And the winner of Next Girl DJ is...

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  Globalbass congratulates Sam Red with her title!

  There is no denying that the DJ world is dominated by men, even though there are also lots of good female DJs on the planet who also need to get the opportunity to break into the world of dance. Therefore, the Next Girl DJ contest has been organized, a new pan-European contest aimed to discover the hottest female DJ around and propel her into dance music superstardom.
  
  Next Girl DJ is not about slinging male talent to one side, but is about providing a space where girls can showcase their skills behind the decks. According to the initiators, audio giant JBL and sportswear label ROXY, more females are needed to exhibit their talent in what is, still, a male dominated environment. With this contest at least one girl gets a life-changing opportunity, whilst changing the face of dance music history in the process – in the recent DJ Top 100 list, not one woman was represented! From thousands of competitors, only 20 girls made it to the live semi finales in Paris, London, Berlin and Brussels where they were judged by a jury.
  
  Globalbass attended the Benelux semi-finals in Brussels where DJs Nonoo, Bella Boo, Anaëlle, Miss Inshara, Cixi and Angela (all from Belgium) battled against each other. They received the most votes from the audience via the website for their submitted mixes (click on the names for their mixes). In just fifteen minutes per person, the ladies had to convince the jury of their mixing skills.
  
  Nonoo beared the brunt with a minimal and tech house mix that she built up very well. In her 15 minutes she created several moments of rest before going loose with heavy beats, which got the audience completely wild! Then Bella Boo got her chance but she could manage to enthusiasm her audience. Her breaks, bass and tech house mix started too tranquil so no one danced. Occasionally she seemed to build up the tempo but then it relapsed again. She made some mixing mistakes in her set and used a track with a vocal part that totally did not fit into the mix. It created an effect as if the lights could go on at any time because the party was over. Anaëlle, who was next, had a difficult job because she had to get the dozed off audience back on their dancing feet again, which she fortunately managed with her house and techno sounds. However, her set kept on lapping a bit - she had no real whipped up moments - and would have come to better advantage on a sunny beach. We had the feeling that we were listening to the same track for fifteen minutes long because it was a bit dull. Eventually she closed her set surprisingly well with a good build-up to the end.
  
  For Cixi, who was next, it was a difficult job to top this with her techno, house and jazz set. The tranquil start of her set was a little too long with the result she couldn't manage to keep the attention of the audience; she waited too long with setting in a nice, danceable beat. But once the beat was there, it went better and tracks changed faster. By occasionally turning away the bass and pop it back in, she got the attention of the audience and managed to get everyone on their dancing feet. The last DJ of the evening was Angela, our favorite, with a powerful tech house and electro set. What immediately struck us was that she took over the set of her predecessor extremely well and smoothly mixed in her first track. She immediately banged with a steady beat which made the audience totally outrageous. Her set was all about teasing, using brief calm moments and then building up again. Every time the set seemed to burst out into pounding hard beats, she built up even more to finally come to an enormous climax which got the audience completely crazy!
  
  For us, Angela was the ultimate winner but the jury thought otherwise and chose for Miss Inshara, who we also found great. She had to battle with Mamz'Hell (France), Sam Red (Great Britain) and Lucilia (Germany). The last mission for the ladies was to contribute a nice summery beach mix. British Sam Red eventually convinced the jury with her house and tech house Making Waves mix and may call herself the Next Girl DJ! On Tuesday, July 13 she will show her DJ skills in a live set at the Roxy Jam Surf, Art & Music event which will take place from 10 to 14 July in Biarritz, France.