What Is Your DJ Identity & Why It's Important. Is Streaming the Future? 🎥

On this episode of the Grow My DJ Business Podcast Cream & Gary W Discuss: 

• It's okay to not have a full calendar.
• You can be picky about gigs in this climate.
• The market is shifting towards health and wellness.
• Streaming technology is the future of DJing.
• Having mixes ready can lead to more bookings.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome Back and Podcast Updates
• 3:30 Industry Trends and Challenges
• 6:02 Understanding DJ Identity
• 9:12 The Importance of Social Media for DJs
• 11:51 Navigating Open Format DJing
• 14:43 Making the Leap to Artist
• 17:37 The Future of DJing and Market Adaptation
• 25:26 The Importance of Monthly Mixes
• 27:13 Maximizing Opportunities with Live Mixes
• 29:40 Preparing Your Electronic Press Kit
• 30:59 Understanding Your DJ Identity
• 33:32 Embracing Streaming Technology in DJing

Transcript

0:41

What's up guys, welcome back to the Grow My DJ Business Podcast. This is episode 184. It's been a minute. Been a long time, boy. Gary W. here. No idea. This is our longest drought since we've started the show. So that was something like in during COVID, probably during April of COVID, which was 2020, I think, right? 2020. So it's this. like a month, maybe like six weeks without recording, but this has been almost three months. I think our last release was July 29th or something like that. um And we're not going to get into exactly why that is, but like there's just been a lot of stuff on the back end of our business that's been happening, a lot of changes, uh all for the good, for sure. I've been traveling an insane amount for shows and for, you know, personal stuff. And you know, the podcast is something Gary and I really enjoy to do. It's just like the low man on the totem pole here on responsibilities that we have. And when you know, we get super busy, it's just one of those things that we just don't get to. the travel portion of your schedule and then also the travel portion of my schedule, they don't usually line up. You're in Florida and I go up to Jersey and that's happened like three times now. uh Tampa trips or Florida trips, you're coincide with your Jersey trips, which is fun. ridiculous. like we, it's just not lining up and just to be able to sit down for an hour, hour and a half to do this, it's just, it's very difficult. Um, you know, especially trying to get things done Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and then you're traveling Sunday, traveling Friday and then Monday is like a rest day. Because like when you think about our industry, right. And if you don't just DJ and you like run another you know, if you're booking people or whatever it might be, it's not, you don't get a day off. There's no real days off. Right. Or if you just have a day job, a nine to five where you're going to the office or whatever, and you're working on Sundays, it's like you're working seven days a week. When you own a business, you're working seven, 6.5 days of the week, pretty much. Like maybe you get half of a Sunday to relax if you're not DJing. Right. So it's become increasingly difficult, especially with the travel. But I'm glad to be back. This is always nice. this and we're gonna get these out as much as we can. Gary and I are gonna record two podcasts today so that we can release two over the next few weeks. So we'll figure it out. We're happy to be back. I hope you guys are happy to hear our lovely voices again. I mean, a lot's kind of happened between our last episode and this. I think in most cases, you know, everyone finishes up the summer and people are looking forward to the fall and football and... for our market and I think broadly across the country, it just hasn't hit as well as it normally has in the past. uh because honestly, every podcast that I listen to that has to do with business, that has to do with anything. One of topics is how drinking is down 90 % from, forget what year it is, but it's the ongoing topic on every podcast I listen to. And these podcasts, most of them have nothing to do with. the entertainment space, like they're just regular business podcasts or marketing podcasts or whatever it might be. And it's just being felt all over the place. So. right liquor companies are feeling it bars and nightclubs restaurants everyone's feeling it that's in this space. And it's definitely people not drinking as much people focusing more on health all the of the opposite of the nightlife industry all of these the health and fitness industries are booming because that's where people are spending their time there's just way more of a focus on health. And I think this is one of those things where right now this is what's popular but in three to five years, like, people might want to just go out and have a good time and have fun and get reckless once in a while, you know? And it's just sort of the wave of culture. weathering a three to five year storm in this industry is damn near impossible. know, what's the, what is the average lifespan of a New York City bar, right? I think it's something like 18 months. It's something pitiful like that. 18 months to two years. So like three years just isn't it? Especially because I know people that have owned places that like rents are anywhere between $30,000 and $40,000 