The Review

Issue date: 9/11/07 Section: Mosaic

Media Credit: THE REVIEW/Nina Buckalew [Click to enlarge]

It's all about scratching, chirping and beat juggling with enough flare and originality to impress the judges within a six minute time frame. The goal is to receive the chance to represent the United States in an overseas world championship, but first contestants have to make it through the first round, the U.S. Disco Mixing Club Championship, a national DJ competition for willing participants from all over the country. This year the U.S. DMC Championship were held at Quest Night Club in Wilmington, Del.

The event, which took place on Sept. 9, was brought to the local area thanks to Sam Vaughn, a former DJ and current owner of Sam's Music Connection, who was originally born in Philadelphia, but now lives in Bear, Del.

"This is the first and possibly only time that the U.S. DMC Championships will be held in Delaware," Vaughn says. "Everyone is flying in from all over the U.S. to compete in this heat."

Vaughn started to DJ in 1979 and has remained so passionate he brought it upon himself to bring the DMC Championship to Delaware in order to give local DJs in Philadelphia and Wilmington a fair chance to compete. Because of his music store, Vaughn was able to form a relationship with well-known DJs in Philadelphia like DJ Jazzy Jeff and DJ Cash Money, and became familiar with Delaware DJs as well when his store relocated.

The idea to bring the DMC Championship to Wilmington came to Vaughn when local DJs used to tell him about their unsuccessful competition experiences in the past.

"They would always tell me how they had to travel to New York and D.C. to compete," Vaughn says. "They would always complain about how it wasn't fair that the local cat from other cities would always win because the crowds always favored the local DJ."

Vaughn then formed a group aimed at bringing the competition to Delaware so that DJs in the area could compete without any bias.

"I formed a little alliance, a little DJ crew," he says. "I started pulling judges from all over like D.C. and Jersey as opposed to just having local judges, too."

While Vaughn is responsible for bringing the DMC Competition to Delaware, he himself has never competed in the DMC.

Continued...

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