We have all heard about Curtis Jackson, aka 50 Cent, being shot nine times, and Kanye West having his jaw wired shut before becoming influential contributors to the hip-hop community. So can the same be said for Gerald “Jeep” Ward, a DJ who lost the use of his left arm?
In 2001, Ward was attending Hofstra as a radio major while working as “DJ Vainone” at a local bar in Long Island. He was hit by a car and while lying there motionless, was hit and dragged underneath by another car. Ward suffered multiple broken bones, a fractured skull, a lacerated liver and nerve damage in his shoulder that prevented him from using his left arm. But it was this terrible accident that prompted the emergence of “DJ Halo,” the name he is now referred to as, as a result of his remarkable recovery.
“When I first came out of the hospital, one of my neighbors asked me when I was going to sell my turntables because he told me that I couldn’t DJ with one arm,” recalled DJ Halo during an interview with XXL Magazine for their April 2006 issue.
Halo received his first set of turntables when he was 18 from his parents, but quickly described the set as a “DJ-in-a-box setup, because they thought being a DJ was only a phase.”
But after saving $1,500 from working all summer, Halo bought an official set of turntables, which he still uses now at his setup in Bridgeport. After an operation that transferred a nerve from his leg to his shoulder, Halo went through a year and a half of rehab before returning to his turntables in 2003.
After graduating from Hofstra with a radio degree, Halo got jobs at radio stations in Arkansas and Connecticut. The 26-year-old DJ is the hip-hop director at WPKN 89.5 FM in Bridgeport and WPKM 88.7 in Montauk, while also spinning records for Fairfield’s own radio station on campus, WVOF 88.5 FM, since October 2004. Halo is on the air Tuesday late nights from 12 a.m. to 2 a.m.
While he is an extreme fan of all types of music (Guns-N-Roses and NWA being his first two CDs), he has always had a love for hip-hop.
“Hip-hop was just about the only thing that made me happy in those first days of recovery,” Halo told in XXL Magazine. “I wouldn’t have gotten through this without hip-hop.”
Halo is making a name for himself as a result of his terrible accident. It was the willingness to not give up on himself and listen to all of the non-believers that makes Halo’s story truly inspiring.
“My main focus was to get some publicity about my story because I do hope that it inspires some people,” said Halo. “When you go through a serious accident like that, it is lonely because no one else on the planet knows how you feel, so if I can help anyone that’s what I want to do.”
Being a DJ is not easy, because contrary to what most people think, it’s not just throwing a record on deck and cutting the song.
There is a technique and a skill that goes along with creating a nice mix, and can be even more difficult if you are learning to DJ with a reconstructed arm.
“I used to have a lot of cuts, but now I let tracks breathe and use cuts as sort of an accent,” he said.
“Actually, my friends think I’m a better DJ after the accident.”
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