Now in its eighth year of competition, the now prestigious Red Bull 3Style World DJ Championships have been advancing the culture of DJing and entertaining audiences globally since its inception in 2010. The newly established and highly respected DJ competition has been challenging the prestige of the world’s #1 DJ completion, the legendary world DMC’s, which have been held annually since New Jersey’s DJ Cheese took it out in 1986.
This year’s final will be judged by DJ Jazzy Jeff, Nina Las Vegas (Australia), Skratch Bastid, DJ Craze and DJ Nu-Mark (of Jurassic 5) and after some delay will run from 7-11 February in Poland. After four elimination nights, the final will be held at the Juliusz Stowacki Theatre in Krakow, in the country’s south. The field of 24 world finalists will battle it out to be the new world champion and are judged on Originality (40%), Skills (25%), Music Selection (20%) and Crowd Response (15%) over their 15-minute set which must include at least three different genres of music – quite different from the technicality focus of the DMC’s and IDA’s.
Beast Mode aka DJ Samrai from Sydney, Australia placed 3rd in the World at the Red Bull 3Style finals in Santiago, Chile in the last competition which was held in mid-December 2016 and the wildcard entrant appears set to be one of the favorites to claim this year’s title. Beast Mode has previously won National Titles in DMC, ITF/IDA and Redbull 3Style competitions as well as proving to be a successful mixtape, club and performance DJ since 2000. His impressive versatility, continuous growth as a DJ / party rocker makes him a complete all-rounder and a true title contender.
The previous Red Bull 3Style winners are 25-year-old Puffy from Barbados, DJ Byte of Chile, Eskei83 of Germany, DJ Shintaro of Japan, Four Color Zack of America, DJ Hedspin of Canada and DJ Karve of France. With none of the previous winners competing in the final, 2018 looks like Beast Mode may just go all the way and has a strong chance at improving on his previous 3rd placing at the worlds grand final this February. He will be up against stiff competition this year from all 21 regional winners and the two other wildcard entrants including the experienced, battle-hardened and multiple DMC winner DJ Irie (The Netherlands), experienced competitor destroyer DJ Ease from Las Vegas, multiple-IDA World winner and 2012 DMC World Team Championship winner and wildcard entrant DJ Cross (Belgium) as well as Polish hometown hero 69Beats – as three of the previous seven winners have all won on their own home turf.
