Dim the lights.
Blare the speakers.
Turn up the bass.
Rock the treble.
Initiate the fog machine.
Flash the laser lights.
Take over the dance floor.
DJ Kayper is on the turntables.
Be prepared to dance the night away.

Ever since she was a child, all Kaajal Bakrania wanted to do was to draw backs off the walls and onto the floor, shaking what their momma’s gave them underneath the glittering disco balls, as multi-colored laser lights reflected off of steamy smoke hovering just above the collective sweaty heads of a sea of dancers at any given nightclub in London.

Now an adult at age 26, Kaajal operates by the moniker DJ Kayper, and is indeed keeping nightclub walls bare – and she is doing it at venues beyond the London of Charles Dickens lore.

As one of the most recognizable names (and sounds) on the deejay circuit, DJ Kayper is currently making people shake their groove things — and it’s something she has wanted to do for as long as she can remember.

“I was really into … music from an early age,” DJ Kayper told Buzzine in an exclusive interview. “I secretly wanted to be a deejay but didn’t tell anyone ’til I was 12.”

Even when she told people, no one paid heed to her ambitions. After all, female deejays are not exactly the norm in the music business, with Gujarati Indian women deejays even rarer.

The first person to ever find out about her desire to spin some wax was her older brother, eight years her senior. Influenced by his taste in what is now old-school hip hop, Kaajal found peace with the beats and lyrics of urban artists such as Public Enemy and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Yet her brother didn’t play off Kaajal’s dreams as just a dream. Instead, he pushed her to make her visions of making people dance a reality by taking her to nightclubs and introducing her to another family member who kept her flame burning.

Thanks to her brother, she watched an older cousin work the deejay circuit, witnessing turntable clashes and magical tunes rooting from a series of mixing and scratching that could only be achieved by these musical geniuses.

“I liked music, so it made sense to me,” Kaajal explained about how she was able to relate to what she heard and saw on the streets and in the clubs. “I was intrigued by it.”

It was an intrigue that turned into full-time interest during her collegiate days.

Hitting the bar and club scene around South London at the ripe age of 15 in 1998, it did not take long for Kaajal to bring DJ Kayper to life and establish herself as one of the world’s premiere female deejays.

By the time she was 20, DJ Kayper earned international acclaim by being the first-ever female to win The Daily Telegraph’s Student DJ of the Year and Vestax Juice’s DJ competition, both in 2003.

The awards coincided with nightclubs and bars throughout all of Europe, booking DJ Kayper to perform at their respective venues.

In the past year alone, the award-winning deejay has found herself expanding beyond Europe, landing gigs in countries such as India, South Africa, South Korea, Mauritius, Malaysia, Canada and the United States.

As she toured the world, her popularity and legend grew. With several mix-tapes on the market and several prestigious gigs under her belt – including stints in popular nightclub destinations in Ibiza, Switzerland, Greece and Italy – DJ Kayper was able to parlay her skills and talents into a weekly television show on the esteemed BBC.

In addition to the television show – initially entitled The Hype Show but now called The DJ Kayper Show – the British-born Indian deejay developed enough of a unique sound and following to open the door to work with some of the greatest musical talents in the world, including Jay Sean, Common, Nelly Furtado, Chamillionaire, Xzibit, and The Game.

While she has garnered critical acclaim and partnered with some of the biggest names in urban music, DJ Kayper is a staunch supporter of promoting homegrown talent.

In fact, the British-Gujarati deejay uses her show as a platform to regularly promote up-and-coming artists and musicians thriving in her part of the world. On her weekly BBC program, DJ Kayper hosts a segment for such up-and-coming artists to perform.

It is her way of giving back to a profession that allowed her to pursue her dreams and true happiness – a dream discovered through family but legitimized by her actively listening to the sounds of those who found steady success.

One of those successful sounds came from the consoles of DJ Jazzy Jeff.

As a young girl, Kaajal vividly remembers listening to a tape of a live recording featuring Fresh Prince and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

In telling the story to Buzzine, Kaajal said she recalls one moment in the Live from Union Square tape where Fresh Prince (now Will Smith) turned to DJ Jazzy Jeff and cued him to mix an impromptu medley for the audience.

“He wasn’t too technical; it was perfect to dance to,” DJ Kayper recalled, explaining how she was so mesmerized and inspired by the sound, she listened to it over and over again. It was a sound she would forever remember, as it was exactly what she wanted to do – produce a sound that was perfect to dance to.

About a decade later, that is exactly what DJ Kayper is doing – perfecting the right sound to inspire everyone within listening distance to have a case of happy feet.

“I do so many types of gigs – raw hip hop gigs, household gigs, commercial gigs,” she explained. “Whatever makes me smile and makes them dance, it works. I try to put a little of bit of my flavor into it.”

It is a flavor that was not only on display on television and at dance-themed venues where she performed, but also at a popular nightclub she operated for five years, featuring a weekly night of hip-hop & dance-hall.

“I didn’t want to do just a regular nightclub; I want to brand it and get the crowd into it,” she said of her nightclub, Ebonics at the Cambridge Fez Club, where big names such as DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Premier and DJ Cash Money, among others, spun records.

In branding her nightclub, DJ Kayper blended a variety of sounds, with deejays spinning Desi music, hip hop, reggae, dance, and everything else rhythmically inspired.

With that, Kaajal has had a career that had many twists and turns for the better.

Known to the world, DJ Kayper looks back and is enthralled at how she transformed from aspiring musician to established international deejay with her own weekly program on BBC.

“It just happened,” DJ Kayper said of her television program. “It has definitely helped me become a better deejay. It changed so much from the beginning, where I played just hip hop and some Desi in between, but now it’s a mesh of everything.”

The ability to mix things up is what DJ Kayper loves the most – a skill she is most humbled of acquiring in her now 11-year career as a deejay — something she aspires to display each week on The DJ Kayper Show.

“Everyone likes the whole fusion thing,” she told Buzzine. “I love the mash-up mixes, and that’s what the show allows me to do each week.”

Ultimately, DJ Kayper is just doing what she thinks is right, and it was only a matter of time before she was recognized for her natural talents.

Indeed,  the very person who inspired her to become a deejay paid homage to her unique sounds and talents, with Jazzy Jeff once proclaiming “DJ Kayper is the best female DJ I’ve ever seen in my life.”

“I’ve always done what I’ve done,” she humbly said. “I’ve been working hard at it for so many years. It’s only now people know. It’s great to be involved with the Desi scene one minute, then the hip hop thing the next, and dance after that.

“This whole deejaying thing is going to blow up in a couple years, and it’s a great time to be involved.”

As deejays continue to spin records and increase their personal profiles, DJ Kayper will continue to lead the charge in keeping her pulse on what audiences around the world will vibe to.

With aspirations now turning to production, Kaajal will always find ways to keep timid backs off nightclub walls and happy feet on dance floors in every corner of planet Earth.

Just as her stage moniker suggests, Kaajal will constantly be on a “Kayper” to make you move.