a month. So you can't withstand more than six months of having a downturn. oh I know we froze a little bit there, but I spoke through it. Atlantic cities, Atlantic cities toast, you know, Vegas places are closing, you're gonna see big names in Vegas closing very soon. Like, scary. um You know, the places that are doing well are like, Nashville's doing really well. And I don't know, some of these smaller markets that aren't necessarily the mega markets, I think New York is crushing right now when it comes to hard ticket acts, there's Insane talent coming through New York right now, which is so different from what it used to be but I think like ticket acts is just a different, that's a different animal. are where people are going when they want to go out and spend money and party and have a good time. that's just where the industry is. That one time they go out this month, they want to go see Chris Lake. They want to go see Tiesto in Brooklyn. They want to go see whoever. And that's where they're going to spend their money and deal with a hangover and get drunk maybe or do some other extracurriculars for the one or two times a month that they're going to actually do that. and the local nightlife scene is just getting crushed. Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're down to one day. Like we're down to one good day a week. Saturday's the day. know, Fridays, there aren't great Friday parties on the local level right now. And, you know, and when there are like those places really need to capitalize on it. So if you're listening, if you're listening right now and you have a good Friday party, ride that thing out and really promote it and get people in the door. Continue to get people in the door because you're an anomaly in this in this industry. ah It's just kind of the trend that I'm seeing. And even Sunday is like, our Sunday football spots that are usually packed, lined down the block, same thing. Like, yes, those places, they have people sitting pretty much at every table, but it's not like a zoo like it used to be or like it usually is. it's just trending across the industry and uh hopefully, you know, try to stay positive, DJs. Try to stay positive and weather the storm and just pick up the gigs that you can pick up. Like, and you know what, sometimes you just can't. You can be picky, like, you know, maybe which we're going to get into probably a little bit of this conversation here. So ah let's actually get into a little bit of that. Yeah, I'm going to preface this whole conversation with it's okay to not have a full calendar, right? It's okay to say no to certain things. It's okay to only pick and choose the things that you really want to do, especially in this climate. Now, if you're relying on DJ money to pay your bills, now might be a good time to start thinking about what are other things that I'm interested in? Where else can I use my talents to make some money? Whether it's it's nightlife related or it's something else, right? Maybe you got a degree in something else and you can go get a job that's either part-time or a nine to five that's gonna pay your bills and then you can really be picking, you can really pick and choose what you go do as far as a DJ and an artist. And what Gary and I really wanna get into in this first big topic here is talking about DJ identity and why it's so important right now. what it even means and how you guys can sort of project your identity out into the world. So, Gary, is DJ identity? How is the best way to describe this? I think I wanna approach this from a booker standpoint, right? Because these are the people that are giving you jobs. So when I'm looking at a DJ, want to know uh your style of music that you play, number one, right? And what do you like playing? What are you passionate about playing? Does it fit the venue that I'm booking for? And how do you project that out? And I'm not gonna go into detail, but we'll touch on a couple things. So social media would be the first thing. We talk about this all the time. It's the first place that I go when I'm going to book a DJ, I go to their social media. The second thing would be their presentation on social media. Do you look like a house music DJ slash artist? Do you look like a uh working DJ? Are you posting content that has to do with your DJ life and your DJ career? And that's everything from. fashion to the way your flyers are presented because you know how flyers are concerned like There there's a there's a like an EDM look. There's a hip-hop look. There's a great, know, there's a dance hall look so like I want to know exactly who you are like off the jump when I see everything from your fashion sense to the songs that you're using on your posts to The type of flyers that you might be posting if you're keeping flyers on your on your timeline um should not be doing. Period. but I really don't mind having them in like, if we're talking Instagram, like on your highlights or whatever they're called. Right. Actually, side note, what I do use, I use the, like the pins or favorite posts to sort of promote, like I have a song coming out, so the flyer for that, I will post and pin to my top so that anybody that comes, the top row will be like, Kareem's latest edit pack, my original song that just came out, and my fall rundown. So like, I'll use that. I'll