Armen’s life is a story of pure love and passion for music. For more than a decade he has been spinning the decks at top venues in Cairo and broader Egypt, making a name for himself as a top professional and out-of-the-box performer. Weather playing at a Wedding in Gouna, wearing a tailor made suit, or blissfully controlling vibes at clubs, bars, and private parties, Armen has been praised for his talent as a mode-maker regardless of music genre, crowd, or event.
“ The best thing of being a DJ is the peoples reaction to what you are playing. Changing the mood of an entire crowd can be addictive. You can see it happen right in front of your eyes, first one person, then two, then a group of friends who jump up to a tune they recognize, and then suddenly everyone is changed in some way or another, everyone feels better, everyone is better thanks to you.”
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
Passion for music grew strong in young Armen. Born in an artistic family, his Dad was a famous photographer turned painter and his mother a doctor, he was exposed to music from a very early age.
“ I remember my father used to travel a lot when I was a kid. He would go to Europe, Asia, and the States, and always come home with a new record that we would listen to together.”
Being an 80s kid, his early favorites were 80s rock bands like Queen, he had a real obsession for Freddy Mercury which brought him to memorize all his lyrics and sing them out loud in rudimental bedroom karaoke, and classical music to which he was exposed by his father.
As the years went by, his knowledge and appreciation for good music kept on growing. Armen started listening to all kinds of genres, from Hip Hop to Latin American, from Ttrance and Disco to Indie Pop and Funk, understanding early on that there existed only two main kinds of music: good music and bad music. But life went on and music, at this stage, was still just a very important hobby.
Armen was good in school and studied, with good results, to become a computer engineer, not thinking or imagining that life might have other plans for him. Around age 20, his father, seeing how strong his love and his talent for music were, decided to put Armen in touch with a client and good friend of his, a DJ who at the time was starting to make a name for himself, the famous Hany Wahba.
“Hany Wahba was very famous, his calendar was fully booked months ahead and he was resident DJ in a Pub called Deals in Heliopolis, He didn’t have much time to train me or anyone else but nevertheless he gave me a chance. He put me in his team and started sending me off to small gigs here and there. My break came when I was sent to play the Deal’s night gig. I still remember to this day that that was the night I mixed two songs together for the first time: Sex Bomb and Corazon Espinado by Carlos Santana. I wasn’t just playing songs now, I was actually DJing and it felt good.”
After that night, Armen became a regular DJ at Deals which gave him the chance to continue to play music, improve his skills and start to get noticed, while still pursuing his academic career. After graduating from University and a brief experience working for Singapore Airlines, Armen decided that he was going to follow his dreams. He quit his job and dedicated all his time, passion, and talent into building a very successful career as a DJ, which has seen him at the forefront of the Cairo music scene for over a decade now.