We were lucky to catch up with Samuel Enyi recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Samuel, thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?

My mission is to reach as many people as I can through my music. No just reach anybody but people that appreciate good music not just following the crowd or popular demands.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Samuel Irem Enyi, mostly known as DJ Irem$, is a native of Nigerian. He hails from Ebonyi state and currently resides in the US. In addition to his outstanding achievements to the music industry, he also has the distinction of being a licensed pilot. He graduated from Utah Valley University with a bachelor’s degree in aviation administration and an FAA pilot’s license. He isn’t just an international DJ but also a producer who’ve worked with many artist in Afrobeat and House music industry. His varied talents and educational endeavors are shown by the fact that he has a degree in business information systems as well.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My journey started early 2008 in Nigeria as a computer attendant in a cyber cafe, I was very good at music choices and always play to entertain our customers. One day I woke up and randomly thought about researching a software that can actually mix music instead of using my windows media player. So I googled and found Atomix now Virtual DJ. After installing the software me and my friend friend to read the software instructions and Google the manual on how to use it. Things wasn’t quite easy as we thought because there was no YouTube back then to visually illustrate what we need to do as beginners. But we persisted and figured out how to beat match and sync, which back then felt like we discovered the use of our manhood lbs. I continued using the software to mix and also tried a couple controllers until I met a friend in early 2011 who then properly thought me everything about controllers and other Dj softwares. To me that was a huge transition because I’ve been a laptop DJ for a minute. Right after few practice it clicked right away. Everything started working out and I met another Dj friend in Cross River State who played at Pinnacle night club, he let me play along with him until I left for USA. I came to the United States in November 2011 as an international student in Jeppesen Academy (Boeing) Denver Colorado . Right after 3 months my student visa expired and I was sent out of flight school.

I wanted to travel back home in January but some events happened which changed my situation and I had to stay back in America for as long as I can until there’s a change back home.

In 2012 I was down and didn’t have anybody or place to stay. I found someone online from my village in Nigeria who lives in Minnesota. So I contacted him and told him about my situation and he asked me to come stay with him and seek help from the government. I moved to Minnesota in January and filed for asylum. While my case was pending I had no job or allowed to legally in the United States. So I decided to create a YouTube page formally called Voodoohouse Music now Twin Cities Afrohouse. I started making open format remixes which got a lot of attention and I was able to hit millions of organic views and 10k subscribers.

While my youtube channel was doing well, I was contacted by some promoters to come Dj in few countries but unfortunately I couldn’t travel out of the United States because of my status. So I paused for a second and focused on my immigration status. Since I couldn’t go back home, I filed for asylum in 2012. After 6 months I was issued a work authorization which then led to my first job as a factory worker at Boston scientific. I was ask to move right after I got my work permit and I found some roommates to share a one bedroom apartment. We were four men living in one room and couldn’t duplicate the keys so we had to jump through the windows. Fast forward to 2015 my paper finally got approved and I was finally legal to go back to school. I went back and finished my flight training and also enrolled in college to finish my degree in Aviation.

After graduating I didn’t want to fly that much anymore as I was getting older. So I join the Airforce civil air patrol and worked as a mission pilot for search and rescue. While all these years went by I was still Djing and saving money to buy my little gears on Craigslist. I was also learning production since my virtual Dj Days. To me I felt production was gonna be a difficult journey since I wasn’t popular enough to get major artist to work with me, so I stick to DJing which allows me to play everyone’s music instead of making mine.

In conclusion I’ve worked with many Hip hop, afrobeat and house music DJs and artist across the world. Many folks ask me how I got this far to the point that I actually opened for Alicia Keys and Libianca in 2023 at the Keys to the City tour and also played at the BET Awards for Libianca which she won best international new act BET award.

To be honest it’s been God. He leads I follow.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Humility or kindness won’t take you to your destination. Being aggressive will and saying as much No as you can to others is key. If you don’t step on people’s toes, people will step on yours. If you’re sober driving, someone is driving drunk next to you. You can’t fix this world and please everyone. But you can touch many through your energy. Music is my strength and voice.

Contact Info:

• Website: Www.djirems.com
• Instagram: djirems
• Facebook: Djirems
• Twitter: Djirems
• Youtube: Dj Irem$

Image Credits
@Zakesmedia