Justin Bieber's DJ of choice, Edinburgh's Ben Kaelin, aka DJ Prospect, is on a quest to find fresh new Scottish talent

HE'S known as Scotland’s favourite underground taste-maker and is the DJ of choice when global stars like Justin Bieber and Lewis Capaldi throw a party.
DJ ProspectDJ Prospect
DJ Prospect

His hip hop and R&B mixes remain in great demand on Radio 1Xtra and his Edinburgh club night, Tipsy, has now been running for 20 years, so when DJ Prospect announces that he's on the look out for new Scottish talent, prospective performers should sit up and take notice.

The Edinburgh DJ, real name Ben Kaelin, is chatting 24 hours ahead of flying to Los Angeles to attend The GRAMMYs, just another day in a jet-setting lifestyle he dreamed of since settling in the Capital at the age of 13, when stints behind the decks helped him learn English.

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The 30-year-old, who attended James Gillespie's High School, explains, "I'm originally Swiss and moved to Edinburgh when I was 13. My mum is from here - the family is half Swiss and hald Scottish - and wanted to come home again, so we came with her and when I got here I started DJing purely because I didn't speak any English."

DJ Prospect and Charlie SlothDJ Prospect and Charlie Sloth
DJ Prospect and Charlie Sloth

He continues, "My mother tongue was German and I had that Arnold Schwarzenegger accent then," he laughs, adding, "Music led me to DJing and that allowed me to pick up the language."

Growing up in Tollcross and Leith, Kaelin's introduction to the decks happened while he was still at school, "Gillespie's is known to be really great with creatives," he says, "Plus 1, one of the big technical DJs who won competitions year after year, went there and that is how I got into it. I started playing on the under 18's circuit, at Ego, where I learned from another world-famous champion DJ from Edinburgh, Ritchie Ruftone. Ego was where I put the graft in learning to be a DJ."

With a laugh, he recalls, "I was 15 and got paid a fiver a gig and would spend it in Underground Solutions on Cockburn Street, where Ritch Ruftone used to work. Then I got my work placement there and got a vinyl for hoovering the shop - that was how I built my collection."

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At 16, Kaelin began DJing at Massa, formerly Mercado and before that Buster Brown's, on Market Street, which is where he first became involved with Tipsy.

"Tipsy has been running since 2001 and I now run it in Lulu, we were the first to bring hip hop to George Street. The people who were going when I started are still there. It still runs every Sunday, is still at capacity, and is my equivalent of church - even when I am travelling I have to be back home for Sunday. The guys I was DJing with at 16 are still the same guys who are in the booth with me now - we grew up with each other."

He adds, "Tipsy has become an institution in the city and we've done parties for everyone from Drake to Emeli Sande and the UK rapper Giggs - we booked him in December, 10 years after we first booked him at the start of his career, now he's a superstar selling out Wembly Arena."

DJing has certainly changed since his early days, Kaelin reflects, "Now I have 100,000 songs that take a mciro-second to load, then it was hard work, if you had even one drink and didn't put your record in properly, your set was a mess. DJing has evolved, now you need to be more technical and experimental, everything moves so much faster but you can also have more fun now and play with people's energy in so much more detail."

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To reach the international status he now holds, Murrayfield-based Kaelin rose through the Scottish club scene building a formidable reputation to become one of the most sought-after names in the business. Along the way he has played alongside hip-hop royalty including Snoop Dogg, Drake and Eminem. His first night with a live crowd, however, was very different.

He recalls, "It was in the old Venue, a club night called Shakedown in a room called The Cooler. Because I didn't have many records that were good enough for the end of the night, I had to replay records from the start of the night... knowing that that was a big no no for a DJ. But with the fiver I made that night I knew I'd go and buy another record and be one step closer to that goal."

As DJ Prospect he went on to make waves in Scotland's musical landscape and beyond when he took the reigns as mix resident at BBC 1Xtra, championing Scottish sounds on the station with his slots on Charlie Sloth’s show before hosting a 1Xtra Scottish takeover with DJ Target last year.

His career has also introduced him to a lot of stars and taken him around the world. Recalling how he found himself DJing for Bieber, he reveals, "His DJ phoned me up and said that he wanted to do a Hallowe'en party in this mansion just past Kinross that I didn't even know existed. Justin was wicked, he threw this party for his family, friends and tour staff and I ended up DJing.

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"It was a great thing for me because although there was a no disclosure/no cameras agreement, a couple of the band members leaked photos and suddenly the press were jumping on everything."

Kaelin was big news and right now he's on a hunt for more fresh talent to follow in his footsteps flying the Scottish flag. He's teamed up again with Sloth, now an Apple Music internationally renowned presenter and UK music pioneer, together they are on a mission to bring more Scottish names to the forefront of the international stage. He reveals that it was under far more humble circumstances that the pair first met a decade ago.

"Before he was radio DJ, Charlie Sloth was a rapper and I met him outside Radio 1, he was standing in the rain handing CDs to Radio 1 DJs and I was doing the same thing. That was how we connected. A couple of years later he was hired to replaced Tim Westwood's rap show - which everyone knew. He then became the voice of hip hop for Europe and then there was silence and then the Apple Music deal came up and I knew he'd taken it to a new level - people in Berlin, New York, LA listen to his show now."

Working with Sloth on his radio show made Kaelin an obvious choice when the presenter needed a 'Head A&R' for his record label Grimey Limey (in partnership with Warner Records and Downtown Music Publishing), hence Kaelin's quest to find Scotland's next international heavy-hitter, someone like Capaldi or Calvin Harris.

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He explains, "The scene as a whole in the UK is a hot topic globally but, of course, my eyes will be on Scottish talent. I’m excited to be joining this venture. Charlie has had his ear to the ground for new talent from running one of the most successful music outlets Fire In The Booth on Youtube to being the voice of Hip-Hop on Radio 1 and now Apple Music with Beats 1.

"For years we’ve connected on a creative level and when this opportunity came along it just made sense. Growing up surrounding by music in Scotland, there is so much unheard talent amongst the incredible artists that have come out of here, from Emeli Sande to Gerry Cinnamon, Lewis Capaldi to Calvin Harris and industry shakers like Young Fathers.

"There's a lot of talent Edinburgh, the city is like a little hidden gem," says the DJ who has supported the likes of Eminem Snoop Dogg and the late Amy Winehouse and has also organised after-parties at Tipsy for the likes of Jayzee and 50 Cent.

"Throughout the years I've always been surrounded by so many cool people from the venues and club nights I have worked, they all taught me something," he says, and as he scouts for the next big thing, the tables appear to have been turned.

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He says, "There's so much going on up here, I want to be in amongst it to connect Scotland with the industry globally. There something in our water and I’m definitely looking forward to shining more light on our own."