DJ Black turns the tables

Purpose, passion and 12 years of ‘deejaying’ are bottled up in one man -- DJ Black, one of the baddest DJs in the system. Talk about a truckload of experience, DJ Black has done and seen it all; from his understudy days at Prime Cut to putting a mixtape together. It didn’t all start out on a groovy train for him; he’s had his rough times as anybody would.

Born Kwadwo Ampofo, he had to shuttle between Ghana and Nigeria and eventually break away from his very scholarly family. His father was a lecturer and his mum was also a teacher so you could imagine the sort of pressure he was under when he opted to be a DJ. “You can’t go and discuss music with anyone. It was always about the books,” he says.

Black (also known as Toontoom’) is almost like any other man his age -- 31. He enjoys playing video games -- particularly Microsoft Age of Empires and Grand Theft Auto. He can be loud or quiet as and when the mood strikes, watch movies, and read when he’s not scratching behind the turntables and is mostly an observer. Kwadwo ‘Black’ grew up in Nigeria and in Ghana. Until after his father passed away when he was nine and based on the wishes of his father, his mum brought him back to Ghana for the rest of his education. He went to Ebenezer Secondary School and Ofori Panyin Secondary School, and then Legon. He just recently finished the course for a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication at the Ghana Institute of Journalism.

How did it all start? It was a long and windy road to where he is now. He makes reference to his father’s President radio that kept him company when he was left all alone at home. “One of those days, I was listening to this Afro beat kind of song and somehow I could guess the sequence of the beat,” he says. This got him curious and he decided to find out what was up. His uncle, who had a fine collection of all music genres, was also a strong factor in his course through music. “I grew up listening to the Shalamars, and all the Bob Marley tracks you could think of. So most of my childhood was spent poring through records and reading.” That was probably a way to appease both ends: his parent’s requirement of an education and his dream of being involved with music.

DJ Black did not necessarily start out on the disc jockeying path. “I wanted to be an actor, ever since I was a kid. When my dad died, instead of us to cherish his cassettes, my sister and I would enact plays and record over (the tapes) and when my mum came back from work, we would play it to her and she would go mad. But I didn’t know that was my calling until I went to secondary school (OPASS) tried some acting and became popular on campus for it.” It was mainly acting for young DJ Black until one trip to Nigeria changed his life. Remember the movie ‘Juice’ that starred 2Pac and Omar Epps? That was where Black got his cue. Well, it was his first true exposure to the ‘hiphop culture’.

“I was very bored one day and decided to step out and go see a neighbor to watch a movie called ‘Juice’”, he says. “There was a DJ battle scene that stuck in my memory for the longest while. I just loved the competition aspect of it. But… I sort of forgot about it. Then I saw this DJ playing records and mixing a Nigerian song with a foreign beat. I was like ok, this looks interesting, and this is what I watched on TV. The guy was cutting and scratching and I wanted to be able to do that.”

Then he came back to school in Ghana and he was the one with all the cassettes. That meant he would control the sound at school entertainment programmes and that earned him his first DJ gig -- a bout on campus with the history club’s funfair. “I used to practice with ordinary plates and I would be making noises with my mouth. This used to annoy the other students.” After 6th form it was a toss between his national service and moving into mainstream deejaying; all the while trying to maintain balance with a family that wanted him to be a lecturer like his father. As determined as he was, he had to leave home, escaping the resistance from family and going into hiding until the time came for him to reach his height as a DJ.

As Black recalls, his first lesson in deejaying was at Prime Cut studios where he interned for close to seven months. He had the job of writing out the title of tracks of the various cassettes that went out of the studios. The fine opportunity presented itself when one of the studio’s DJs taught him how to mix. That was the one and only lesson Black ever needed. “He just showed me the art of mixing and that’s all I ever was taught.” Obviously, the learning didn’t end there. It meant spending his wee hours at Prime Cut practicing and getting better at his act. It also meant he had to do gigs at unknown places just to make him perfect. It was the only opportunity he had in order to get his hands on a turntable since he had none of his own.

And the hard work paid off. DJ Black has been adjudged West Africa’s Best DJ and he has just recently made history by becoming the first Ghanaian DJ to release a mix tape.

Besides working the turntables, Black says he is busy writing concepts for advertisements and trying to author a book whiles “developing the other sides of my brain.” Now that he has a bachelor’s degree, his family is a bit laid back on him getting an education. He can calmly pursue his dream of becoming the most versatile DJ in Africa. That’s not all. He’s been imparting his skills to others and so far, he says, he has trained the likes of Jerry (formerly at Choice FM), Citi FM’s E. Double and Joy FM’s Nii Aryee Tagoe. “It takes dedication and I was looking for someone who had what it took (putting my experiences into play) and these guys had it.”

Black is engaged and expecting a baby soon. He wants “to be a cool dad.”