use the pin. the pin option on TikTok and Instagram to promote the three most important things that I have going on, which is generally a calendar, an edit pack, and an original or a remix. So if I'm a booker and I'm interested in booking DJ Cream right now, I go to your Instagram and I see those three things and it tells me everything I need to know right there. Right? That's a great piece of advice and something that people should follow because now I don't have to dig too deep. We're talking about three posts. I could see where you play. could see the music that you produce and then obviously I get to get a sense of kind of the way you look and present yourself as a DJ. all really important things. And I think that that look is so over, it's overlooked. I think that the way people present themselves doesn't always come as front of mind as, this is part of who I am as a DJ, right? And it's something that you, me and Piroj have talked about tirelessly. uh You know, looking the part. So I think that's kind of where, those are the main aspects of DJ identity for me. I'll let you kind of. pick up here and kind of get into what you think of when you think of DJ identity. Yeah, I would say DJ identity and knowing who you are and what you want to do is sort of the most important thing for your project, right? No matter what you're trying to accomplish, you have to know who you are and where do you want to go first before you can sort of project that out into the world and let other people know because if you're unsure and it's unclear, that's going to come off in your content and the way you talk. and the way you project yourself. So I think a great exercise is to sit down and think about who am I, right? What shows do I wanna play? What type of music do I wanna DJ? Do I wanna be a DJ or do I wanna be a producer? Do I wanna do both? Do I wanna work behind the scenes in music and be a booker or be an engineer or something like that? Sort of write out what you... what you want to do. And it doesn't, that could be different from what you're currently doing, right? If you're a younger DJ that's just saying yes to a lot of gigs right now, and you aren't able to sort of pick and choose what you want to do, that's okay. But I think you should really understand, hey, this is where I want to be in the next like two years, one to two years. And use that as sort of a gauge and sort of a reminder to you that when I'm posting content, when I'm choosing songs to go on my story or on my posts, That stuff needs to align with where you want to be in one to two years. Let's use me as an example, right? I make bass house and tech house music. I want to play bigger shows like that, ticketed shows. Anytime I post something, it has music that's aligned with the type of music that I make. I'm not going to post a story or anything on my feed or anywhere that has like... Drake hip-hop song because I'm not trying to be a hip-hop DJ or producer. I want to be a bass house producer and DJ, you know, So everything you need to do has to align with Whatever that when you write that out and you come up with that identity of who you want to be everything that you do has to align with that why because You can't confuse people. You can't confuse bookers If I'm a booker and I go to your page to book you for an EDM show and you're posting reggaeton parties, it makes me less likely to want to book you. Now, I know that might suck for those people out there that do open format and want to do a little bit of everything, but right now it's a very segmented market. Open format is not really a very popular thing right now. And if you want to do open format, that's okay. It just gets a little trickier on how you push that identity out into the world. It can be done and there are ways to do it. It's just a little tougher. Yeah, open formats, let's dig into open format, because we are talking right now for a lot of minutes about becoming an artist realistically, right? Let's talk a little bit about how to project yourself as somebody who is open format that is a little more local and how do you book, what if you want to book as many, what if I'm a working DJ, I just want to be a working DJ, right? Because I, It is great to always look big picture, but not everybody is big picture, right? uh Some guys just wanna work. So if you just wanna work, how are you projecting that you're just a working DJ, open format, I can play any local place that there is? So a couple things. First, I think you can be a working open format DJ that plays local shows, but still use your socials to push your artist brand or your identity that you're trying to get to. You just have to be a little more selective on the things you post. Again, if you're an open format working DJ at home, but you want to be uh like an EDM producer that's on the road, your posts need to be all surrounding that EDM forward artist brand. So that's number one. Number two, I would also consider maybe your first tag post is a video of you just holding the camera like, hey, my name's Kareem. I'm an open format working DJ. I'm from New Jersey. I love playing all genres. My real passion is EDM music. And I would love to get to this point where I'm doing XYZ. Like just be open and honest about it, you know, and make that your first post so that anybody that goes to