Hailing from Texas, James (aka DJ Smooth One) started his journey into the deejay arena at the age of 13. One Sound Design turntable, a pitch controlled Sound Design dual cassette deck, and a two-channel Numark mixer. Later to move on to two Technics 1200 turntables and a Denon DJ mixer.
At a young age he realized his desire to spin music for the masses. It first started when he and his friends would breakdance and listen to music via cassettes. He and his friends would come together to battle each other with moves and develop routines to perfect the art.
Realizing the need to continuously change out cassettes, he quickly realized the need to blend music. Also with Freestyle music merging on the scene and rising on the airwaves, he quickly realized his passion. Collecting 12” Freestyle vinyl in the early years, he began to immerse himself behind the decks for countless hours to create mixtapes for his friends, all the while teaching himself the art of beat mixing, transitions, simple scratch, beat counting and editing.
