DROPPING THE BEAT

How local DJ Cannon Banyon has spun a national name for himself

Banyon Ford, aka DJ Cannon Banyon, first fell in love with the sound of music and the art of DJing when he was a teenager at Cheraw High School. And today, he’s turned it into an award-winning career.

“It was always about the music more than anything,” says Ford. “A little bit of everything, from hip-hop to country rock, metal, everything.”

Amidst the Coronavirus pandemic, however, the music producer and DJ has had to push pause on spinning while on tour with country/hip-hop artist Charlie Farley, an Arkansas native on the Average Joes Entertainment label out of Nashville. Ford is also signed onto Average Joes. He’s hoping they can restart the summer tour dates in June and July.

“I usually do an opening set and DJ to get the crowd going,” says Ford. “And then I DJ for him. We probably took a whole year just practicing for me to DJ backtracks and play with the drummer and the guitar. I might scratch and do all kinds of stuff that’s part of his show.”

Ford’s debut DJ gig was in 2006, when he worked events, parties and clubs, but he started mixing music in 2001. After he graduated from a technical college with a graphic arts degree, he applied his talents to do graphics for some local artists.

“Then I started hanging out with them and went to the studio … and that’s how I learned how to record,” says Ford. “I ended up getting computer software, a beat machine and stuff like that. … I kind of learned and taught myself how to record and engineer.”

And that paid off, because he said he quickly learned that working a two-hour DJ gig paid the same as the weekly salary of the two jobs he used to have, combined. Today, his talents as an artist has earned him recognition from the Southern Entertainment Awards and the South Carolina Music Awards. Ford has also been featured in XXL Magazine, Source and Hip-Hop Weekly Magazine. He’s also an official DJ for Average Joes and a Nashville recording artist for AVJ Records.

DJ Cannon Banyon’s genre is a refreshing amalgam of Southern country, rock and hip-hop. Look for his new single to be released this summer.