Over To You: Should I Take My DJ Mentor’s Gigs?

Digital DJ Tips reader DJ Godspeed (name changed by request) writes: “Seven months ago, I had just bought my first controller and was pretty new to the DJ scene. I had previous knowledge of beatmatching and stuff because I had been playing with Virtual DJ but I still considered myself a novice.

“Anyway, I was so passionate about DJing that I read stuff, watched videos, listened to mixes and practised as much as I could. I also had a DJ mentor who helped me get a grip really fast.

“I soon found out that I wasn’t content with DJing alone so I began learning about musical keys and stuff. I began to try remixing and mashups. All this I did on my own, because my mentor doesn’t care much about that. Today I’ve become quite good and people are starting to love me a lot.

“The problem is, I feel like I’m ‘stealing’ my mentor’s spot. He’s been in the game a long time but in this short time, people are beginning to like me more, thanks to my remixing / mashups, live mashups etc.

“He’s a cool guy but sometimes I wonder if I’m becoming too much like competition for him. I’ve refused a gig in the past so that he could have it, but when I went to the party, people were asking me why I wasn’t DJing.

“I feel like I should step back a bit since he was the one who helped me when I was just starting, plus he’s more experienced. I don’t want to spoil our friendship. Is it OK to feel this way? What would you do?”

Digital DJ Tips says:

It’s a hard one. Can you take bookings where you both play together?

I’ve been in the situation where I DJ with a partner, and then we get offered gigs separately – we were cool about that, as we had different styles and I actually DJed out a lot more (out of choice) than he did, but every situation is different.

I’d like to throw this one over to the readers….

Have you been in a similar situation to DJ Godspeed? What did you do? Did the situation get resolved, or were there lasting issues? What would your advice be?