We caught up with the brilliant and insightful DJ Swale a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

DJ Swale, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about the things you feel your parents did right and how those things have impacted your career and life.

One thing my parents did right was always tell me I can do anything I want if I put myself in the right position. One thing people lack is work ethic. Everybody acts entitled and thinks just because they want something they should have it. That’s not how it works. If you want something you have to put the work in even if its behind the scenes with nobody watching. A good example is how I got good at DJing. When I went off to college I would see all these DJs that I knew I was better than. I wanted to be booked weekly just like them. Remembering what my parents taught me, the summer of my sophomore year I stayed on campus. It was pretty empty for the most part which I needed. Every day I would practice DJing and making new mixes to test out.

The road to greatness is a lonely one, but at the end of that dark tunnel is a light. There’s nobody saying “good job on that mix”, “that transition is fire”, keep it up”. You have to put your head down and grind. I promise life will bless you with an opportunity when you strive for it. When school started back up I was booked for a club event for this huge college party. I was nervous but I knew I spent the last 3 months preparing for this moment. I went in there and killed and haven’t looked back since.

You want to be a lifeguard but haven’t taken swim lessons? That doesn’t add up. You can achieve anything you want if you just put the work behind it. Stay focus and lock in!

Keep in mind nobody will ever understand the amount of work you put in to get to where you are.

DJ Swale, 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?

This is a tough question to answer because I do a little of everything. We can start from the top and go from there. I have an entertainment company called Elevated Daze, that’s the main brand. I created it in 2012 to house anything I want to do creatively. There’s multiple ways I can break down what it means. But to summarize, whatever I do I wanted to make sure I take to the next level. Every day you should thrive to elevate to the next level. Never stay complacent.

Under that umbrella I have Music, social media marketing, and podcast.
We can start with music, I’ve been DJing since middle school and when I to college in 2012 is when I started taking it more serious. Parties, Weddings, corporate events, if you needed music I was there. This is also when I started creating mixtapes to showcase the talent both South Carolina and North Carolina has to offer. This back before everything transitioned to Apple music and Spotify so my total mixtape view count is well over 1million views. Before artist like Dababy, Jcole, speaker knockers, became fully mainstream, I had them on my tapes. As years passed I realized there was no ownership when it came to mixtapes. I was helping artist who didn’t know me gain. fans, get more streams, make money etc. and I wasn’t getting any benefit. That’s when I transitioned to producing my own music. I have an ear for music from the success of my past mixtapes, so I knew it would be an easy transition. I dropped my first song called “Her Song” featuring Maxx Good$. & LA Kenzie and it was a club banger. That same year I won “Best collaboration” at the Upstate Music awards in Greenville, SC from dropping one song. The following year I dropped my first album called “The Carolina Ambassador” which featured all Carolina artist and producers on it. It was full circle moment where now I was in the position to help artist make money as well as finally having ownership in the music I was putting out.

Another branch on Elevated Daze is social media marketing. I built my own lifestyle/food blog on Tik Tok which currently has 36,000 followers. It’s mainly Charlotte based but I’ve partnered with brands such as Groupon, Samsung and most recently McDonalds. I’ve helped grow and manage social media pages for clients looking to enhance their presence and I’m currently working for BuzzFeed as a social media strategist. If you want to help creating an online presence, I can help you grow,.

Last but not least. The two main podcast I have is Elevated Radio and Swale’s Circle. LB and Koney are the other two host on Elevated Radio with me. We talk about anything that deals with pop culture. Swale’s Circle is. a show I do alone where I interview different artist, creatives, and really anybody with a unique story on how they got to where they’re at.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

I think this is the most annoying question I get from people looking for advice on how to grow their page. The answer is simple. Just post. That’s it. Don’t overthink or spend days thinking of a game plan. If you post 50 videos in a week and still aren’t getting views, then I can help you and figure out what you’re doing wrong. But people ask me for advice and have zero post on their page. If you don’t have the discipline to listen to yourself and follow your dreams and what you want to accomplish, you won’t listen to me.

I was doing food reviews on Instagram for about a year but in the back of my head I would debate if I wanted to start a new IG page or create a Tik Tok page with food content. I decided I wanted to test Tik Tok out and see how well it would do. When I decided I wanted to start over I maybe took 24hrs to think of a strategy. I was trying to debate if I wanted to drop one video a day, a week, etc. I realized it didn’t matter and people don’t care as long as the content is useful. I started posting videos on Tik Tok on random days and random times and by the 5th video I reached over 100,000 views. At that point I would still continue to post but be more aware on the days/time so I can see what’s working and now. After the first month or so I had a game plan and figured out what works for my page..

If I would have texted everybody asking their opinion on how I should start or watching youtube for hours looking for advice. I never would have started, You can learn how to shoot 3pt shot as time goes on, but you won’t learn anything unless you at least step on the court.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

There’s a few books that has had a huge impact in my thinking and philosophy. The first and one of my all time favorite is “Ask and It Is Given” By Esther and Jerry Hicks. This book has helped me focus on any goal and task I want to achieve. If you believe or want to learn about manifestation, I highly recommend this book. If I had to narrow it down from there I would say Malcolm X biography, 48 Laws of Power, and the Icarus Deception by Seth Godin.

He might not be the most popular guy in the world, but I watch a lot of Kanye interviews. Old and new. People who don’t like him normally hate’s his opinion on certain topics, and I can’t blame you at all. He does say some crazy stuff sometimes. But with him I’m more focuses on what he has accomplished and how he got there. Following his journey you see he was doubted time after time, but his confidence kept him going and has made him successful.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/swalethegreat
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@elevateddaze
• TikTok: www.tiktok.com/@swaleeats

Image Credits
ShotBySmoove