BENGALURU: Working in a job you love that also gives you ample time to actively pursue your hobby? Some might say Prasanna Kumar is living the dream. The CEO and managing partner of Brew & Barbeque, a microbrewery that was launched in 2016, isn’t just passionate about craft beer but loves composing his own tracks too. Come weekends, the restaurateur is mostly seen behind the turntable as he dishes out tune after tune for a pulsing crowd at the microbrewery.
Kumar took to music in 2007 during his software engineering days. “I was a coder and I knew I had to find some way to relax. So I signed up for guitar classes and six months later, I was already playing on stage at various pubs and bars,” recalls the 28-year-old. He even went on to form a band with some friends from work and music class but due to lack of cooperation, the group eventually fell apart. “I then joined another band. I miss those days when the crowd would go crazy cheering for you,” he adds.
After quitting his coding job, Kumar started his own venture, a software company for the real estate sector, and like any other startup founder, he too knew that outsourcing marketing or promotional activities to an external agency would not be light on the pocket. Instead, Kumar seized the opportunity to produce his own 30-second to one minute long jingles that he put out with the company’s marketing videos.“Mixing music for those videos gave way to my interest in DJ-ing and I thought of exploring it further when we started Brew & Barbeque,” says Kumar.
Thus, DJ UNKWN was born in 2016. Kumar hoped to garner some mystery around his name and says that people associate him best as an entrepreneur and restaurateur. “This name creates some kind of suspense too,” he adds. The restaurateur started mixing music on a Pioneer CDJ Nexus – a player and mixer – that took him just a week to master.
While most of the tunes he plays are a mix of techno, EDM, R&B and house,Kumar also experiments with compositions of his own. “Sometimes, it takes three months to come up with my own tune, sometimes it takes just 30 seconds,” he explains, adding that his favourite composition was a tune that combined house and afromix. At any given set, about 20 per cent of the tracks are Kumar’s own. “My least favourite tunes to play are Bollywood but those, unfortunately, are in demand,” he says.
The eventual life goal is to become a composer and collaborate with other DJs and singers, and maybe some day, play at Tomorrowland, a popular electronic dance music festival held in Belgium. However, DJ-ing and managing a F&B chain aren’t that different for Kumar. “I love making people happy and both my hobby and career allow me that, be it through serving people a unique new dish or a earworm they
can’t shake off. It’s always exciting to connect to a crowd,” he says.