your page clicks on that and is like, I understand what Cream is. He's like a local working DJ, but he's trying to get to this other point. Right. Yeah, that's great. the third thing would be if you're really starting to get to that point where you're playing a lot of big shows at home and you have this other thing that's like starting to take off, you might have to then separate the brands. It's a lot of work. It's hard, but it might just be the easiest thing to do. Have your local at home name, right? Whatever that is that people know you from in your local market and you play all the shows you can and... That's fine. And then your other project is very focused on the one single thing that you're really trying to do. And you go all in on that there. At some point you do need to make this decision. When do you know when to make that decision? You know, this is where that self-assessment really comes in. You have to really understand where your place is in your DJ career to then be like, okay, it's now time to separate and go all in on the sounds or go all in on my passion. And I feel like some people jump the gun a little bit because they play one big local show or they play... one big local show every quarter. Some people think that then, then that's time. um When do you think, because you've lived it, when do you think that, okay, I think I'm good enough now to start booking shows as DJ Cream the artist? I mean, this is like a whole episode in itself. I'll... uh part of DJ identity, right? Like this is part of knowing what your, knowing who you are as a DJ and knowing what your identity should be as a DJ. Well, I'll answer the first question, right? When would that time be? You never know. There's never the right time, right? You just have to sort of take the leap and put the work in and make it happen. ah I would say that the right time is when you're booking enough shows at home that it's hurting your travel schedule. Like, I can't say yes to something because I'm locked into a local show that, yeah, it's a good show, but I have this opportunity on the road that's like, 3X the money, way bigger name brand, way more important for my future. If you reach that point, then it's time. But until then, like, I think way too many people jump the gun and think they're bigger than they are. like, especially in this tough, tough climate for nightlife, uh where more more places are closing, there's less travel opportunities, there's less big show opportunities. Unless you really make an impact as a producer, it's going to be really hard. We've lived through a... music production, that's what every one of you guys should be focused on right now. Because my path, I don't think there's a lot more people that are going to take my journey right now. My path of like grind out local shows for years and years and get some opportunities out of state and then slowly turn that into like a travel DJ, sign to an agency. Like I don't think that's a realistic path for like 99 % of DJs. it's kind of the old school path at this point. That path has kind of been erased. It doesn't exist anymore because people just blow up on having a track or having a really good social media presence, having a lot of followers and having fans come out. it always ties back to the music, right? having, whether it be a viral video or viral song or a viral mashup remix, whatever it might be, it's it all has to do with your social media presence. if you, you know, and these, there's people that are looking to travel and it's like, well, you don't have a social media presence. So how can you, like, if you don't have a presence within market even, like how do you think you're gonna have a presence out of market? It's not realistic. And like you're saying, especially in a time right now, and I don't mean to be so negative, but especially in a time that, you know, paying a thousand dollars for a DJ to come that, maybe that wherever they're traveling to, the locals don't know who they are because their social media presence lacks, like it doesn't make sense. So, I gotcha. yeah, I mean, it's it's if you're younger, DJ wannabe, you know, not wannabe, but like, learning to produce practicing getting better. And you want to be more of this like EDM travel DJ, like, you gotta just produce music and you gotta hammer socials. Like, that's what the market is telling you that leads to success. So you have to listen to what the market is telling you. The market is saying we want DJs who are big on social who create fans on social media and have music that those fans want to hear. And like, that's the path. If you guys can't see that, then maybe you're not meant to be that person. Because like, to me, it's so crystal clear that this is the path to success in 2025. Make music, post a lot on social media, build a fan base. and then people will book you because you've created this fan base and you have the music to back it up. You don't have to like it. You could hate all the girl, like the, let me take that back, not just the girls. You can hate on the celebrity DJ, the model DJ. You can hate on that, but the market is telling you that that's what people want to book because they have this huge fan base and then they learn how to DJ and they maybe have a, you know, they learn how to produce or they get a ghost producer, whatever