Hi, you all know me as DJ Kuyken. My real name is Sanjay Merhai.
I was born on the 20th of December 1978 in Nieuw Nickerie. In my teenage years I moved to Paramaribo, where DJ Kuyken was “born”. I was called Kuyken since I was 13 years old. That was because my oldest brother was called DOX, so they called my other brother KIP (DOX means Duck because he walked tip – toed when he was young). And since I am the youngest they automatically start calling me Kuyken. That time I wasn’ t a DJ yet. How did I become one? Well…. I always loved music as far as I can remember so everywhere where I went I always stood close to the DJ. It was then in 1998 when I got to know DJ Purry. He asked me if I was interested and so from one thing came the other. DJ Purry was at that time a very popular DJ who got a lot of bookings, so he started passing them to me. At that time it was my hobby, but after a while I saw that I had to better myself because I worked with the best DJ’s of Suriname. Luckily I became a professional DJ, I started bettering myself. I started to become a professional DJ. After this it became my career. I played in a lot of clubs in Suriname and Netherlands. E.g.
Suriname:
Clubs such as Jungle, Starzz and Havana Lounge
Café’s: Leidseplein, Coco Bongo, La Caff & The Shack,
Big Events such as Lustig and Amsterglam
Netherlands:
Clubs: Night Town (Rotterdam), Off Corso (Rotterdam), Asta (Den Haag), La Caiperinha (Lelystad)
Café’s: American Dream Café (Rotterdam), Waagplein 1 (Almelo), The Shamrock (Almelo) and Amigos (Dordrecht)
When people began seeing my talent, the clubs and event – managers automatically stepped to me and I became a popular DJ. The real highlight in my career was appearing in the line up together with DJ Jean, where I played for 4.000 people and also together with DJ Chuckie where I had an audience of 2.500 people. I also worked with some other big DJ’s from the Netherlands such as Leroy Styles, Tony Cha Cha. I can’t say which one I liked the most but My Idol is every DJ who gets me swinging on their beats!
