The History

The term “two turntables and a mic” refers to a disc jockey’s basic equipment: turntables to play the records on and a microphone that is connected to a mixer. This set up was originally claimed to be used by Jimmy Savile in 1947 for continuous play. The term has been used by many famous hip hop and rap artists in their songs such as Run DMC and Eminem.
 
The disc jockey, otherwise known as the DJ, is the person you hear on the radio picking out and playing your favorite music. There are many types of disc jockeys with the most common being the radio DJ. You might find a DJ at a club, wedding and even private parties. In certain types of music you will find the DJ’s using different types of equipment; hip hop DJ’s use more than one turntable, while in reggae the disc jockey is actually someone who raps over pre-recorded rhythm tracks with someone else being the one playing the tracks.
   
When the first disc jockey emerged onto the scene in 1909, the term was actually disco jockey, which was later shortened to disc jockey by Walter Winchell in the mid 1930’s. The term disc meant something completely different than what it does today. The disc was actually a phonograph or gramophone record, otherwise commonly now known as a vinyl record. The gramophone record was introduced in the late 1800’s and was mass produced in the music industry. In the beginning the phonographs were played on turntables, which were only able to play for a few minutes at a time. Today, full length records are able to be played continuously on the turntables, but DJ’s no longer just use vinyl records, they also use compact discs, and even computer media files.