the case may be. Like that's what the market's telling you and you could hate it all you want. But if you don't learn to adapt and fit into what the market is calling for, then you're just gonna be a local DJ at home playing $300 shows. Like that's just the truth. It's the harsh truth. somebody's gotta say it, you know? Yeah, it's correct though. Spot on. DJ identity. It's the literally the literal most important thing, I think right now that you can focus on for the rest of this year, you have a couple months left before 2026. Have it really locked in for where you want to go. So that in 2026, come up with that plan, right? Come up with a social plan. It doesn't have to be super highly produced stuff. It can be this, it could be you on your phone on a tripod talking to the camera. with a few effects that you throw on in CapCut and a catchy hook text. And that's it. And you throw enough of those at the wall, maybe one hits. And then maybe you start booking bigger shows. It sucks. I don't want to do it. But you gotta do it. I don't want to do it. I hate it. But you have to do it if this is what you want to do. Open format guys, let's talk a little more about that with DJ identity because I think we haven't we haven't done enough justice for for you guys. Yeah, yeah, open format's a little more difficult, uh but it could be easier, too. It depends on how you want to attack it. Like, you know, you were telling me last week, uh you're saying, you know, we're kind of pushing artists to put out more mixes, put out more monthly mixes. And you're like, well, you're an open format DJ and you're into so much music. You can put out a different mix. Kareem was speaking to me is like you can put out a open format mix every month, and it's a little bit. and you could do a different genre every month for the whole entire year. And that's true. Like could put out 30 minute mixes of so many different genres, probably for two years straight and never repeat a genre. And then that's when you get a true sense of what that person's style is and how open format they can be. I think it's important that when you do do open format, style mixes, if you're going to be an open format DJ, this is my old school thinking. you can shoot this down if you'd like, but I like them to be like live mixes. I think open format DJs, it's important to have your mixes be live because you're pushing your DJing is what you're pushing. You know, if you're not pushing a genre or any kind of production, you're pushing your DJing. we want the people that are listening want to make sure that You have clean mixing, that your track selection's good. It's more about this more old school mentality of I'm listening to every mix, even if I fast forward through a song, I'm listening to every mix and I'm just listening to track selection and how kind of the journey that that mix might take me on or not, right? It's all about the real DJ portion of it. And that's why I love open format DJs. That's why I am an open format DJ because that is what I'm into. I'm not into production and all that, you know, other stuff. I think that's great advice. you know, Chachi and Madison have been like hammering all of all the DJs about monthly mixes at least one a month. And in thinking about it, I think it makes so much sense because even if you're not putting all these mixes out, right, even if you're just picking and choosing, there's a few ways, right? You can literally set up a camera or whatever and record a mix like any kind of mix and put that out or You can just work, if you're a good enough DJ and you're clean, you could just record a live mix and use that as like, Hey, this is what I did at a similar venue. I played at this venue. Here's my recorded live mix from it. And you send that to a Booker or for private events, like, Hey, this is a wedding I did last month. It's a very similar style of what you guys are looking for. I think that's so valuable. If you're an open format DJ. record so many of these mixes. And if you're an open format DJ that, hey, sometimes I play reggaeton parties, sometimes I play hip hop parties, sometimes I play like an open format where I play all these genres, have all those mixes ready, so that when a booker hits you up, or if you're reaching out to a booker even better, and this is a reggaeton party like, I didn't know Kareem could play reggaeton. here's my live mix from this venue where I played a 60 minute reggaeton set. Like, I think that is so, so valuable. for you guys as DJs to have at your disposal to then pass to people who are either inquiring about booking you or if you're actively trying to broaden your bookings and reaching out to venues or owners or bookers. I think it's like the most important thing you could do right now. having these mixes on hand will make you money. Point blank, will make you money. If you don't, you're going to be losing money. I mean, we've seen it time and again, asking people for mixes. send me a mix. Let's see if you fit this venue. I don't have one. Or it comes three days later. It's like, I'm trying to make a decision now. You know what I mean? So having this stuff on your laptop right on, right. Right, right, have access to it on your phone, because you don't know, you're out and somebody asks you for a mix, you better have a link immediately, because