DJ BOOTH DJ Whoo Kid Interview by Ms. Rivercity
While some people consider “going Hollywood” to be negative, DJ Whoo Kid has capitalized on the realm of bright lights and super celebrities and turned it into a lucrative living. Not a conventional DJ, Whoo Kid took his mixtape entrepreneurship to a whole new level by enlisting A-list hosts, branching into television and films, and bridging the gap between Hip Hop and Hollywood. In the midst of marketing his entertainment website RadioPlanet.tv, DJ Whoo Kid explains how went from being virtually nameless to sharing marquees with top ranked musicians, sports players, and movie stars. Tell me about the latest projects you’ve been working on. I’ve been working on my site RadioPlanet.tv. I’ve been doing a lot of creative interviews, projects, events. All the interviews on the site are hilarious. I just got tired of going to other people’s sites and it being the same stuff from everybody else’s sites. I wanted to create my own fan base. The site’s only been up for a few months and it gets a lot of hits a month. How did you get the site poppin’ so fast? Well you know, Em is my boy, and 50 is my boy, and I have my radio show Hollywood Saturdays. All these Hollywood stars call my show anyway, and some of them are so cool I can get personal with them. They allow me to fly to L.A. and go to their homes and do stupid, funny shit. I learned from being creative back in the day with mixtapes. Back in those days, in the East coast, nobody gave a fuck about the South, but I wanted my mixtapes to be bootlegged down there so I would fly down there
and get music from Juvenile, T.I., Trick Daddy. I’d come back and I’d have a mixtape with mixed content. It’s like the mixtape I just did with Shaq and Scream, it’s all mixed content. I’ve been having a lot of different hosting from Hollywood people. I already got with Lamar Odom and Lebron James. I wouldn’t mind doing something with Kobe. Has the recession affected your business at all? Of course. The days of trying to get it in the streets are over, but it balances out. I’d rather have 200,000 free downloads than sell a few thousand CDs, because now there’s an awareness of what I do and now I’m booked relentlessly, everywhere. Every country is downloading me. They don’t give a fuck about bootlegging in those places. So you think the internet downloading of music has been a positive thing? It’s a negative thing for the ignorant DJ that just wants to make a certain amount of money a month and think he’s rich. It’s positive if you wanna be known all over the planet and build other situations to make money off of. It’s hard to get in a position like that, but it works for me. You’ve seen experienced a lot of the game over the years. What’s the experience been like? It’s been 15 years or something like that. The experience has been overwhelming. You’d never think a mixtape DJ would go so far. It not only led me to going almost everywhere on this planet, it led me to working with incredible people like Eminem and Dre. I’ve met everyone from Snoop Dogg to Bill Cosby to Nelson Mandela. It got me on radio and TV; it got me in movies. I’ve done voiceovers for cartoons and video games. I’ve produced songs and done historical shit. I’ve hung out with princes and DJed for terrorists. I DJed for Khadafi’s birthday party, I mean, c’mon man. They had balloons and everything. (laughs) The only place I haven’t been on this planet is Egypt, only because they don’t give a fuck about Hip Hop. All they care about is
techno. I’m gonna have to act like I’m a techno DJ to sneak up in there. But I’ve kinda done it all. How do you feel about being skilled in the actual art of DJing? You’re more of a mixtape DJ and personality than a technical DJ. I’m not a traditional DJ, I don’t cut and scratch and all that. I’d rather just cut the checks. I did my research on the area of cutting and scratching and it’s just a bunch of fucking weirdos that like that shit. It’s a male society. If you go to those events it’s just a bunch of dudes. I’d rather do a party for Kim Kardashian or Shaq’s birthday party. That’s where you’ll see me. Not only do those DJs get paid more, but they get more popularity. I mean, what am I gonna win? A fuckin’ trophy or a ribbon? I have respect for those people, but that’s not who I wanna be. Is there anything else that you want to accomplish after all you’ve done? Or any artists you’d want to tour with? Nah, I ain’t DJing for nobody else after 50. I’ve toured 300 countries with him. We’ve done like every club in America. A lot of people don’t know that I DJed for Juvenile. He was the first artist I ever DJed for and he’s the first one to show me what a tour is. That was back when he had “Back that Ass Up.” That was like 10 years ago, so I met everybody before they blew up. I have video of T.I. before he was anybody. I DJed for Lil Wayne when he was 15 or 16. The lil muthafucka came to an adult club with a bunch of little kids. What did you learn going on your first tour? Juvenile introduced me to the replay. He didn’t have a DJ at the time, he had a big fat uncle in the back pushing a button on the replay. A lot of people didn’t know what a replay was. That’s what I use today when I do concerts. 50 Cent is a gangsta rapper, so why would I be cuttin’ and scratchin’ [during his show]? He’s not Talib Kweli. Prior to DJing for Juvenile which led to the 50 Cent situation, you were just trying to get the mixtapes off the ground? What was your goal? Yeah, I was stealing people’s music. They called me Whoo Kid ‘cause they didn’t know who this kid was that was robbing people for exclusives. I had everybody trying to kill me. Even Nore wanted to kill me and I ended up being his DJ. But if you had music that was unfinished and you put it out, that was the hit back in the days. How were you able to get the exclusive music back then, especially when nobody knew who you were at that time? The A&Rs. You gotta understand, A&Rs and interns were not getting paid at labels back then. I’d pay A&Rs – shout out to beautiful magazines like this one, who’d get the snippet album before it came out. One verse is good enough for me to sell a mixtape. So I’d go to Source Magazine and a couple other magazines and pay the reviewers. What else do you have in the works? Another thing I’m doing is free QuikVids for established artists. I did “I Got Mojo” for Soulja Boy. We did Gucci Mane’s “Bitch I’m Back.” They’re like one-verse videos I do with Dan the Man. They’ve got a lot of replay value ‘cause they’re so short, and they’re hot. You can check out all the QuikVids on RadioPlanet.tv. What’s the best way for people to reach out to you if they want to work? If you want marketing, or to send me music, or hire my services, you can reach me at djwhookidmp3@gmail.com. //
30 // OZONE MAG