The DeJay’s of Tubusereia

Just a 25 minutes ride out of the city of Port Moresby down the Magi Highway, is a Motuan Village Called Tubusereia. The village Tubuseria in the Central Province is the heart and birth place of one of Papua New Guineas Legendary Band, who calls themselves the Dejays.

Dejays hail from the village of Tubusereia in the Central Province. Comprising of legendary artists as Dokona Manoka, Dika Dai, David Manoka and John Airi and John Mase.

We had the chance to sit down with one of the Legendary , Dika Dai who gave me an insight to the journey of Dejays from the time they started up to where they are now.  The name Dejays, is the first pronunciation of their names, put together to form the bands name. They started their band in the year 1981.

The Band itself is made up of all cousins , they started of as a string band in the village and coming towards the early 80’s they thought of switching from strings to something electrical. When switching from string to electrical instrument , the thought of recording came up, and that was when their thoughts gave birth to the Legendary Dejays as now known.

When asked who was the inspiration behind the Dejays, Dika just smile and said, “ Our inspiration were some good old popular string bands from the 60’s to 70’s, like Rokers, Zeros String Band, New Lakwas and the Salu Salu String Band all from Tubusereia village “.

One track that put the Dejays on the spotlight in the music scene was the song Segafore back in 1987 and even up till this day, this song is one of the most popular song that is highly requested by fans during live performances.

The hottest Album out of all their recordings was the album titled “Mi Lovim You”.

So far, they have recorded a total of About 13 albums altogether, from string band to reggae, rock and roll and a local music band.