The three-time DMC Canadian Champion on how an unexpected recommendation put her on a stage with TJ Mizell and Hedspin, what it took to earn a slot at Skratch Bastid’s legendary cookout, and the day her father finally saw her play.
Every summer, under a highway in downtown Toronto, hundreds of people gather in the smoke to watch DJs. Not artists with DJs behind them. DJs. The lineups over the years have read like a hall of fame: Jazzy Jeff, DJ Premier, Pete Rock, 9th Wonder, The Alchemist, Kid Capri. And for five of the last seven editions, DEEJAY T-JR. has been on the bill.
“Bastid’s BBQ is an annual event series founded by Skratch Bastid in 2011,” she says. “All you need to know is this: good music, good food, good people. That’s the slogan. And that’s exactly what you get.”
DEEJAY T-JR. is a three-time DMC Canadian Champion and the only woman ever to win three consecutive national DMC titles. She is also, by her own count, a five-time Bastid’s BBQ performer: 2019, then every year from 2022 through 2025. “Four-peat?” she jokes. “Which is pretty wild.”
To hear her tell it, though, the BBQ is not really about her. It is about what the event does for the DJ.
Putting the DJ back at the front
“There was a time where DJs were considered the backbone of hip hop,” she says. “Every MC had a DJ, and that DJ was a vital part of their show and their relationship. Over time, the DJ went from being at the forefront to becoming much less prominent. Bastid’s BBQ takes it back to the essence of respecting the DJ and showcasing the talent that’s out there.”
When it started, she says, it felt like a really well-organized, close-knit cookout. Now it runs across multiple cities in Canada and the United States, and the scale has grown with it. What has not changed is the mission. “It preserves and promotes the culture of hip hop and its elements. You’ll see elite DJing, turntablism, breaking and MCing. It’s like a huge block party where everyone is there to enjoy themselves. I always say it should be crowned a national holiday in Canada.”
The recommendation
The relationship with Skratch Bastid began before the BBQ, at a different stage. Around 2016, Bastid was running an event series at the Drake Underground in Toronto called On Deck. Each show paired a headliner and one or two top-tier DJs with a single local up-and-comer. Bastid’s description of it, as DEEJAY T-JR. remembers it, was a mini-Coachella for DJs that flex on ’em.
For the second installment, on January 16, 2017, Bastid asked Vekked, the DMC World Champion and one of the most decorated turntablists Canada has produced, for a local recommendation. The bill that night was Skratch Bastid, TJ Mizell, son of the late Jam Master Jay and tour DJ for A$AP Ferg, Hedspin, the 2011 Red Bull 3Style World Champion, and Trapment, a two-time Red Bull 3Style World Finalist. Then one open slot.
“No pressure, right?” she says. “Vekked recommended me to Bastid. I actually only found this out a few years ago.”
It was the first major event she ever showcased at. “Even though Bastid didn’t know much about me at the time, he took a chance on me. It reminds me of the faith the size of a mustard seed they talk about in the Bible.”
She was not new to DJing, but she was still relatively new to the Toronto scene and to the DMC circuit. What she had was hunger, and Bastid noticed. “Over time, we both continued to grow in our individual careers, but we kept crossing paths. I think he really saw my grind, and he never forgot about me. That’s rare nowadays.”
In 2019, he asked if she wanted to play the BBQ. “I’ve never agreed to something so fast in my life.”
181 Sterling Road
Her first Bastid’s BBQ was in Toronto in 2019 at 181 Sterling Road, a huge vacant lot with a gritty, industrial feel. “I liked it. It was perfect for the BBQ and very hip hop.” The sun was blazing and there was not a cloud in the sky. The lineup included Masta Ace and Marco Polo, Kid Capri, Jaël, Greg Nice, DJ Grouch, and more. Her set was around 4:45 in the afternoon, an earlier slot in a day that runs from two until ten, which for a first appearance she considered a very good place to be.
She calls it one of the most memorable shows of her career, and possibly one of her top two BBQs. Part of that is who was standing in the front row.
Her family had gone to Macedonia that summer. She stayed behind to play the show. Her father stayed too, and for the first time in her career, he watched her DJ. “He’d never seen me perform before, let alone on a big stage like this.”
PULL QUOTE: “After the show, my father said, ‘Wow! They KNOW you!'”
“My father was front row the entire time, recording everything. He was so proud, but I could also tell he was genuinely surprised by the reactions I was getting. People gathered close during my set, and real heads were rapping along to every word and slapping the stage.” When it was over, he found her. “He said, ‘Wow! They KNOW you!’ I remember laughing, because to him it was like seeing a whole different side of me.”
Asked how the opportunity came about, she does not overthink it. “When the student is ready, the teacher appears. Bastid reached out to me. It wasn’t hard to tell I was interested, and I’m sure he knew I would never say no. Work hard, stay focused on the main thing, and everything else will fall into place.”
Feel the crowd before you read it
Her preparation for a BBQ set starts long before she touches a record, and it starts in her head.
“I always envision myself on stage. I think about every detail, down to what I’m wearing and how I’m responding to the crowd, and how the crowd might respond to me. I think about the location, the weather that day, the atmosphere, what the stage looks like, what the green room will be like. I really put myself in the shoes of myself on the day of the performance.”
The music is built as a narrative. “I think about it like a story, and how I can take this crowd on a musical journey. What do I want to say? How do I want to say it? It’s very philosophical for me. I feel the crowd before I read the crowd. A lot of the time the set writes itself. I think of an intro I really like, something witty, which leads me to another song and another song, and then I begin to sew everything together.”
