The DMC World DJ Championships return to London on November 14, and this year’s event includes something longtime turntablism fans haven’t seen in over two decades. Scratch Perverts are reuniting for a special performance at KOKO, where the group will also be inducted into the DMC Hall of Fame.
The announcement brings one of the most influential British turntablist collectives back to the competition that played an important part in establishing their reputation.
Presented by Technics, the 41st edition of the championships features competitors from around the globe alongside performances from A-Trak, Skratch Bastid, JFB, Monie Love, DJ Noize, and The Golden Era Allstars. JFB is preparing a performance using seven Technics turntables, while Monie Love returns to an event connected to the beginning of her professional music career.
The UK BBoy Champs Allstars will also perform live breaking battles, bringing another element of hip-hop culture into the day’s program.
What interests me about this year’s lineup is how directly it connects several generations of competitive DJing.
The Scratch Perverts reunion and Hall of Fame inductions honor musicians whose technical work helped establish the championship’s reputation, while the competition categories give contemporary turntablists a chance to show their abilities to the same audience. That relationship between historical performances and current competition has been part of DMC since its earliest years, and the return to London provides an appropriate setting for its 41st edition.
Why the Scratch Perverts Reunion Matters
Scratch Perverts have a long history with DMC, earning several individual and group championship titles in the 1990s and early 2000s. The collective became particularly associated with the British turntablism scene, where DJs developed increasingly technical approaches to scratching, mixing, and manipulating vinyl records during live performances.
Tony Vegas, Prime Cuts, and Mr Thing are among the DJs associated with the group’s history. Their work extended beyond competition routines into club performances, DJ mixes, and collaborations that introduced turntablism to audiences outside championship events.
The group’s 1999 DMC World Team Championship remains an important achievement in that history. It showed how several turntablists could coordinate their individual techniques in a performance, using turntables and mixers to create tightly arranged routines.
The November reunion will be their first performance together in over 20 years, and they will be inducted into the DMC Hall of Fame.
That recognition also ties into this year’s broader celebration of British DJ culture. In our September article about the DMC UK Final at Thekla in Bristol, we discussed how the competition continues to test technical control, timing, musicality, and the ability to perform under pressure.
That earlier event included Mr Thing in its judging and performance lineup, creating a direct link between Scratch Perverts’ history and the current generation of competitors.
The upcoming reunion provides an opportunity to see the group’s performance approach in a setting closely connected to its original championship success.
The 2026 DMC World Finals Competition Categories
The performances accompany the actual DMC World DJ Championships, which bring competitors together across four categories: Classic, Open, Scratch, and Supremacy.
Each category emphasizes a different aspect of DJ performance.
Classic follows DMC’s established routine-based competition format, allowing competitors to demonstrate a combination of scratching, record manipulation, timing, and musical arrangement.
Open accommodates a wider selection of modern DJ equipment and performance methods, providing opportunities for competitors to incorporate technologies beyond traditional turntable configurations.
Scratch concentrates on the technical control and musical application of scratching, with competitors judged on their ability to manipulate audio using turntables and mixers.
Supremacy uses a head-to-head battle format, placing competitors against one another in successive rounds.
Together, the categories represent several approaches to competitive DJing, from traditional turntablism routines to performances that incorporate contemporary technology.
The competition continues a history that began in London in 1985, when DMC organized its first championship. Since then, the event has contributed to the careers of DJs including A-Trak, Craze, DJ Kentaro, Mix Master Mike, and DJ RENA.
In our earlier feature on three-time World Champion DJ RENA, we examined how his exposure to scratching and record juggling developed into an international competition career. RENA won his first DMC World Championship in 2017 at the age of 12, illustrating how the competition continues to attract younger performers.
For DMC’s 41st edition, the relationship between those younger competitors and established champions will be part of the programming at KOKO.
Tickets and further information are available from the official DMC World DJ Championships website.
Will Vance is a professional music producer who has been involved in the industry for the better part of a decade and has been the managing editor at Magnetic Magazine since mid-2022. In that time period, he has published thousands of articles on music production, industry think pieces and educational articles about the music industry. Over the last decade as a professional music producer, Will Vance has also ran multiple successful and highly respected record labels in the industry, including Where The Heart Is Records as well as having launched a new label with a focus on community through Magnetic Magazine. When not running these labels or producing his own music, Vance is likely writing for other top industry sites like Waves or the Hyperbits Masterclass or working on his upcoming book on mindfulness in music production. On the rare chance he's not thinking about music production, he's probably running a game of Dungeons and Dragons with his friends which he has been the dungeon master for for many years.
