When I was nine years old, I was taping Nirvana and Soundgarden songs off the radio from a tiny boombox and learning to pee at a urinal without pulling my pants down to my ankles, but DJ BabyChino is gigging around the world. I caught him on Friday night close to midnight on Sixth Street at Status, an Austin storefront.
With his buzz-cut and black glasses, he immediately attracted a crowd of gawkers, watching me mix it up on a pair of turntables and Mac. At first I thought he was the world's smallest DJ, but a quick Google search while standing in front of him, I found out he is supposedly the youngest..
Though I imagine somewhere in China or India they start them younger. No child DJ labor laws there, you know?
Was he good? Well, he had the mastery of a beat down, and he seemed to be in control of the impromptu party around him. This isn't some creepy deal where a little person is masquerading as a child, but we are living in strange times.
That's the way it is at SXSW: One minute you are waiting in a line in vain to see Jack White, and mere moments away you are watching a nine-year-old from Las Vegas do things better than some people two or three times his age.
I assume with a decade or so I will be waiting in line to see DJ BabyChino at a SXSW venue, and probably losing faith in the line and walking away to see a fetus sling tunes at nearby Brackenridge Hospital's maternity ward.
For now, godspeed BabyChino, and don't lose sight of the dream.
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