James Sta-Maria aka DJ Starma Llama — Wedding DJ & MC, Great Southern WA
Based in Tenterden. Plays weddings across the Great Southern, WA. Calm energy in the lead-up. Dance-floor energy on the night. Over thirty years behind the decks. Trained as a wedding DJ and MC, which means one person carries the timeline, the mic and the music, fewer moving parts, fewer things to brief, fewer ways for the night to drift.
What couples actually hire him for
The honest version: most wedding DJs are either great at the mic or great on the decks. Starma trained in both, because a Great Southern wedding doesn’t have the budget or the room for two separate hires. He’ll talk you through the runsheet a week out, MC the speeches without making them about him, read the floor at 9:47pm when half the guests want classics and the other half want bangers, and pick the right side. Then he’ll keep them there until you cut the music.
A perfect 5-star Google review rating — 100% customer satisfaction. No paid placements, no incentives, just couples writing in after their wedding because it was a good night.
The long version (for the curious)
Starma picked up his first records at fifteen and was the school DJ before he had his learner’s permit. By the time he graduated he was running a mobile DJ
business across Perth school formals, then weddings, then residencies and guest spots through Perth’s club scene. He trained formally as a wedding DJ and MC during this stretch; the wedding work has stayed the spine of what he does ever since.
Eight years in Melbourne broadened the kit. Warehouse and laneway pop-ups in the street-art scene. A drum-and-bass / house project called Hesteria with a producer mate. And because the brain wouldn’t sit still, beatboxing. Starma layered audio effects and live-looping through a Kaoss Pad to build full songs on the fly, voice into mic, into FX, into loop, into floor. Not a party trick; an instrument.
In 2014 he packed it in and DJed his way around the world, pubs, clubs and hostels across Europe, Asia and the Americas, capping the tour off at Burning Man in the Nevada desert. Came home to Perth, picked up AcroYoga (partner acrobatics), and started fusing it with the beatboxing for festival sets.
The Beatbox-Acrobatic live-looping show debuted at Blazing Swan and toured the WA coast up to Ningalens at Exmouth, with workshops for kids along the way.
Now he’s based in Tenterden, in the wine corridor of the Great Southern. The travelling phase is over. The wedding phase is on.
Why this matters for your wedding
A few things you only get from someone with three decades in and a local in the region:
- One hire, one face. DJ and MC. The voice on the mic is the same person reading the floor. No handoffs, no crossed wires.
- Range you’ll actually use. Hip-hop, funk, break-beat, house, deep house, techno, drum & bass, classics, country, anything your nan will dance to. Three decades of DJing and entertaining teaches you that “the right song” changes every twenty minutes.
- Beatbox for the moments that need it. First-dance reinterpretation, surprise grand-entrance loop, sister-of-the-bride freestyle if you want something the guests can’t predict, it’s in the kit.
- Local. Knows the Great Southern venues, the road to Denmark on a Saturday in March, which rooms boom and which ones swallow bass. Travel surcharges across most of the region are minimal because the home base is already there.
- Calm in the lead-up. The pre-wedding planning calls are a real thing he does. You won’t be chasing him for a runsheet at 11pm the Friday before.
Next step
Check the date. There’s a button at the bottom-right of every page on this site labelled “Check My Date” — it’s the fastest way to find out if Starma is free and start the conversation. Or have a read through the testimonials first if you want to know what other Great Southern couples have said.
You know you wanna.
