Auditions for harbanger: a battle DJ septet

If hip-hop is truly an art form, how do DJs make it beautiful? How can we push its boundaries back, while moving the culture forward?

MIT’s Center for Art, Science & Theater and Music and Theater Arts are collaborating with Public Enemy’s Media Assassin, Harry Allen, and the X-Ecutioners’ DJ Rob Swift to test the limits of DJ-ing.

We want to see the result if we put seven battle DJs inside one crew, and tell them to play, all at the same time. What happens, after three or four minutes? Will it work? What would it even sound like?

We’re looking for seven of the best, most creative, most collaborative hip-hop battle DJs to work as harbanger (pronounced “harbinger”) for two weeks, in Cambridge, MA from January 5 – 16, 2020.

For two weeks, those seven DJs, led by Rob Swift, will practice a select set of pieces; ones created exclusively for this experiment by some of the most curious hip-hop composers working today. Then, on Thursday, January 16th, 2020, the septet will perform—live!

Do you want to be a part of this ground-breaking ensemble?

If your answer is YES:

• Record a 1 minute video of you doing your best turntable work

• Fill out the application form here by Sunday, September 29

The clock is ticking. Get to work. It’s time to make hip-hop complex and amazing, again.

Only DJs—the people who began hip-hop—can do this.

Let’s advance what’s possible, in this beautiful art, together.
 

The DJ septet performance is part of the 2019–20 MIT Sounding series, an annual concert series curated by Evan Ziporyn, faculty director of CAST and professor offor Music and Theater Arts, and presented by the MIT Center for Art, Science & Technology (CAST) and MIT Music and Theater Arts.

Image: Animation of DJ Rob Swift. Footage courtesy of BPM Supreme TV.