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After a summer dishing out groovy tunes at Charing Cross every Friday, he is ready to put the decks away until next year - but not until one last mix with a few special guests.
DJ, musician, party master, pop culture and cinema buff, movie night organiser, Stefan Rousseau, also known as DJ Stefunk or CineStef has many strings to his bow.
Born in sunny Avignon in the south of France, Stefan moved to Jersey with his wife in 2005. He fell in love with the island and now calls it home.
Today, he'll be at Charing Cross between 12:00 and 14:00 for the 22nd and last edition of 'Funky Fridays'. He will be joined by three other artists - together known as the Jersey Funk All-Stars: Naomi West on the flute, Thomas Lowth on guitar, and Bean Lebouc (aka MC B-Eazy) on the mic.
Pictured: Stefan has been DJing at Charing Cross since April.
"Seeing people adopting the rhythm of the music for their walk, smiling, dancing, playing on the astroturf was an absolute delight and showed that we can all make this town livelier and happier without any form of issues associated to. Without our amazing town manager Daphne East, this would never have happened either, merci Daphné. The staff of the surrounding businesses have been incredibly supportive as well, so thank you very much to all of you for making these Funky Fridays possible," Stefan commented.
While he will be back next year, Stefan will be focusing on other projects over the winter. As he got ready to hang up his headphones, he thought about five ways to remix Jersey...
The cultural offer on the island is getting better and better, thanks amongst others to the amazing Festival of Words. But we are very far from being on the level of any current 100k inhabitants island or city in terms of cultural offering, as opposed to entertainment only. The government could easily change all this by investing what will be relatively minor sums to offer free cultural events to their constituents.
Pictured: Jersey needs more local cultural events, says Stefan.
It is essential to be able to offer more locally-sourced cultural events which, by their very nature, are often impossible to make commercially viable. This is the reason why European governments have a Ministry of Culture and a budget for the promotion and access to Culture.
As I understand it, in the present configuration, it's mostly children from private schools that are offered access to extra-curricular cultural classes (I know I am obsessed and a bit biased!), which are paramount to the development of a child or adolescent into an adult.
Pictured: Stefan thinks children should receive arts and culture teaching at all ages.
Through gaining knowledge of Arts and Culture - both detecting their bias and discovering the wonders they can bring - as well as exploring world cultures, languages and arts that future generations will have a better understanding of the global world they live in and thus be better equipped to make their own informed and educated way in it. Jersey being independent, it could easily implement such an initiative.
I have been a Rock resident for over 13 years and have witnessed the traffic in Jersey change from incredibly nice and civilised to completely overblown and decreasingly civilised. Jersey used to be stress-free in terms of traffic, so it seems somewhat absurd to create heavy situations of daily stress for the people who commute to work (replicating the conditions of a big city without its perks) for the sake of having no regulation.
Pictured: There should be a cap on the number of cars being used on the island.
I really think Jersey reached its limit in terms of the numbers of cars and the size of the traffic with which it can function properly. The fact that there are less parking spaces available hasn’t changed the flow of traffic to St. Helier daily, it has simply increased the stress levels of its commuters. And let’s not mention the levels of air pollution this all creates...
States-sponsored organic farming, electric cars, naturally-produced energy (wind turbines solar panels but above all tidal plants) are all projects which are without a doubt the solution we will have to go towards in the future to sustain ourselves and our way of living and these can easily be achieved on the island by its very nature.
Pictured: Initiatives such as organic farming should be encouraged.
They would work in tandem with other unique features of Jersey that make the island so special: the fastest internet network, the most fortified place, the fourth largest tides in the world, the only British “territory” occupied, the best cows and milk production on the planet, and, of course, the best potatoes.
Similar to the traffic situation, the basic cost of living on the island has been rising constantly since I arrived on the Rock and this can only go on for so long. There should be a clear limit to the rising cost of living for the average islander. Average salaries have barely changed in the past few years while the cost of daily living has been growing at a high rate. I understand there are proposals to impose GST on all imported goods to force people to purchase locally even though the average products are way more expensive than in the UK despite the fact that we are a VAT free zone).
Pictured: "Average salaries have barely changed in the past few years while the cost of daily living has been growing at a high rate."
What used to be a liveable status quo will soon become unbearable for the majority of the population on the island and a real problem for its future if the inflation is not tightly kept under control by government ruling.
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and not Bailiwick Express.
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