By LESH
Tribune Features Reporter
acadet@tribunemedia.net
LIVING proof that there is some truth to the old saying, “Age ain’t nothing but a number,” 13-year-old Jasper “DJ Ovadose” Thomas.
The Nassau native started off in this field at the age of 11 while on a trip to Florida. His cousins introduced him to a computer mixing programme and from then on he has constantly been perfecting his craft.
At just 12 years old, he created his very own online radio station called ‘Ovadose Radio’, which got a huge following among his peers.
With his popularity growing, Jasper’s father, Ian Thomas, who is a marketing representative, introduced his son to a local radio programming director who saw something special in this young man and decided to take a chance and allow Jasper to apprentice with seasoned radio personalities.
As DJ Ovadose, Jasper was then given a two-hour mixed music segment at which he excelled. These breaks afforded to him new opportunities, on which he jumped on with no hesitation.
Jasper and his older brother Jefferson started their very own marketing and promotions company called Prezidential Productions, offering products and services such as deejay servicing, a “Team Ovadose” T-shirt line, hosting teen dances, working along with up and coming artists, videography and photography, event promoting. The brothers are now also in the process of offering their very own water and jewellery line.
Speaking about his deejay name, Jasper said it was Jefferson that gave him the name “DJ Ovadose” due to the fact that he always enjoyed listening to music and ‘overdoing’ it.
One of most memorable experiences, Jasper said, was when he was invited as a guest deejay at Atlantis’s Club Crush for the 2014 New Year’s Eve Party.
The Leadership Academy home-schooled student said his second favourite experience was at Ryan Bellot’s Sweet Sixteen Birthday Bash, where he rocked not just the kids but the adults as well.
Even though his age may limit his deejaying experience, Jasper said he has nothing to prove to other disc jockeys, because he would like to be recognised for his talents and abilities, as opposed to his age.
“I admire and respect each and every deejay that is senior to me. Yes, there are a number of deejays that I look up to, but I don’t want to single out anyone in particular. They all bring something different to the industry,” said Jasper.
He said his ultimate goal is to have a career in music, and if deejaying turns out to be the vehicle that helps him reach his destination, then he will continue on this path.
Jasper said he also wants to continue to work along with his brother, start a record label and secure enough equity to open one of the Bahamas’ hottest night clubs that will appeal to a wide range of party-goers. The brothers both know it’s a long road ahead of them, but with patience and drive they realise that anything is possible.
“This is where I differ from all other young deejays; my style is versatile. I’m a rake n’ scrape, hip hop, reggae and old school deejay, but now I’m venturing into electronic dance music. However, I think that Bahamians are so influenced by outside music. This has left the door open for so many foreigners to come in and make money. I think we need more government-sponsored programmes geared towards young people so that our culture will not be lost,” the teen said.
Jasper said he is on a personal mission to make Bahamian music cool to young people.
Comments
242orgetslu 9 years, 11 months ago
PLEASE READ AND PASS ON! This is the link where the full story is: http://si.com/vault/article/magazine/...">http://si.com/vault/article/magazine/...
Across the inky-blue Gulf Stream from Florida, near the sheer edge of the Great Bahama Bank, a new island is emerging from the sea. Although it bears the appealing name Ocean Cay, this new island is not, and never will be, a palm-fringed paradise of the sort the Bahamian government promotes in travel ads. No brace of love doves would ever choose Ocean Cay for a honeymoon; no beauty in a brief bikini would waste her sweetness on such desert air. Of all the 3,000 islands and islets and cays in the Bahamas, Ocean Cay is the least lovely. It is a flat, roughly rectangular island which, when completed, will be 200 acres and will resemble a barren swatch of the Sahara. Ocean Cay does not need allure. It is being dredged up from the seabed by the Dillingham Corporation of Hawaii for an explicit purpose that will surely repel more tourists than it will attract. In simplest terms, Ocean Cay is a big sandpile on which the Dillingham Corporation will pile more sand that it will subsequently sell on the U.S. mainland. The sand that Dillingham is dredging is a specific form of calcium carbonate called aragonite, which is used primarily in the manufacture of cement and as a soil neutralizer. For the past 5,000 years or so, with the flood of the tide, waters from the deep have moved over the Bahamian shallows, usually warming them in the process so that some of the calcium carbonate in solution precipitated out. As a consequence, today along edges of the Great Bahama Bank there are broad drifts, long bars and curving barchans of pure aragonite. Limestone, the prime source of calcium carbonate, must be quarried, crushed and recrushed, and in some instances refined before it can be utilized. By contrast, the aragonite of the Bahamian shallows is loose and shifty stuff, easily sucked up by a hydraulic dredge from a depth of one or two fathoms. The largest granules in the Bahamian drifts are little more than a millimeter in diameter. Because of its fineness and purity, the Bahamian aragonite can be used, agriculturally or industrially, without much fuss and bother. It is a unique endowment. There are similar aragonite drifts scattered here and there in the warm shallows of the world, but nowhere as abundantly as in the Bahamas. In exchange for royalties, the Dillingham Corporation has exclusive rights in four Bahamian areas totaling 8,235 square miles. In these areas there are about four billion cubic yards—roughly 7.5 billion long tons—of aragonite. At rock-bottom price the whole deposit is worth more than $15 billion. An experienced dredging company like Dillingham should be able to suck up 10 million tons a year, which will net the Bahamian government an annual royalty of about $600,000.
Sign in to comment
Or login with:
OpenID