The core of DJing — the creativity, empathy, and spontaneity — will remain irreplaceable
About a year ago, I did a video interview for a YouTube channel. Promo edits were shared as Instagram Reels, all of which performed well—but one of them completely blew up: nearly 1.5 million views, just under 50,000 likes, and overwhelmingly positive comments.
What was I saying? That DJing isn’t difficult; it’s a technical skill most people can learn. But what separates great DJs from the rest is their intuitive ability to know the next song.
What I actually said was, “DJing is 10 percent technology and 90 percent song selection,” adding, “I was just okay at both,” which was true. Even though I was one of fewer than 10 DJs in India when I started, I quit after 12 years. By the late Nineties, anyone with a Case Logic CD case and headphones was a DJ, and many were more effective at it than I was.
But there was another reason I quit, and that’s part of this story too. The unexpected success of that Reel got me thinking about the thought process behind song selection — and how artificial intelligence could assist it.
The efficacy of a DJ is measurable. Their job is to get and keep the dancefloor filled. Forget the hype of music videos and flashy nightclub scenes. The majority of DJ earnings come from private events like weddings, birthday parties, and corporate functions. A DJ’s reputation depends on their ability to consistently fill dancefloors, which requires reading the room, sensing its energy, and adapting to it.
This is a skill developed over years of practice but deeply rooted in instinct. DJing creativity lies in its empathy-driven interaction with the crowd, a far more complex process than it seems.
DJing appears simple because great DJs turn empathy into intuition. They combine muscle memory and imagination to keep the dancefloor packed, making it look effortless. The same could be said of Miles or Coltrane — or any great artist.
DJs operate within constraints: genre, BPM, energy level, even the time of night. Jazz musicians, by contrast, have unlimited options — tune, tone, tempo, texture — and no tangible objective other than artistic output.
Yet both jazz musicians and DJs uniquely share one essential trait: they are responders. Jazz is a live conversation between musicians, while DJing is live curation with the dancefloor as the muse. DJs can’t spin without people to respond to, just as jazz musicians can’t meaningfully contribute without hearing what’s happening around them. It’s a dynamic, real-time feedback loop that challenges both to stay present in the moment.
The distinction lies in the measurability of their goals. Jazz musicians aim for artistic expression, which often defies quantification. DJs, on the other hand, work toward a clear and measurable outcome: moving the crowd.
In his book Blink, Malcolm Gladwell discusses the algorithmic subconscious thought process of highly experienced individuals — decisions arrived at without being able to explain how they got there. It’s not a “gift” but rather an intuition honed through years of practice and exposure.
I left DJing to become program director for Bengaluru’s Indigo FM. Programming radio involves understanding the target market’s needs and delivering to them. The choice of presenters, style, and brand is almost an art form, but music selection is science. I developed a hypothesis: at any given moment, there is one perfect song to play.
It’s a myth that radio DJs (RJs) select the songs they play — they don’t. That’s not their job. RJs focus on engaging with the audience and delivering content. The responsibility of music selection falls to the music programmer.
That’s essentially what I did live as a DJ, though I thought it was intuition. On radio, this process involves running data through algorithms to create playlists aligned with policies and objectives. When you slow down what a live DJ does, it’s the same algorithmic process — just faster.
Streaming platforms today do the same thing, using algorithms to build playlists for equally measurable goals: engagement, retention, clicks. The difference between radio or streaming and DJing is immediacy.
Consider the possibilities as real-time feedback tools like wearables and biometric sensors enter the mainstream. These could help DJs refine their song choices, enhancing their intuitive processes. AI could serve as a focused assistant, suggesting directions the DJ might not have considered. But the core of DJing—the creativity, empathy, and spontaneity—will remain irreplaceable.
AI has already transformed how we experience music. From streaming recommendations to composition and music production tools, it influences much of what we hear. Yet the fear of AI replacing creativity is older than the LinnDrum. Authenticity, after all, is subjective.
Consider the classic snare in rock music recordings. It feels raw and real but is a studio construct. No one has ever heard a snare as close as the mic has to be, not even the drummer. Similarly, autotune, sampling, and even digital audio workstations were once considered threats to authenticity but are now celebrated tools of modern music — as they should be.
Today, I can divide people I know into those who’ve integrated AI into their workflows and those who haven’t. The older often worry about the fading authenticity of “real” music, while young Indian musicians are stepping into an industry that’s evolving far too rapidly for them to respond as we did in the past.
While Bollywood still dominates, independent artists have found their space. Two decades ago, my radio playlists were 98 percent film music; today, platforms stream 20–40 percent non-film music. Many successful independent Indian artists deeply understand their audiences — a skill that benefits DJs, songwriters, and producers most of all.
DJs are less about creating music and more about creating moments. They are the intelligence in the artificial intelligence of song selection. As an early DJ nickname, “Selector,” suggests, their craft is about picking the perfect track. Or, as someone on Instagram once put it, “A good DJ gives the dancefloor what it wants; a great DJ gives it what it didn’t know it needed.”
Great songs have one or more of these rare qualities: they make you think something new, feel an unexpected emotion, or move your body. If a song achieves none of these, it’s unlikely to succeed. Just as great rappers or folk singers use words to spark ideas, and K-pop or soul artists craft harmonies to evoke deep emotions, DJs curate music with one clear purpose: to make people move. Movement is a proven mood booster, often the first advice from psychologists or therapists to lift someone out of a low. When a DJ reads the dancefloor and plays the right songs, they amplify the feel-good chemicals in the crowd’s bodies.
It’s no wonder DJs are so loved — they don’t just play music; they create collective joy. It’s an empathetic practice, a science, and possibly an art. But no matter if it’s Herc or Knuckles, without an objective it’s nothing.
Real DJing will always be humankind at its best: connected by empathy, solving problems with creativity. AI might enhance the process in the future, but its heart will remain human. And that’s why DJs might be the musicians to bring authenticity back to pop music.
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