Recently, I was contacted by Quinty who studies Leisure Management. She wanted to interview an artist in the entertainment industry with the goal to write an article about the journey and intricacies that go along with DJ’ing. Read her article below ⬇

DJ’s are nowadays more popular than famous pop artists or top athletes. There are several different types of DJ’s from ‘all-round’ wedding DJ’s to the ones that only play a specific genre (Laurens Smit, 2017). DJ Dice, real name Amar Amlani, plays Commercial Hits, 80’s, 90’s, EDM, Techno, Commercial House. He is the winner of the ‘DJ-contests Spijkenisse Festival’ in 2014 and 2017 and has also won the ‘feedback session contest poppunt.be’ in Gent (Dice & Friends, n.d.). In contrast to other well-known DJ’s, Amar started his career relatively late. “I am what you call a late bloomer”. This article will elaborate on DJ Dice’s interesting journey and what he does now.

To start DJ Dice’s story, Amar takes us all the way back to his childhood. “I liked music, that was it for me. I was always the guy who had the latest songs and asking people if they heard that remix”. When asked where this interest in music came from, Mister Amlani stated that he grew up surrounded by music. His roots are Indian and he says that he was heavily influenced by songs form the Indian culture due to his mother always having the radio on and humming along. “It (music) was always there”. Despite such a large interest in music from early on, Amar does not play any musical instruments himself. He has played piano at school but states that it never crossed his mind to do anything more with it. That was up until the future DJ and his friend attended a Tiësto concert in 2012.

Subsequently to attending this festival, Amar became interested in the works of a DJ. The following week he drove to Belgium and bought his first turn table via a second-hand website. DJ Dice started to experiment right away, and this resulted in one mix almost every night. However, creating a mix in a bedroom does not yet result in a career. The people in the starting DJ’s surroundings knew about his newfound passion and soon he was invited to play at his neighbours sixteenth birthday party. In hindsight the now more experienced DJ states that: “It was not the best party we gave, but we felt what it could be like to actually play for other people”. In 2014, the communications director of the municipality of Spijkenisse knew Mister Amlani and suggested he signed up for a DJ contest coming up in the city. Amar responded jokingly with “What are you talking about, this is the city Afrojack and Vato Gonzales come from I’m not even going to try”. However, he was asked “what do you have to lose?” and he realized the answer was nothing. During the following two weeks the DJ was working ever night after his day job on a track.

The results were published, and he had won. The prize was to play at the annual Spijkenisse festival, this resulted in being approached by more and more people asking him for their events and from there on it “started to get out of hand, in a good way” as the DJ states.

According to DJ Dice, his favourite experience from his career has been the conquering of fear. After winning the contest in 2014, he opened at the Spijkenisse Festival. “I think I lost 10 years of my life due to the beating of my heart I experienced at that time.” He states that even though it was nerve recking, he had a lot of support in the crowd. This experience made him realize that if you are passionate about something, you need to go through the borders that you have projected on yourself. “Overgrowing that and making sure that was out of the way, you can be as creative as you want without the fear of being judged. That was a really big thing for me.”

To sum up, DJ dice has a word of advice for future people interested into this career path. Being a DJ is not all rainbows and sun shines, “A lot of DJ’s don’t realize this when they go into this, it is a lot of work and takes a lot of time. However, I would not classify it as a downside. It’s a sacrifice I don’t mind making.” According to Amar, having passion is one thing but there is also a business side to the story. He states that there are a lot of “bedroom DJ’s” as they call them, who play cool music in their room and post it online. However, in order to really get into the business, it takes more than just passion. Amar says, “make sure you know that this is also a part of this industry.” In conclusion, what we can take away from DJ Dice and his story is that it is never too late to ‘roll the dice’ and do what you love. It will require time, hard work and dedication; however, it enables you to turn your passion into a profession.