Music
A brief history of Red Bull 3Style
Learn how a small DJ contest in a Vancouver club turned into one of the world's biggest DJ competitions, ahead of the 2018 Red Bull 3Style World Finals in Krakow, Poland.
Red Bull 3Style has been on an intense trip since the concept was born back in 2007. From a small, one-off DJ contest in a Vancouver club to a globe-hopping party-starting battle, it's now one of the planet's biggest and most popular DJ contests. With 24 finalists set to battle it out in Krakow, Poland, at the eighth annual Red Bull 3Style World Finals it's time to get to grips with the evolution of this all-conquering event. Read on to learn all you need to know.
Watch the Grand Final live from Krakow's Juliusz Słowacki Theatre on February 11 from 8.30pm CET (7.30pm UTC) at Facebook.com/RedBull3style.
The 2011 Red Bull 3Style World Finals in Vancouver
© David Seetoh Lang/Red Bull Content Pool
Let’s start at the beginning
When digital DJing arrived in the mid-2000s, the idea of multi-genre, open-format performing – the playing of multiple genres on different technology – exploded. The decks were now open to more people than ever before. To test out just how popular this idea of open-format DJing really was, Red Bull hosted a small, sold-out event at Vancouver’s Atlantis club in 2007, with top local talent such as Rico Uno, Flipout, Friktion, Marvel and eventual winner Mat The Alien doing battle. Red Bull 3Style was born.
The first national and world finals
After touring the concept around Canadian cities in 2008, Red Bull 3Style held the first-ever national final in Toronto in 2009, with DJs selected from 10 regional events. The touch paper was lit. The following year, the competition went global with DJs from 10 different countries doing battle in the first world final, held at the historic Elysée Montmartre in Paris, France. The Vancouver world finals in 2011 morphed into a week-long event and it grew bigger still at the 2012 finals in Chicago. By the time the 2013 world finals in Toronto rolled around, Red Bull 3Style had become the biggest DJ competition in the world.
Four Color Zack
© Robert Snow/Red Bull Content Pool
Travelling far and wide
Up until 2014, Red Bull 3Style had taken place in only Canadian, American and French cities. But in 2014, the contest took nine DJs to battle it out in Baku, Azerbaijan. DJ Jazzy Jeff joked that he couldn't find the country on a map to show his children, but 3,500 fans went crazy at the that year's grand final. In 2015, Red Bull 3Style landed in Tokyo for the first-ever world finals held in Japan.
Nothing can stop them now
In 2016, Red Bull 3Style grew even bigger. With so many countries around the world clamouring to get involved, the competition introduced a world tour, with national finals in 21 different countries taking place throughout the year and a touring Red Bull 3Style team attending each one. Winners of these finals – the best of the 800 DJs registered to take part – qualified for that year's world finals in Santiago, Chile. The format was the same in 2017 and, on February 11, culminates in the eighth annual World Finals in Krakow, Poland.
The 2016 Red Bull 3Style World Finals in Santiago, Chile
© Gary Go/Red Bull Content Pool
Judges and performers
If you’re going to crown a world champion then you need a judging panel that knows exactly what it’s talking about and Red Bull 3Style hasn’t been short on expertise down the years. DJ Jazzy Jeff is a regular fixture at world finals, but he’s been joined by, among others, A-Trak, Mix Master Mike, Krafty Kuts, Skratch Bastid and Kid Koala. But it's not all about scoring for the judges. Most of them have performed during world finals too, alongside other big names including Pete Rock and DJ Premier, Jay Z tour DJ Young Guru, hip-hop producer Just Blaze, Stone Throw’s Peanut Butter Wolf and DJ Nu-Mark, who's dazzled with his toy DJ set more than once. However the rarest performances, in Baku and Tokyo, were delivered by The Invisible Scratch Piklz. They played songs from their first album in 20 years, which was released during world finals week in 2015.
Rules are rules
The laws of Red Bull 3Style have stayed pretty much the same since the inaugural event. With each performer given 15 minutes to impress the crowd and the judges with at least three different genres of music, the onus has always been on each DJ's crate-digging skills. But how DJs deliver their sets – on two turntables or CDJs, one mixer and a maximum of two midi devices – is also important. Originality and a mastery of their set-up are vital because DJs are marked on track selection, mixing, live editing, overall presentation and – most importantly – crowd response.
Finally… the winners!
Seven different DJs from seven different nations have nailed the different elements of Red Bull 3Style listed above to take the crown – which just goes to show that DJing is now a truly global thing. France's DJ Karve was the first-ever world champion when he stormed to victory in Paris in 2010. After that came Canada’s DJ Hedspin (Vancouver, 2011), US DJ Four Color Zack (Chicago, 2012), Japan’s DJ Shintaro (Tokyo, 2013), Germany’s Eskei83 (Baku, 2014), Chile’s DJ Byte (Tokyo, 2015) and Barbados’ DJ Puffy (Santiago, 2016). So who'll be going home with the prize in 2018?
Reigning 3Style World Champion DJ Puffy
© Alfred Jürgen Westermeyer/Red Bull Content Pool
Think you have what it takes to get the crowd on your side? Don't miss Red Bull Turn It Up 2024, the crowd-judged DJ competition where DJs will have to spin and adapt on the fly to some of the best music today.
