The Final 30

Right, it's official - thanks to Electrum Records, DJs have now become superstars. A heroic and powerful announcement was made last week during the Student DJ Program party a-top the Fairmont Nile City towers, announcing the 30 contestants who get the chance to go to Gouna to learn from the industries best. Each of their photos were blown up on the big screen as if they’d just won the lottery, and when you think about it, they kind of have. Winning this competition, and with a lot of hard work and dedication, would pretty much set them up for life, allowing them, as the competition feverishly promotes, to follow their dreams. Whether you love or hate this whole DJ furore going on, you should at least get the chance to know a little more about the contestants. After all, they’ll probably be responsible for the soundtracks behind your fist pumping at Nacelle, your jumping up and down at Cairo Jazz Club and you making our in the corner of Tamarai over the next few years. When the announcements were made, there were already few clear favourites with the likes of Fulltone, Ahmed Sebai and Mohamed Sadek drawing cheers from the crowd.  

Then there was the surprise addition of a couple of female DJs, Roulla Soussou and Jenna Subbatova which was fantastic to see and we hope they can show everyone that they're not just there to fill a quota. We also have our eye on the young duo Aguizi and Fahim who we recently profiled in our Boys & Their Noise section and might just end up teaching their elder peers a thing or two. A lot of the other contestants were unknown to us, which made our little hearts light up for two reasons: 1) it showed that there was little or no favours or nepotism involved in the choosing of the contestants and, 2) one of these guys is about to ride from obscurity into stardom right on our dance floors and everyone loves an underdog, right?

Find out more about the 30 contestants and vote for your favourite at http://www.studentdj.net/

For all the pictures from the night go to CairoZoom.com