James Vincent Bio
James Vincent, better known as DJ Oja (o-jah) or Oja Vincent, is a producer, DJ, educator and activist whose life work is to create, connect & be part of the global movement to build community through sound-based story-telling, production, performance and logical construction while dynamically passing the tradition on to the next generation.
The son of Haitian immigrants who came to Brooklyn as teenagers, Oja was born in Long Island, went to high school in St. Louis and returned to NYC to attend college. University trained (at NYU and The New School) and self-taught in the music business and the art of electronic music production, he was a member of Earthdriver, a progressive live arts collective from 2002-2010 (https://earthdriver.bandcamp.com/) as the group’s DJ/Samplist, co-engineer, arranger and co-producer of two albums bearing the Earth driver imprint (Sharrif Simmons “The Echo Effect” and “Earthdriver”).
As a solo DJ & producer, Oja has been responsible for providing kinetic song selection/blends, sound design & ambiance for everything from live theatre performances (“Tongan Paint,” at Terra NovanFestival, “Osage Avenue” at Cherry Lane Theater, “Committing The Black On Black Crime Called Blackface,” sponsored by La Mama, “ Swift Solos” & “Brotherly Love”, both with the Olive Dance Theatre showcased at the National Hip Hop Theater Festival), fundraisers (for the people of Palestine,Haiti, Chiapas, etc.), live musical performances (3BB, Toni Blackman, Nemiss, DAM, Shadia Mansour, Metrosonics & Brwn Bflo) festivals and conferences (CR10, USSJF2007, Red Hook Waterfront Festival, Clear Creek Festival), sound for Television and films (Sesame Street, PBS's In the Mix series' “Get the News?” “Dealing With Differences,” “Living With Change,” and “9-11: Looking Back....Moving Forward”) and co-producing two tracks from the soundtrack of Southeast Emmy winning Thorton Dial documentary “Mr. Dial Has Something to Say” to radio programs (89.1FM’s The Subterrain” & “The Hip Hop Shop,” PNC radio's “Show n Prove” & WBMB 87.9FM’s “Homecookin” & “Pangea Radio”) and sound installations accompanying visual art (“Housing is a Human Right” with oral historians & photographers Mike Premo and Rachel Falcone and painter Leonardo Benzant's exhibit “A Presence Under the Noise”).
As a teacher and educational program producer, Oja coordinated, developed curriculum (audio production and DJ instruction), and taught youth at the City Parks Foundation’s first ever free after school technology initiative program, Hook Productions, in Red Hook Brooklyn from February 2004 to September of 2008. The program has since been replicated at several recreation centers and satellite sites around New York City. He also has taught semester-long media arts classes such as “So You Want To Be a DJ?” at Urban Arts Initiative, “Electronic Music Production 1.0” class at P.S.27 and “Beat Making 101” at P.S.15 (as a part of the Good Shepherd Summer Camp Program).
During the past eight years he has continued to work to document, produce, collaborate, create and perform alongside like-minded artists in order to help tell untold stories, construct environments and inspire thought, dialog and action through sound. In addition, Oja has been using his community building and media arts skills to work as a part of the independent media collective, the Alliance of Conscious Documentarians to contribute to a project focused on sharing the stories of the families of victims of police murder and their journey called the Forced Trajectory Project (forcedtrajectory.com).
Since one year after the earthquake of Jan.12th, 2010 in Haiti, he has been collaborating as well with a film project called 'The Diaspora Travels: Haiti' , a project in progress by film maker Malinda Francis from Toronto which explores what Haitians are doing for Haitians and the path of the diaspora who has been returning to Haiti.
Over eight years of returning to Haiti, a strong collaboration with a grassroots sustainable life group AYITI INI/Earthship Haiti, developed that introduced Oja to an alternative eco-friendly building method called 'Earthship Biotecture' (www.earthship.com), which creates sustenance through interacting with natural phenomenon. In September of 2013 he attended the 8th Earthship Biotecture Academy in Taos,New Mexico to deepen his knowledge about this building technique. The group is currently working with the community in Oban, Sud-Est, Ayiti to construct a hybrid community center and amphitheater called 'Sa-k-la-k-wel', slated for completion in early 2021.
As the Operations Director and Manager of The People's Climate March Arts Space in Bushwick, Brooklyn in 2014, Oja was a part of organizing the largest ecological justice march in history and maintains connections with several of the international artists and organizers who were involved in the production, actively continuing to be a part of illustrating the movement for ecological and social justice through the application of activism, art, skill sharing and construction.
He currently resides in Las Vegas, but can frequently be found in Brooklyn, New Mexico, the Bay Area and anywhere in between.