Inside the set she looks for wordplay, blends and juggles, but not at the expense of the party. “Nothing too technical.” For most BBQs she has stayed strictly hip hop, heavy on B-side bangers and if-you-know-you-know records, though she has also done reggae and dancehall sets. “I just know the BBQ crowd always appreciates a good hip hop set. At the end of the day, I do me and whatever I’m feeling at the time.”
That freedom is the point. Unlike a battle, with its formats and time limits, or a club night with its expectations, the BBQ has no rules. “There are no guidelines or restrictions, and I love that, because I don’t want to feel boxed in. Skratch Bastid is hand-picking us because we’re all unique and have our own styles. So why would I go up there and try to be anything other than myself? That would completely defeat the purpose.”
She has a story about exactly how much of DEEJAY T-JR. she brings. After the 2024 Toronto BBQ, one of the years families and young kids were welcome until a certain hour, she was riding to the after-party with Bastid’s manager. He told her that during planning someone had asked whether everyone’s set would be clean enough for the families in the crowd.
“And Bastid’s manager replied, ‘Yeah. Except T-JR.’s.'” She still laughs about it. “Honestly, it’s the biggest compliment.”
Under the Gardiner
In recent years the Toronto BBQ has lived at The Bentway, an outdoor space that sits directly beneath the Gardiner Expressway in the heart of downtown. For anyone who has never been, she paints it plainly.
“It’s the middle of a hot summer day, the sky is bright blue, BBQ smoke is filling the air, and you’ve got the best DJs in the world playing while everyone is singing, vibing and fully locked into the music. You’re not just watching the party, you’re part of it.”
“It’s like a block party with hundreds of people, almost a huge hip hop picnic. I’ve never seen so many people gathered in one place with such genuinely positive energy. Everyone is there to have a good time and you can feel it. And it’s been this way consistently over the years.”
Ask her whether anything has ever gone wrong at a BBQ and she has to think about it. “I genuinely can’t recall an experience where something went wrong or even almost went wrong. Everything goes right. I’m not just saying that because he’s the homie either. These events are incredibly well organized. The team behind the scenes is on point. They make sure we’re set up properly and have everything we need to perform at our best.”
The green room on wheels
Some of her favourite BBQ moments happened nowhere near the decks.
At the 2025 Toronto BBQ, the green room was a small room inside the Red Bull Tour Bus, a mobile stage on wheels. There was space for maybe three people on each side. She was sitting with Marco Polo, and she believes Tek from Smif-N-Wessun was in there too. Then DJ Premier walked in.
“I’ve met DJ Premier before, but this was just different. There is no room to move around. On one side it was DJ Premier, next to him was Marco Polo, and next to Marco was me.”
DJ Premier and Marco Polo know each other well, and they caught up while she listened. Premier told them about a new album with Nas, finished but not yet released. “This moment was incredibly full circle for me. It brought me back to the first time I ever heard ‘Mass Appeal.’ I used to study Gang Starr’s catalogue inside and out. And now Preemo is sitting right next to me casually telling us about a new Nas project.”
The year before, The Alchemist headlined, and every DJ who had played that day went up on stage to watch. He was pulling original samples and then dropping his beats right over them. When the keys of Jack Mayborn’s “Disco People” came through the speakers, everyone on stage knew exactly where it was going. Alchemist went straight into “Keep It Thoro,” the Prodigy record he produced, and the entire lineup rushed the front of the stage and rapped it with him word for word.
“Too legendary,” she says.
Then there is the crowd itself. “You just never know who you’re going to run into.” A few weeks before this interview, walking to find some friends at the most recent BBQ, she spotted Saukrates standing directly in front of them. “I told my friend, ‘I need to meet Saukrates. That’s hip hop royalty.’ He was just as excited to meet me as I was to meet him. The love was mutual. A true Toronto hip hop pioneer.”
That mutual respect, she says, is what the event is built on. “It shows love to everyone in the community: the pioneers who paved the way, current talent and up-and-coming talent. Nobody is forgotten. It’s a cultural hub of greatness.”
Big brother
Today she describes Skratch Bastid as a mentor and a big brother. “I know I can go to him with anything, business or personal, and he’ll always take the time to listen. There’s a lot of trust and loyalty there. Never complains, never stops smiling, always grateful, always helping others. If there were more people like him in the world, it would be a much better place.”
Creatively, she says, they simply align. “He’s the only DJ I’ll do a B2B set with. We just get it.”
Bastid has brought DEEJAY T-JR. into a lot of his world: the On Deck series, the BBQs, his Tuesday Morning Coffee streams on Twitch, the scratch routine videos they have put out together. By the time this article runs, the two of them will be on their way to Jazzy Jeff’s Playlist Retreat. “These aren’t small things, and they’ve helped tremendously in my career.”
Long before any of it, back when she still had a desk job, she wrote down the names of two DJs she wanted to meet and work with. Skratch Bastid was first on the list. “Crazy how things work out. We’ve come a long way since the Drake Underground.”
The BBQs, she says, have helped shape her as a performer. “DJing for these large crowds at a top-tier event, alongside other elite talent, has taken my confidence and stage presence to another level. A lot of those qualities have transferred to my personal life as well. And you get to connect with artists and DJs in a more intimate setting. Those relationships lead to opportunities down the road that otherwise may not have been possible.”
Five BBQs in, she is not done. “I’d love to rock a BBQ in another city, like New York. That’s the mecca of hip hop. That would be incredibly special.”
Until then, she has one closing line, borrowed from the man himself. “In the infamous words of my brother Skratch Bastid: LET’S GOOOOOO!”
DEEJAY T-JR. is a three-time DMC Canadian Champion (2022, 2023, 2024), a 2023 DMC World Finals top-nine finisher, and the branch manager of DMC Canada. Find her at deejaytjr.com and @deejaytjr on Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, X and Twitch.