Disclaimer: KCPR’s Club 91 is hosting Battle of the DJs at Libertine Brewing alongside Shabang Music Festival. The reporter who wrote this story was not involved with the planning or promotion of the event.
On April 11 at Libertine Brewing Company, six student DJs will go head to head for the chance to perform at Shabang Music Festival, which will take over the Central Coast on May 2 and May 3.
Each DJ will perform a 15 minute set, back to back with the next DJ. Then, two DJs will be selected to proceed to the final battle, performing a 30 minute set to be judged by three judges, with a crowd vote to decide who wins the slot on the lineup for Shabang 2026.
As student musicians, the opportunity to play at Shabang is a dream for many. Following the concept of Battle of the Bands, which has, in years prior, given the chance to student bands, this is the first year Shabang and Club 91 have invited DJs to battle for a spot.
DJ Koba
Mechanical engineering senior Henry Andrews, otherwise known as DJ Koba, has had an interest in music since he was a kid, playing guitar in his youth. As he entered college, Andrews discovered a new style of music to experiment with — electronic music. A friend of his, who was a frequent DJ at events hosted by the Surf Club, was graduating and led Andrews to take over his position and begin to make DJing as a more than a hobby.
Q: How would you describe your sound?
A: “Honestly I play a little bit of everything but for something like this, probably UKG [UK Garage], speed garage, little bit of hard house, maybe some trance.”
Q: What inspired the name, DJ Koba?
A: “It’s inspired by the villain of the ‘Planet of the Apes’ movie. Me and my friends like those movies, and it’s honestly just kind of a joke.”
Q: Being involved in the scene, how has this prepared you for the chance to perform a set at Shabang?
A: “It hasn’t… No, I don’t know. Just like doing it a bunch overtime. I feel like if you know your songs well at the end of the day, it’s just like pushing buttons. So just enough surf team parties for it to count.”
Q: How would it feel to play at Shabang?
A: “It definitely would be pretty cool, because also my first year here was influenced by wanting to do the DJ thing. Specifically, I remember DJ Susan played and that was a really cool set because he played all sorts of random s**t and I like to do that sometimes. Yeah, I don’t know, it could be cool. All my friends are going to be there so that should be fun.”
DJ LVA
Lauren Mann, otherwise known as DJ LVA, is a business administration junior concentrating in marketing. Mann began DJing as a college freshman, craving to see more women in the DJ industry alongside pursuing her interest in music and production. She is involved with Up&Up, which helped inspire her to continue DJing and provided opportunities to perform her first gigs, such as performing as an opener for Boogie Wit da Hoodie at an ASI event last year.
Q: How would you describe your sound?
A: “I would say very high energy and fast with a lot of inspiration from UK Garage and UK baseline music. It has a very high and uplifting energy but also I like to throw in lots of elements of surprise. Such as “an intense female vocal or intense baseline drop as well. I don’t want to stick to the same genre, I’m very flexible and bring different genres to students through crowd energy, which is why I play open format a lot of the time. I would say having the UK Garage always keep the crowd dancing and my goal is just to have that fast paced dancing vibe at all times.”
Q: What inspired the name, DJ LVA?
A: “I don’t really have a source of inspiration for the name. I was playing around creating visuals for my first show, and I ended up using a lot of flames and lava for the graphics for that visual and that’s what kind of inspired the name, and it’s really easy to put on flyer since it’s spelled L-V-A.”
Q: Being involved in the scene, how has this prepared you for the chance to perform a set at Shabang?
A: “I think I know my crowd’s energy really well and I try to avoid repetition — just keeping that almost an international vibe to my music because I like to bring in sounds from Brazilian Funk and the UK Garage hits in there.”
DJ Topset
Zachary Affinito, otherwise known as DJ Topset, is a business administration sophomore. Through Up&Up, he has strengthened his passion for music production and has mixed across San Luis Obispo, from BA Start to Woodstocks Pizza and an upcoming opening for Shipwreck at the Fremont Theater.
Q: How would you describe your sound?
A: “I like to have fun, so I play a lot of bouncy bass house tracks as well as some harder trap. I like to bring a lot of energy and I move around a lot up there, so the sound that makes that. Artists who’ve inspired my sound are Nicco, Isoxo, Noktu, Viperactive, Skillrix.”
Q: What inspired your DJ name, Topset?
A: “I’m a power lifter so it was inspired by terminology. The heaviest set in training is called a topset and I like to drop heavy beats tracks.”
Q: When did you start DJing?
A: “Funny story, I started DJing a little over two years ago now, and I started because I went to a Zedd show and I was so encapsulated by his sound and everything, I was like okay I’m going home I’m getting a board and learning how to do this. So then I just decided to go all in on it from there. And then I learned how to DJ and learned how to produce. I started shortly after that, so I’ve been producing for around two years now too. I like to drop some original tracks in my sets here and there.
I’ve always been a creative person and I think it’s been a good outlet for having fun. I’m definitely an extroverted person so I like to get out there and bounce around. I love music, I love dancing, it was just the best combination ever.”
Q: Being involved in the scene, how has this prepared you for the chance to perform a set at Shabang?
