and tend to only play one type of music.

And Praiz definitely likes to mix it up. When putting beats together, he doesn’t just stick with matching vocals to beats, he doubles up on the beats, instead.

“It gives you that extra swing,” he explained, “While one track has that same original style drums, and one track will have that slow swingy drum.”

When Praiz moved back to Whistler a few months ago, he finally convinced Jewel to come and perform with him.

Praiz plays with well-known local DJ Mat the Alien occasionally, and is planning to do a turntable scratch performance with him at the upcoming Fashion Exposed event of the Telus World Ski and Snowboard Festival.

And during his shows with Jewel, he says visual performance will be a big part of the show.

“Juggling, scratching, stuff that is awesome to listen to, but also to watch.”

Jewel says she plays a lot of Top 40 gigs, and is really looking forward to performing for a crowd that will appreciate some old school hip hop and classic breaks.

“From what I’ve heard, people are very open-minded here and I’m really excited about that, because its not every day that I get to play for a group of people who enjoy listening to good music.”