Purpose, passion and 12 years of ‘deejaying’ are bottled up in one man -- DJ Black, one of the baddest DJs in the system. Talk about a truckload of experience, DJ Black has done and seen it all; from his understudy days at Prime Cut to putting a mixtape together. It didn’t all start out on a groovy train for him; he’s had his rough times as anybody would.

Born Kwadwo Ampofo, he had to shuttle between Ghana and Nigeria and eventually break away from his very scholarly family. His father was a lecturer and his mum was also a teacher so you could imagine the sort of pressure he was under when he opted to be a DJ. “You can’t go and discuss music with anyone. It was always about the books,” he says.

Black (also known as Toontoom’) is almost like any other man his age -- 31. He enjoys playing video games -- particularly Microsoft Age of Empires and Grand Theft Auto. He can be loud or quiet as and when the mood strikes, watch movies, and read when he’s not scratching behind the turntables and is mostly an observer. Kwadwo ‘Black’ grew up in Nigeria and in Ghana. Until after his father passed away when he was nine and based on the wishes of his father, his mum brought him back to Ghana for the rest of his education. He went to Ebenezer Secondary School and Ofori Panyin Secondary School, and then Legon. He just recently finished the course for a bachelor’s degree in Mass Communication at the Ghana Institute of Journalism.

How did it all start? It was a long and windy road to where he is now. He makes reference to his father’s President radio that kept him company when he was left all alone at home. “One of those days, I was listening to this Afro beat kind of song and somehow I could guess the sequence of the beat,” he says. This got him curious and he decided to find out what was up. His uncle, who had a fine collection of all music genres, was also a strong factor in his course through music. “I grew up listening to the Shalamars, and all the Bob Marley tracks you could think of. So most of my childhood was spent poring through records and reading.” That was probably a way to appease both ends: his parent’s requirement of an education and his dream of being involved with music.

DJ Black did not necessarily start out on the disc jockeying path. “I wanted to be an actor, ever since I was a kid. When my dad died, instead of us to cherish his cassettes, my sister and I would enact plays and record over (the tapes) and when my mum came back from work, we would play it to her and she would go mad. But I didn’t know that was my calling until I went to secondary school (OPASS) tried some acting and became popular on campus for it.” It was mainly acting for young DJ Black until one trip to Nigeria changed his life. Remember the movie ‘Juice’ that starred 2Pac and Omar Epps? That was where Black got his cue. Well, it was his first true exposure to the ‘hiphop culture’.

“I was very bored one day and decided to step out and go see a neighbor to watch a movie called ‘Juice’”, he says. “There was a DJ battle scene that stuck in my memory for the longest while. I just loved the competition aspect of it. But… I sort of forgot about it. Then I saw this DJ playing records and mixing a Nigerian song with a foreign beat. I was like ok, this looks interesting, and this is what I watched on TV. The guy was cutting and scratching and I wanted to be able to do that.”

Then he came back to school in Ghana and he was the one with all the cassettes. That meant he would control the sound at school entertainment programmes and that earned him his first DJ gig -- a bout on campus with the history club’s funfair. “I used to practice with ordinary plates and I would be making noises with my mouth. This used to annoy the other students.” After 6th form it was a toss between his national service and moving into mainstream deejaying; all the while trying to maintain balance with a family that wanted him to be a lecturer like his father. As determined as he was, he had to leave home, escaping the resistance from family and going into hiding until the time came for him to reach his height as a DJ.

As Black recalls, his first lesson in deejaying was at Prime Cut studios where he interned for close to seven months. He had the job of writing out the title of tracks of the various cassettes that went out of the studios. The fine opportunity presented itself when one of the studio’s DJs taught him how to mix. That was the one and only lesson Black ever needed. “He just showed me the art of mixing and that’s all I ever was taught.” Obviously, the learning didn’t end there. It meant spending his wee hours at Prime Cut practicing and getting better at his act. It also meant he had to do gigs at unknown places just to make him perfect. It was the only opportunity he had in order to get his hands on a turntable since he had none of his own.

And the hard work paid off. DJ Black has been adjudged West Africa’s Best DJ and he has just recently made history by becoming the first Ghanaian DJ to release a mix tape.

Besides working the turntables, Black says he is busy writing concepts for advertisements and trying to author a book whiles “developing the other sides of my brain.” Now that he has a bachelor’s degree, his family is a bit laid back on him getting an education. He can calmly pursue his dream of becoming the most versatile DJ in Africa. That’s not all. He’s been imparting his skills to others and so far, he says, he has trained the likes of Jerry (formerly at Choice FM), Citi FM’s E. Double and Joy FM’s Nii Aryee Tagoe. “It takes dedication and I was looking for someone who had what it took (putting my experiences into play) and these guys had it.”

Black is engaged and expecting a baby soon. He wants “to be a cool dad.”