DJs, eh? Like policemen, they’re getting younger every day.
A 9 year old played the Atmosphere stage at the Tomorrowland Festival in Leeds last weekend. And this wasn’t merely helping dad to place a record on his Technics but proper beat mixing. DJ Archie span drum n’ bass classics such as M Beat and General Levy’s Incredible and Shy FX’s remix of Chopper by The Terrorist.
Tomorrowland has something of a track record of booking youngsters – last year an 11 year from Dubai, DJ Michelle, played the festival. Twelve months later, Archie has broken her record by two years.
Archie is no novice. Indeed he’s spent over half his life on the decks. He started when he was a toddler and by the age of 4 had been recognised as the youngest DJ in the world by the Guinness Book Of Records after he played an one hour set at the Hong Kong club Bungalow. Asked by DJ Magazine how he got caught the bug, he said: “My dad was a DJ and one day I turned on his equipment when he was out of the room and I was mixing and it was all in time.”
He said that whilst he was “shocked” when he learned he’d been booked for the festival, he felt his set had gone well: “When I controlled the crowd, they were all dancing.”
Dad is John Norbury, who in a recent interview with Newsweek explained how young Archie learned: "It wasn't planned, I wasn't plonking him in front of the decks and trying to get him to do it. "It was unintended reverse psychology; he was really interested and would stand and watch me but I was telling him not to touch my stuff because I thought he would break the expensive equipment.”
"One day I was in the kitchen and heard music so I went upstairs and he had turned the equipment on and was playing music and mixing between two tracks – he was only 2 years and 10 months old.”
Norbury started putting Archie’s mixes online and before long the lad had accrued a following. He now has over 44,000 followers on TikTok and over 100,000 on his Facebook page.
And as John explains, Archie’s technique now outstrips dad’s: “He knows what an intro is, what a drop and a break-down is, he knows the best points to mix the tracks into the others – he even does things I can't do.”
Archie however won’t break the record for the youngest artist on a UK dance hit. That still resides with MC Crazy Clair, the 3 year old who supplied the ‘top one, nice one, get sorted’ vocals on Altern 8’s 1991 rave hit Activ 8.
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