DJ Aztecz juggles music with academics

"Where I'm from you have two choices, the negative and positive. It's either you're gonna end up in a one-room over Dovecot or in jail for the rest of your life, or you're gonna choose the positive choice, where you look into yourself, see your best self, and make something of it."

Akiel 'DJ Aztecz' McCarthy, the man who said those words, took the latter path.

The 21-year-old deejay grew up in the volatile community of McIntyre Villa (Dunkirk), east Kingston. Currently, pursuing a Bachelor of Arts degree in Entertainment and Cultural Enterprise Management at The University of the West Indies, Mona, McCarthy was determined from a tender age to take the high road.

He told THE WEEKEND STAR that a number of his friends have become victims of the crime in the community. He said that he was determined to stay away from the negatives that were all around him, and stressed that music helped him to ensure his feet were planted on the right side of the law.

"From a tender age, I realised that music was the thing for me. I couldn't be a baller or a track star because I have asthma, so music it was," McCarthy said while laughing.

McCarthy began displaying his musical ingenuity at the age of 10. He said that while attending birthday parties for children, he would 'thief' a play from the disc jocks, juggle two songs and mess around with the CD players.

ENTERED COMPETITION

In 2014, while he was a fourth form student at Vauxhall High School, McCarthy entered a deejay competition hosted by Digicel. That was his first big 'buss'. The next year he decided go further. He joined Ridix Sound in 2015.

McCarthy stated UWI in 2017 and began studying Entertainment and Cultural Enterprise Management.

"Jamaica has a lot of good musicians but I don't think they are educated enough to sell their art to the level that it should be selling so that hinders them from getting the real million" McCarthy said.

In addition to being a deejay, McCarthy is also involved in music production. He has been working with upcoming artiste Akeem Shella on tracks such as Superstar, which has more than 10,000 streams on various platforms. In addition, he has been working on upcoming projects, mixtapes and events.

McCarthy, a second-year student, is considering taking a year off from his studies in order to utilise skills garnered throughout his degree programme so far.

"I might take a year off because I know that this will give me the time I need to execute my marketing strategies meticulously and focus on my diversity with music," he said.