By Tarryn Prince
A 23-year-old DJ from Cape Town has not allowed the covid-19 pandemic to slow him down as he has been rocking the sets on internet radio stations such as VannieKaap, MuthaFM, Radio Atlantis and livestream shows throughout the lockdown.
Kyle Wyngaard, aka DJ Rollstoel, is a radio producer intern at RX Radio at the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital, Cape Town. His love for music started when he was a teenager, and he found his sound when he completed a higher certificate in sound production.
Wyngaard, who grew up on the Cape Flats, was born with cerebral palsy, “a group of disorders that affect a person’s ability to move and maintain balance and posture” according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He started DJ’ing in high school, and nurtured his talent at KUe DJ Academy from 2014 to 2015 where he learnt the fundamentals such as how to draw a crowd to the genre of music you are playing.
He did not allow remarks from other DJs that he was too young to sway him from his ultimate vision to conquer the commercial radio space. DJ Rollstoel managed to find a gap within community radio and started off playing radio mixes at Bush Radio.
The year 2019 was a big one for DJ Rollstoel as he landed gigs on various community and commercial radio stations within the Metro and outskirts of Cape Town. He has been on the takeover show with Lunga Singama at HeartFM ever since, mixing old school disco, jazz and some vibrant South African house beats on Wednesday evenings.
“Despite having limited access to clubs, I found a way into commercial radios, such as Good Hope FM and Heart FM by playing live mixes on air,” Wyngaard says.
Even though he says “the [main] challenge I face with my disability is accessibility to main stages in clubs”, DJ Rollstoel lives by the slogan: “Find your ability within your disability.”
He says, “My vision is to be an inspiration for both the young and older generation.”
In his down time, DJ Rollstoel says: “I love browsing through YouTube, watching videos and checking out new trends within the sound and music production space and how it has changed over time, with new technology coming out each year.”
In the next five years, he sees himself as a radio content producer and delving into the sound design aspect of music production.
DJ Rollstoel is on Facebook, Instagram, Mixcloud and YouTube.