A: “I’m ramping up shows that I’m playing, I’m just getting to be fully confident in my abilities now. I know what the crowds like in SLO and try to appeal to a more general audience, I was dropping a lot of hard tracks at the start and not everyone in SLO really likes that, I like that stuff, so I definitely still incorporate into my sound but I’m shifting to more of a fun kind of sound, so I’m really excited to see how people react to my stuff at the Libertine and will go from there.”
DJ VIGO
Aerospace engineering junior Hector Serrato, otherwise known as DJ Vigo, began his DJ journey in his late teens as a way to incorporate storytelling aspects into music production. At Cal Poly, Vigo continued DJing and got involved with campus organizations such as Club 91 and Up&Up.
Q: How would you describe your sound?
A: “I’m really into like melodic progressive house nothing too crazy or like when you say progressive it kind of sounds like main-stage, big room kind of thing but it’s a little bit minimal and really focuses on the details of the grove, the drums, and the percussions, the baseline that follows everything throughout the song.”
Q: What inspired your DJ name, Vigo?
A: “My middle name is Rodrigo, and when I was little my sister couldn’t say Rodrigo so she shortened it up to Vigo, and it was a family thing first for a long time until some friends heard it and then it kind of just stuck. So now it’s my nickname all-around, Vigo.”
Q: When did you start DJing and what made you want to start?
A: “I really started getting into electronic music when I was around like 10 or 11. There were things such as Skillrex, or even the ‘Tron’ movies, which the soundtracks were directed by Daft Punk. It’s really something that caught my eye, as I’m really interested in electronic music. I started trying to fool around and make electronic music ever since. But it’s been a really long time since I worked on that sound, and as I turned maybe 17, 18, I really started getting into DJing as well and the whole art of putting all of these tracks together and making a story out of it.”
Q: Being involved in the scene, how has this prepared you for the chance to perform a set at Shabang?
A: “It really opens your eyes because before going on stage or anything like that or playing live at all. You think ‘oh I just gotta prepare myself really well and everything will go great in the moment, but there’s a lot of stuff that you would never think could happen while you’re playing live or a lot of stuff that doesn’t cross your mind. So I think getting these kinds of experiences before a big chance like that is really good to really prepare yourself for something like this.”
DJ BackBones
DJ BackBones, or finance junior Jack Jones, has performed at events put on by ASI, Club 91 and beyond. Before Jones’ involvement with campus organizations, he got his start at house shows and events in the local scene.
Q: How would you describe your sound?
A: “Definitely hard grove, techno, I like to do a deeper sound like a red light, boiler room situation but I also like a lot of fun and I’ll combine genres so I’ll mix old house and I’ll speed it up with like newer trance beats and just kind of have a good time, being creative.”
Q: What inspired your DJ name, BackBones?
A: “I was actually in the car with my friends, and this was right before my first gig, and I didn’t have a DJ name yet. I haven’t thought of one and they were like helping me out. And then one of them said BackBones and it just kind of stuck. It’s literally just a B in front of the first two letters of my name.”
Q: When did you start DJing and what made you want to start?
A: “I actually started in the fall of last year, my friend had a board and I was kind of doing nothing. One day I just decided to start learning how to do it, but then within a week I played at a party cause I had been going at it for like, so much fun. I played another party and it kind of just stuck since then.”
Q: Being involved in the scene, how has this prepared you for the chance to perform a set at Shabang?
A: “I think to me, if I were to win, I wouldn’t go at it with a different mindset. At the end of the day, Shabang and this event are going to be the same crowd. It’s all mainly going to be Cal Poly students, and if you can get Cal Poly students moving, then I don’t think it would be a problem to have fun at Shabang and have a good set.”
DJ Cubed
Jeffery Johnson, musically known as DJ Cubed, found his spark for mixing in the fall of 2024 after countless hours of studying soundtracks by various genres of electronic music. The biochemistry senior has performed at parties, house shows and venues such as the Bunker and Launch & Ladder with Club 91.
Q: How would you describe your sound?
A: “I have a kind of more eclectic sound, I like to play a lot of different genres, it’s probably because like I don’t know I’m just kind of like all over the place sometimes I have a lot of energy I feel, so I like to play very kind of harder styles but lots of fun I like to think of ‘pink and blubby’ or shiny.”
Q: What inspired your DJ name, DJ Cubed?
A: “I did it for two reasons; one, was DJ Jeffery Johnson is three J’s, so I thought that was funny and a lot of people are using that exponential kind of trendy numbering for their names, so I kind of thought it would be fun.”
Q: When did you start DJing? What made you want to start?
A: “I started my sophomore year because I was listening to a ton of DJ sets. Some notable ones are Alice Gas, 99Jakes, some really hard hyperpop sets from COVID and I would listen to those while I was studying. And because of that, I really wanted to make those sounds and since I listen to them all the time, that’s what prompted me to go for it and DJ.”
Q: Being a part of the scene, how do you think this has prepared you for a chance at performing at Shabang?
A: “All of my sounds are from SLO-Cal DJ’s or people who have gone to SLO, who introduced me, molded me, and pushed me towards my sound and how I play. It’s everything. I started DJing in SLO. Everything I know how to do is from SLO, so I feel like I have a very SLO sound that’s an alternative sound that represents SLO.”
