The world's youngest DJ who is just three years old has a dedicated following of thousands of fans thanks to his ability to work the decks. This 3-year-old South African DJ Arch Jnr is certainly turning into a social media phenomena.
Pulse Radio Africa caught up with his father Glen Hlongwane to learn more about this youngster,his skills, influences and family life.
When was DJ Arch Jnr born and where is he from?Dj Arch Jnr was born in South Rand hospital in Johannesburg on the 3rd May 2012, he stays in Soweto and Alexandra since both his parents come from those places.
How did he get into DJing at such a young age and how long has he been at it?AJ started DJing at a very early stage, but since day one it has always been for fun, I remember when he was a year old messing around on my iPad using the DJ app, so it's been only 2 months using the actual tools and other times he would just use his iPad and Virtual DJ.
We notice he loves the effects, what skills has he mastered?Lol, Yep he really loves the effects, from when he was still using his iPad he always used the effects, I think the sound of the effects just does it for him, well at the moment I think he has mastered his timing towards his music, when to fade out and bring it back whilst hitting the effect button, he also loves messing around with the bass as well, turning it on and off, all done with perfect timing as if he was long in the industry, now he is able to switch on his own machines, put CD's in and start DJing, so he has learnt a lot for his age.
Who are his influences and what are his favorite tracks?Okay at first AJ was crazy over
Goldfish, he probably still is, he would sit and watch their music videos and sing along, his iPad was loaded with
Goldfish tracks, he would just grab it, put his headsets on and just listen, dance and sing but currently he is in love with the song
"Koze Kuse" by
DJ Merlon. It is this song that made us discover AJ's special gift on the decks, the other day around December 2014, I was busy DJing, so just had to stop a little bit and sit down but I left the song Koze Kuse still playing, he just went to the mixer and he hit the effect button, then when the beat came back switched it off and started dancing, I was like "wow, blown away" that's when I started showing him how to fade in and out, he enjoys the songs
"Koze Kuse" by
DJ Merlon,
"One million views" by
Goldfish.
Which big artists have taken notice of him?Well there are a couple already who recognize the little man, he is followed by a couple of them on Instagram namely
DJ Cleo,
DJ Fresh,
DJ Merlon,
Lection,
Lady D( Dudu Khoza),
Sol Phenduka, he has also been recognized by
Black Coffee,
Mondli Ncobo,
Culoe De Song and
Edward Billion.
How does it make you feel as a father, seeing your son become a social media phenomena?I can say I'm still shocked as to how many people love him and how big he is on social media now, it all happened so quick, AJ is my only child so my mission was to always make him grow up better than I did, wanted him to get a whole lot more opportunities than I did, so seeing this I now know that he is going to make me very proud one day.
What does his mother say about his young DJ career?
She has always known that AJ loved music so much but she is still very shocked to see how popular he has become at such a tender age, she says she will have AJ's back all the way and will support him all through out his music journey.
Being so young? Do you think this is a future he wants?
With him being so young, it's so hard to tell if he is going to keep up with it, though I must say that he loves it so much, as soon as he wakes up, he jumps off the bed straight to the decks, then everyone else has to wake up because AJ is making noise! Lol, but I’m saying that I will support him in anything he wishes to do soon as he is wiser and understands things, as for now he just doing it because he loves it, he has no clue whatsoever that he has so many followers and people loving him, though I do hope that he grows up loving music and enjoying DJing like he does now, as he shows great potential for a kid his age.
You can also follow his social media:Facebookinstagram
