BY KELLY ROCHE
Samy Beshay had a real-life blast from the past at Celebration Square Saturday night.
He’s one of 10 lucky contest winners who scored a meet and greet with DJ Jazzy Jeff.
“He was on Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and that was one of my favourite shows as a kid,” said Beshay, 21.
Along with his guest, childhood friend Samuel Chacko, the Streetsville resident got to take photos with the famous DJ.
“It’s really awesome because we used to watch the show all the time as kids,” said Chacko.
They won the prize after answering a trivia question about which film Jeff is linked to — Straight Outta Compton.
“I had to do a bit of research for that one,” said Beshay.
Jeff was headlining the third annual SoundBites festival.
Cellphones and cameras were out as he and Philadelphia newcomer Dayne Jordan took the stage.
“There’s a love-hate relationship with it,” Jeff told the QEW South Post before playing.
“I mean, I love the fact that you basically have a video camera and a way to capture the moment in your hand. I just think some people forget the moment and all they want to do is capture it, and I think sometimes you miss what you actually saw to make sure that you get the right film to watch it later.”
He adds he isn’t sure “what that balance is but you would like it to be a little more balanced for people to kind of live in the moment.”
While he says he’s never asked fans to stop taping, “I’ve been at shows where I’ve seen people kind of say something. And the funny thing is, you don’t really pay attention. I’m so focused when I’m playing.”
Having said that, Jeff admits he’s recorded artists on stage using his phone.
CYCLES, VINYL, BLUE JAYS
Jeff is asked about millennial party-goers requesting ’90s music.
He grins.
“Life goes in cycles and I think that that’s the cycle,” he said.
“I think a lot of the EDM music is very similar to the electro music of the ’80s, so I think the natural progression is going from the ’80s into the ’90s. I can tell because I travel all around the world and most of the parties that I do, people want ’90s music, which I think is cool.”
Evolving technology has helped Jeff travel lighter — no more carrying crates and crates of vinyl on planes.
“People think that it makes you a better DJ, and it really doesn’t,” he said.
“If you sucked before technology, you really suck after.”
It has levelled the playing field, though, he says, in that everyone has access to the same music.
“Sometimes you scoured the world to find very rare records to play and you were one of the only people that could play them, and now everybody has them. But it just — it makes you really step your game up more.”
The Blue Jays are stepping their game up in the final month of regular-season baseball, despite a 7-5 loss in Tampa Saturday.
Jeff, West Philadelphia born and raised, says he was en route to Spain during Game 6 of the 1993 World Series when the Jays defeated the Phillies.
As the plane was getting ready to land, “the pilot came on and said ‘for those who are curious, the Toronto Blue Jays beat the Philadelphia Phillies and Joe Carter hit a home run.’ And I remember just dropping my head and then when I saw it, it was just — it was bad. Took me a long time to forgive Mitch Williams.”
qewsouthpost.com 