Michelle Rasul had recently learned to read and write before she began spinning turntables, scratching hip-hop songs, and making beats drop. At the age of nine, she has become one of the world's best DJs and played in this year's global championship.

In her house in the skyscraper-studded city of Dubai, the Azerbaijani turntable whiz bowed her baseball cap-adorned head to the beat and demonstrated her scratching, cutting, and fading skills. Her tiny fingers shot over the turntable as she built a sizzling world of electric audio sounds and remembered how she began her career as a child turntable celebrity – which wasn't all that long ago.

"I saw my father practicing DJing and thought, 'Wow, has he been doing magic or something?' 'He's a true wizard, bro!'" Michelle told The Associated Press earlier this week that she has been overjoyed. "On my fifth birthday, I mentioned to him, 'Dad, I would like to be a world-famous DJ.' I'm planning to start preparing.”

She smiled and said as if recalling a decades-long career: "And the rest is history.”

Michelle, the DMC World DJ Championship's youngest-ever competitor, finished 14th out of 85 DJ stars from all over the world. This year's global portable scratch competition has a category called "Portablist." According to the Associated Press, the 2021 contest was kept virtual due to the coronavirus pandemic.

Although she did not progress to the next round this time but she is determined to defeat her dad, Vagif "DJ Shock” Rasulov, a professional who trained her ropes and finished ninth this year, will compete in next year's contest.

“I love DJing and I love playing in battles,” she added. "It's my hobby.”

Turntabling, which first appeared in the music community in the late 1970s with hip-hop artists, may seem to be a simple act taking a vinyl, setting the needle down, and moving it back and forth with one's fingertips. Even then, it is a form of art for the wizards, involving random sound mixing and advanced techniques such as simple, rhythmic scratches and crabs,” he says, rubbing the record needle underneath the needle.

Her parents recognized her exceptional talent from the instant they handed her a mini DJ starter kit. Even as a toddler, she was enthralled and would press any button on her father's hardware.

"She always absorbs things very quickly," said Michelle's mother, Sadia Rasulova, a former violinist who motivated her daughter's interest in music. "I noticed she's a star, that she's incredibly talented."

When her contemporaries were listening to nursery rhymes, or as she called it, "'Baby Shark' things or ABC tracks," Michelle was listening to rap stars such as Tupac Shakur, Chuck D, Jay-Z, the Notorious B.I.G., and Michael Jackson, who she also considers her favorite.

Michelle's fame soared when her parents began sharing videos of her scratching online. Her Instagram account and reputation as the "youngest DJ in the world" have accumulated 110,000 followers. Messages from potential DJs ranging in age from 6 to 65 poured in from all over the world, she added.

Michelle's Instagram feed is filled with images of her break dancing and scraping vigorously beside her sunglasses-wearing dad, spinning hip-hop and techno melodies live for her viewers, strumming the bass in her spare time, and performing at events such as Dubai's latest food festival. Michelle used to play frequently at weddings, dances, and music concerts in the city until the pandemic stopped huge events.

When the entire world is fixated on her achievements as a DJ star, Michelle is busy bouncing through life as a third-grader, doing online school, skateboarding, reading, and catching up with friends and dogs at her local park. Her spirit, nevertheless, is always in her turntabling.

“I couldn't imagine my life without music, like from the beginning, from the very beginning, when I was very small,” she said.