Catch Good Vibes With Old China Hand DJ Jay 1, 2 at This Year's Pizza Fest, Oct 14

Don't miss DJ Jay 1, 2's set on Oct 14 as part of the  2018 Beijing Pizza Festival, this Saturday and Sunday.

If you’ve been to even a single event in Beijing, chances are you’ve seen Jason Wilkins AKA “DJ Jay 1, 2” behind his turntables, laying down one carefully chosen record after another, his head and upturned baseball cap bopping to the rhythm. And while many a scenester in the capital would call him one of the city’s best DJs, he disagrees with such labeling entirely.

“I don’t even consider myself a DJ. I consider myself a selector. And to be honest, I don’t play for the crowd, I play for myself. Luckily, it just so happens the crowd likes the music I play,” the Detroit native says. “That’s why I’ll play a disco song, then I’ll play a funk song, and if the mood hits me I might play free-form jazz, and then a hip-hop song. It’s a free-spirited type of thing.”
That very same attitude is actually what brought him to Beijing, 12 years ago. He was at an airport, leaving a teaching job in Guizhou after two months because it was “too country there.” He looked up at the flight board. A job offer awaited him at the end of the 3.30pm flight to Shanghai. However, a friend from Detroit who worked in music promotion in Beijing, and had brought over big names like legendary Motor City techno artist Derrick May, had encouraged Wilkins to come live in the capital.

The airport’s board also listed a flight to Beijing, an hour after the one he was supposed to take to Shanghai. “I looked back and forth and thought to myself ‘Shanghai, Beijing … Shanghai, Beijing …’ then I reached in my pocket and pulled out a coin, and said ‘Heads, I’m staying on course, tails I’m going to Beijing,’ and so here I am.”

Jay’s breezy outlook may well have begun at a record store in Detroit. It was the late ‘70s and a young Wilkins was with his mother, a music buff with a collection of about 400 LPs (mostly Motown and disco, while his dad supplemented those stacks with classics by the likes of Steely Dan). As she thumbed through the selection, one record leapt out at him, which may surprise those of us only somewhat familiar with his current sets: Kiss’ Love Gun. Young Wilkins was immediately enamored on account of the classic rockers looking like superheroes to him. Even though his mother dismissed it as “the devil’s music” because of their makeup and ghoulish grins, the ponytailed record store clerk told her it was perfectly fine for the boy to listen to, before giving Wilkins a mischievous wink when his mother was no longer paying attention. To this day, Wilkins credits that Kiss LP with opening him up to new genres that help him put together eclectic sets.

And while his tastes grew broader than those of his parents, he maintained their completist spirit, amassing huge stacks of vinyl over the years which exceed over 4,000 records today. That collection got its first big kick start when he began working at a record store in Detroit and brought home the promo LPs that his bosses didn’t want. As his vinyl library grew, Wilkins began DJing at parties and then at clubs, with a friend exclaiming at one point: “You’re the only person who can go to a hip-hop club, a house club, a techno club, the local funk nights, and a rave, and everybody would know you.”

After settling in Beijing, Wilkins took on a similar approach, playing eclectic sets at equally varied venues whenever he had a chance. Those efforts were by no means an instant sensation, but after slowly and steadily building up a network and reputation, he was invited by Slow Boat to play their Beijing Autumn Craft Beer Festival at East Hotel in 2014. On the first day he was slated to DJ for a whopping 10 hours, and throughout that time attendees would pop by to ask him for his WeChat and compliment him on the music, so much so that he found it was cutting into his concentration, prompting him to have a QR code made on the second day of the fest that he dangled off the booth. When he went home and charged his dead cell phone, he was surprised to later open his WeChat and realize “my shit was blowing up. I’ve had steady gigs ever since, and I always tell Chandler [Jurinka, Slow Boat owner and manager] that I owe a lot to him.”

Jurinka is quick to return the compliment, recalling how: “We were looking for a DJ to play for our first festival, and there was talk of this up and coming guy named Jason playing at small venues around town. He came highly recommended, so we booked him for the two-day festival.” He goes on to call Wilkins’ sets “incredible,” before touting his “impressive repertoire” and all the more commendable stamina, playing for so many hours straight on both days. And on “both days the dance floor was heaving. He has been our go-to DJ ever since.”

Jamie Zhong, another Beijing bar bigwig who heads up the 24|7 by Secoo, also recruited Wilkins for that cocktail bar's opening earlier this year. Zhong says he "loved Jason's music style and his use of traditional LPs. He played disco, hip-hop, and more. He is really good at getting the right vibes during different periods of time throughout the night."

Wilkins says the numerous opportunities to work at such venues and events is a big part of what has kept him in Beijing for so long. Sure, he’s quick to admit that the scene has changed drastically in that time, explaining: “Beijing is transient, so the rough and ready crowd that used to be here in 2008 are not even here anymore. It’s still a good crowd, but it’s more refined now.”

And while he may have enjoyed that more rugged late millennium era, he’s by no means unsatisfied with the current scene. As he puts it: “Beijing has treated me good, I have nothing to worry about, I get steady gigs. Man, you can come here and you can be and do anything you want, as long as you have some drive and hustle and you’re sociable. I like it because of the
opportunities that present themselves here.”

That prompts him to offer a bit of advice to expats new to the capital and looking to tap into opportunities of their own: “Whatever group you want to fall into, fall into it and hit the ground running, man!”

Don't have tickets to this weekend's Beijing Pizza Fest yet? Grab them, and complimentary gift,
by scanning the QR code below (or buy on the door):

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Email: kylemullin@truerun.com
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Photos: Uni You, courtesy of Jamie Zhong