A few days ago, Mat Zo admitted in a string of Twitter confessions that some of his podcasts, The Mat Zo Mix, have been “ghost mixed,” meaning that another DJ has been doing his shows under the Mat Zo name. In his first Twitter post (of about sixteen tweets) he says this:
So what was everyone’s resounding response to his tweet? Money. But we knew that already about the music industry, right? Mat Zo goes on and outs not only who his ghostwriters are, but also that (gasp!) all of our favorite DJ’s have ghost mixers!
The idea of ghost producing and ghost mixing certainly is not new news within the music industry. Dance Music Northwest covered a lengthy Facebook conversation Dada Life had about ghost producing and there are rumors about whether Adventure Club produced then gave the song #SELFIE to The Chainsmokers. Paul Oakenfold, Paul Van Dyk, Benny Benassi, and David Guetta have all been under fire too.
While Mat Zo later admits that although the ghost mixing is not true for all DJs, he does believe that he can credibly say it is true for most.
It’s simply not viable to be a touring dj + producer + radio dj. There must be a tradeoff. It’s seen as very rare and noble to mix your own.
As one Twitter follower responded, “Even Armin has help.” For Mat Zo, the switch to his ghost mixes coincides with the announcement that he would be starting his own label, perhaps explaining the need for a little additional handiwork behind the scenes. But let’s get a one thing straight. In his Twitter feed, Zo explains that his ghost takeover began after Mix 020 and he just currently released Mix 023. So while “a few months” may seem like a lot of time, at a monthly release rate, we can be sure that almost all of the releases to date are really Mat Zo.
His Twitter feed still leaves us with more questions than answers. First, who are those few noble radio DJ mixers? Does it matter who writes, produces, or DJs a set? And moreover, what does it say about the future of the music industry as a whole?
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