RISING STARS

DJ Switch

DJ Switch

Introducing DJ Switch – winner Youth Music Homelands festival competition 2004

DJ Switch aka Anthony Culverwell is one of the UK’s most promising and upcoming turntablist talents. He began DJing at the age of 11, initially self-taught; he learned to scratch at a DJ Academy. “I remember my parents buying me a studio mixer for £70 and putting two of their old record players next to them. But what got me into turntablism was watching the DMC 2001 UK final on video, because the first DJ was cutting up 'The Muppet Show' and I was just taken from there.”

In 2005 he won Youth Music’s competition to DJ at the Homelands Festival and played to a crowd in excess of 4,000 alongside world famous names including the Scratch Perverts, Skinnyman, Grandmaster Flash and DJ Kentaro. Switch heard about the Homelands competition from Start Local, a project organised by Sound It Out, the Birmingham-based Community Music organisation where he worked with other talented local musicians and DJs. In the same year he won the Derby heat of the DMC battle beating off 25 other competitors for a spot in the national final of the world famous DJ and turntablist awards.

In 2006 he claimed a national title, the DMC UK Battle for Supremacy – the youngest winner the competition had seen of any category – and gained a respectable third place at the World Finals. He successfully defended his UK title (another first) in 2007 to, again, represent the UK amongst the finest DJs the world has to offer. “I try to maintain a level of musicality in anything I do, even in my battle routines. I surprised people at Start Local when we were practising a song and I placed a perfectly pitched flute in the chorus!”

In 2008, he raised his total number of titles to four with his DJ crew Bionic Stylus becoming Britan's team champions in 2008. And topped this off with becoming a 2008 WORLD CHAMPION.

Anthony also regularly gets involved in community work and youth education. The ‘Soundshifter’ project saw him working with several multi-instrumentalists to help young music students create their own experimental compositions; he has helped run temporary broadcast stations to give young people training experience; ‘Start Local’ saw him aiding Birmingham-based bands and vocalists in improving their performing talents, and he has also helped in various peoples' DJ tuition.

DMC BATTLE STATISTICS:
2002 West Midlands DJ Champion
2005 IDJ Turntablist Of The Month (April)
2005 Youth Music/Homelands Mixtape Champion
2005 DMC Derby Champion
2005 ITF Nottingham Champion
2006 DMC UK Battle For Supremacy Champion
2006 DMC World Supremacy Semi Finalist
2007 DMC UK Battle For Supremacy Champion
2008 DMC Birmingham Champion
2008 DMC UK Battle For Supremacy Champion
2008 3rd Place, DMC UK Final
2008 DMC UK Team Champion (with Bionic Stylus)

Watch DJ Switch on Blue Peter



Listen to DJ Switch in action at
www.myspace.com/djswitchbeatz