We caught up with the brilliant and insightful DJ CEO a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
DJ , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about a project that you’ve worked on that’s meant a lot to you.
So this will actually be my first time announcing it publicly but I’m currently working on a project to pay tribute to rappers who have passed on that I’m calling #RapLivesMatter and it include unheard features from Nate Dogg, Big Pun, DMX, and many others from before their passing along side up and coming artists such as my artist BTH Blaze paying homage to them on tracks with them. This is meaningful to me because hip hop has always been my passion and unfortunately a lot of my favorite artists were taken too soon and they were artists it was always my goal to work with so being blessed with the opportunities I’ve had to make this project possible is truly amazing
DJ , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
Well I actually first started getting my feet wet back in the MySpace days between going viral for doing promo for artists and brands that were coming up in that era to working with local artists and bands when I was 17 so that I could get into the clubs and venues without ID I kinda just took to it naturally. It’s always been my passion since way before then though since back when I was watching DJ Skribble on MTV as a kid and listening to FunkFlex and DJ Drama mixtapes. I always wanted to be like them and being able to say I’m in the same lane as them now continuing the dj mixtape/compilation culture is truly amazing. I’ve been blessed to work the the artists I’ve been able to work with big names and up and coming alike. One of the things I’m most proud of currently is my album that came out last month in February called Street Gods Vol. 1. It’s my first full album and has up and coming artists in it such as Travis Ford from LA, BTH Blaze from St Louis, my brother Caddy Mac from Arizona, and my dude King DeniaL out of Stockton California among other up and coming artists along side big names such as Lil Wayne, Gucci Mane, Spice 1, Glasses Malone, Yo Gotti, and many others. It took a lot of time and money invested and the help of the great artists I was blessed to work with but it finally got done and released and hit over 500k streams in the 3rd week. On the side of mixtapes and singles I also do music promotion services and I’ll be starting my own promotion company called The Promo Plug later this year as well as I do guest DJ bookings at various clubs between Missouri and California. I stay pretty busy with it all and then do some product marketing on my instagram to top it all off.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
Honestly aside from the money, the connections I’m able to make not just with people I work with but with the people who stream the music and come out to the shows etc, the fans and followers. They are who makes it all possible and being able to reach people all around the world with what I do is a feeling that can’t be matched I’ve talked to fans in India, Australia, Germany, all over the world. It’s surreal to even this I’ve been able to reach that far honestly
In your view, what can society to do to best support artists, creatives and a thriving creative ecosystem?
Buy merchandise and physical media, pay the $1 to download at least one song from an artist’s catalog instead of just streaming it. Those streams unfortunately don’t pay much. 300k streams only makes $1,000 and when you think about the money it takes to make the song and market it that isn’t a huge profit sometimes no profit at all. There is also a petition going around for the Living Wages For Musicians Act, this bill is passed by congress will make the streaming platforms such as Spotify and Apple Music pay artists what they are worth rather than pocketing majority of the profits and giving the artists less than pennies. I urge everyone to sign that please
Contact Info:
- Website: https://actionnetwork.org/letters/tell-congress-to-support-the-living-wage-for-musicians-act?fbclid=IwAR10ml0pwSMcyEapXJMdO-7-YhAvO5dswljx5WC0us2J6vjTbpzhLfJOCWA_aem_AbqLWK9hXLLTGueY3H_XYcK7tjcGEgck-nEK1gdGeToKL8VA-XhA0svefV5klqMwrRI
- Instagram: @DJ_CEO.Official
- Youtube: DJCEOVevo