Local partygoers more interested in the venue than the DJ
CAIRO: DJ Junior packs his bag every summer and off he goes to the crazy global party capital of the island Ibiza, where he spins music in a glittering atmosphere filled with wild men and women ready to let go and have a fabulous time.
For the part five years, half-Egyptian half-Finnish Ahmed “Junior Rafaat has been playing at one of Ibiza’s most prestigious venues, a nightclub by the name of Amnesia. This year he has also added Bora Bora beach to his résumé.
Rafaat first discovered his passion for music when he was in high school in Hungary. He invited the owner of his favorite club for a traditional Egyptian meal at his house, and after the man fell in love with molokhya, Rafaat was allowed to play at his club. “I had no experience, I didn’t know how to play but I managed. Then I learned properly when I moved back to Egypt, he says.
Although he worked as a DJ in Egypt for a while, he also got interested in party promoting. In 2001, he managed to persuade internationally acclaimed DJ Teisto to play at a party in Cairo.
Following that success, Rafaat was able to bring other equally famous DJs into Cairo and Sharm El-Sheikh; after he had established all the right contacts, he began not only bringing in DJs for his company Tribal Entertainment owned by Amr Andil, but also for fellow party promoters.
Generally though, Rafaat doesn’t like to play here in Egypt because he feels that locally people do not have any musical knowledge. In the West, people like to go places depending on the DJ playing, but here the concentration is all on the venue. “The attention on the DJ here is very limited, he says.
Therefore he has decided to focus more on promoting parties and only playing abroad where he feels his music is more appreciated.
In 2004, Rafaat brought in top DJs Deep Dish. The party started off smoothly, but towards the end hundreds of teenage boys broke down the door to get in. “These people don’t want to pay, they just show up at parties and try to come in by jumping a wall or breaking down a door, he says.
He feels this problem comes from mass advertising. Handing out flyers in the street and advertising over the radio attracts many people outside the target audience and many that just cannot appreciate the event.
But they don’t always experience problems. In 2005, Tribal Entertainment threw a party for Fashion TV in Sharm El-Sheikh that had no problems at all, and no gate-crashing. “These people are not interested in crashing a Fashion TV party, they want to see a DJ on a flyer.
After learning this lesson, Tribal Entertainment are now working on upcoming parties with themes, and are trying to keep them as exclusive as possible.
As for working as a DJ, Rafaat will keep playing his funky house and minimal electro in Europe, but keep it nominal here, only playing at very exclusive events where his music is appreciated.
