Today we’d like to introduce you to Donavon Modeste.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
So my story really starts before I was even born. My grandpa who owned almost every record you could think of would DJ for his friend and family back in the Virgin Islands 🇻🇮 in St.Croix where he moved with my grandma from St. Lucia to have my dad and his 3 other brother and my 2 aunties.
My oldest uncle, Valence, is who started to use my grandpa’s equipment to practice and DJ when he was younger and started a group called “BigKat Sounds” with him and my other uncle, Feraly, who would talk on the mic for him while he was djing.
Then years later with my dad being the youngest brother, he would sneak to use his brother’s DJ equipment while he was at work and would have to put everything back perfectly because my uncle’s valence would always tell him his stuff is not a toy to play with for children. At the time, my dad was in middle around 12 or 13 and every day after school he would practice. My uncle didn’t let my dad DJ for real until he was 17 and it was for his school dance.
Then when my dad graduated he moved down to NC where he started to build his name down here as Dj Chicken (being the nickname that everyone already called him) and he would push his name as big kat sounds as well. So now Bigkat sounds are becoming more of a global thing with my dad paying for flights and using the flight points to be able to travel he would travel to ATL, Miami, NYC, etc.
For different DJ gigs including weddings, house parties, and club events. When he was in NC he would start to do house parties and his own club events which gained him a big following in NC in the Caribbean side of things he was one of the most followed/best DJs for Caribbean people. His following was gaining so much that he decided with a few friends to start putting on “Caribmask” a Caribbean carnival that is held on the last Saturday of August every year for the past 10 years.
Now with me being his son I always loved Caribbean music because that’s mostly what was played around the house in the car at functions so I grew a love for soca, reggae, and, dancehall music (Soca being my favorite). When I was in the 2nd grade there was a talent show at my school and I wanted to do something I didn’t know if I wanted to dance or something else that was very generic what everyone does but when I came to my mom and told her about the talent show she suggested why don’t you ask your dad to teach you to DJ.
So with that, I asked my dad to teach me and he said no the same thing my uncle told him he told me DJ equipment is not a toy that I can just use because of costs thousand of dollars to buy and for me to use it as a kid I might mess up something and be careless.
But after a week of me not being able to figure out what to do I started to watch my dad DJ and see how he did it. Once he saw that his 7-year-old son was actually paying attention to how it was done he decided that it would be a good idea to teach me and let me do it for my talent show.
So my dad taught me for 3 weeks every night how to do what sounds good what doesn’t what songs to play and how to get around the DJ software. So when I did the talent show I was ready to go and I did really well for the first time and all my family came to see me and they loved it.
Then with me loving it so much and having so much fun, I would practice all the time and always have my dad’s computer going through music and seeing where everything was so when I DJ I knew where to go to find what and what to play at what time.
So when it come around to the 3rd year of “Caribmask” my dad does now have any DJ to open up at the very beginning of the carnival so he asked me if he thought I could do it and I told him yes so at the age of 9 I was djing on stage for the first time at the carnival, granted there were not very many people yet because the parade was still going on so most people were at the parade the people who were there watching me loved all of it took as many pictures as possible and all congratulated me.
After that, I didn’t really DJ that much out in the open for people I would usually just go thru my dads’ computer to see new music and older music I liked to play around the house. Then around middle school is when everything changed for me I was a lot more open to hearing people listening to rap music and other types of music and no one was a DJ at school so to me I thought I would be that lame kid who Djied when I was in middle school so I stopped djing all of my 6th and 7th-grade years.
Now when my 8th-grade year comes around it’s Christmas break and I’m back in St.Croix with my other uncle Buju who had gained a really big following on St. Croix being known as the best DJ on the island to alot of people. He was djing for my uncle’s valence 20th-anniversary party and he asked me if I wanted to DJ I got on and stunk up the place.
I was so bad I couldn’t remember anything not when how to put a song to play next. So right there he showed me how to DJ again and my memory started to come back on how to DJ and I got it down by the end of the party again and seeing how my family reacted to the music really made me fall in love with djing all over again.
The only problem was now my dad has gig almost every weekend in NC or different states so I never get to use his computer to DJ but when I could I would be on it and practice my djing for Caribbean music because I had stopped listening to it because like I said before I didn’t want to be looked at like the lame kid who listens to weird music.
I also came to an agreement with my dad because this is around 2018-2019 when rap music had changed alot to trap music and my dad couldn’t stand trap music so he had me download all of his rap/ trap music to DJ and I would go thru his soca music.
Now after about a year of now djing for people since starting to DJ again my dad DJs to my middle school dance and he says on the mic I want y’all to see that all this stuff I’m doing my son can do too and calls me on the stage to DJ and I DJ for my classmates and after that, every at school was talking about me djing for my school and that I was so good.
So that put a battery in my back to want to DJ alot more so practice alot for when Caribmask comes back around, so 2019 Caribmask (the last year we had it), and my dad had a set to play with a back and forth with me and him on the stage in front of everyone.
The performance went so well so many people were calling my dad’s phone asking where to book and how to book me and how much I was to book. With all of that, I felt like I needed to get better to show everyone my skills and I wanted to show my friend at school so I decided to throw a house party with one of my friends at school whose mom so happened to be the principal at my middle school. The house party didn’t really have a big turn out it was like 20 of us but for only 20 people I made sure all of us had alot of fun.
Then a little after that my dad told me that he double booked himself to DJ a middle school and an event in ATL so he asked me if I could handle djing for a middle school, I told him, yes but I always used his computer to DJ and I would have nothing to DJ with if he was in ATL so I talked to my mom about it and it was around Christmas time so she said for Christmas she would buy me my own MacBook to DJ with. So now I go to DJ my first gig solo without my dad that I’m getting paid for so I was very excited I got scared and I played terribly.
Worst DJ experience I ever had I could not mix anything to save my life I was so nervous and I had to talk on the mic my whole life people have always told me I sounded like a girl so I never liked to hear my own voice so when I would talk on the mic I could hear it and would cringe. But I got thru the night and left discouraged. Then COVID hit and my dad pushed me saying that this could be my break out and I could come back from COVID and hit hard with djing and getting bookings.
So for a little, while I and him would go live on FB. Then when school finally came back my Jr. year that’s when I really started getting booking every weekend or every other weekend. And that’s about where we are now I consider myself the best 16-year-old DJ some people say I’m confident some may say I’m cocky but to me, I just believe in myself and my future.
Most of my story hasn’t been told yet but you guys can watch the story unfold your self I can guarantee you this will be a story to look out for.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall, and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Other than the middle school where I was finding myself in who I wanted to work to be it has been pretty easy
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I’m a DJ and I am most proud of my ability to move any age crowd I have DJed for elementary school kids and had them dancing and also for 50th birthday parties so to me there are not very many DJs who can do it all.
Can you talk to us a bit about happiness and what makes you happy?
Seeing how I can control a crowd to have so much fun just by playing music and talking to them.
Contact Info:
- Email: D.modestee24@gmail.com
- Website: https://linktr.ee/Darealdjdon
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/darealdjdon?utm_medium=copy_link
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/donavon.modeste
- Youtube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCiMgMth5fodWVAsbZD5sVfQ
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.app.goo.gl/m5B49UKsg8as2Bjs6
Image Credits
R-Jay @Rjays.insta