you're gonna be passed by and you can lose potential thousands of dollars. And it adds up over the year for sure, so very, I'm gonna give you a glimpse into what happens as a booker, right? I'm sitting down, I'm spending the next one hour booking this venue, let's say. We'll start with one venue. I'm gonna book one venue. I'm gonna text all my DJs that I either wanna work with or have regularly booked and said, hey, me your dates. If I reach out to a new DJ and I'm like, hey man, thinking about booking you, do you have a mix that you can send me so I can like see if this makes sense? Like I need to have that immediately because I'm spending this next one hour booking the DJ. So if you send it to me, oh, like I'll get it to you tomorrow. Like you're just not going to get booked, man. Like, sorry. And this goes for, for anybody listening. Like if a Booker hits you up, get back to that person immediately. If you're driving, pull over. If you're DJing, like figure out a way to get those dates over or the link over or whatever you need to do to that, to get to that Booker because There's a very, it's usually the bookers are really busy people. There's a small window of time where they're gonna spend working on the calendar and either you get the information to that person or you don't. And if you don't, you're not gonna get booked. Yeah, I was dealing with a drop yesterday and I had up four DJs and one got back to me and the other three got back to me hours later and then like that that that person got booked. You know, it's it's a. This is a just a business that's fast and you always have to be ready if if you're going to if you're looking to grow or you're looking just to work and pick up gigs no matter what, like if you want to work like you better be ready with mixes, headshots, you know. into the social social media social media links all that you should have your EPK ready to rock at all times. I think one of our upcoming shows should definitely be like what to have in my electronic press kit and pretty much go through every each individual thing that you should have in a Dropbox or like Google Drive folder so that when someone hits you up, you don't have to scramble to create something. You don't have to scramble to find something. It's all there and you can literally on your phone, go on Dropbox, copy the link and send it to the Booker instantly, like immediately. be a good follow-up episode to this one. know, yeah, I like that. And again, this is a great time here. We're recording mid October to really start getting this stuff in order for 2026. I'm doing it. So like, I'll do it on my own and then we can talk about it and sort of go through each individual thing that I have in this folder that you all should have as well. And then we could talk about sort of, if you don't have those things, how you can get them. Yeah, there's so many different ways at this point that. That that rather yeah. sort of wrap it with, guess, one, what's a good takeaway for everyone that's listening on DJ identity and what, and I'll do an action item. uh I'm huge on and always have been huge on just self-awareness. Know where you're at in your career. Know where your quote unquote brand is at and know what you're strong at, what your strong points and then know your weaknesses. And as we're going into this new year, understand those weaknesses and really attack those in a way to kind of make yourself a well-rounded and presentable. and marketable DJ. And I would say if... I would say if you... I lost my train of thought here. I was gonna say if... Oh, if you're thinking about content and thinking about how to sort of project this brand out into the world, ask yourself if I don't know who DJ Cream is and someone comes to my page, can they understand what I do and who I am? And if you can't uh do this on your own, Ask a fellow DJ, ask a mentor, ask someone you respect, like, can you go on my Instagram or my TikTok and can you tell me what you see as an outside person? What's my brand? What do you think of DJ Gary W.? Who am I? Can you tell who I am as a DJ by just looking at my page? And if the answer is no, then you need to figure out a way on how to do that. Just be very clear. Be very clear and... Don't assume people know who you are and know what you do. 1 % of the population knows who cream is. So if someone comes to my page, they have to know who I am and what I do immediately. And that goes for everyone listening too. just a precursor, do not go to my Instagram because it is not DJ Forward. I've gone the other route. I've taken the Booker route now. I play my spots that I know that I like to play and that's where I'm gonna end my DJ career. Right, but that's what your identity is, right? Your identity is like, you're still DJing, but you're more focused on being a Booker. Our podcast, right, we help DJs, you're a coach, you're a Booker, like, and that's what you're projecting into the world. And there's, that's okay, because that's where you are in your journey. I knew we'd have legs on that conversation. Yeah, it was a great conversation. was important. I don't know if we've touched on a lot of those topics that we like sort of talked about within your DJ identity, but I don't know if we've ever actually like really gotten into that. We never labeled it DJ identity and I think it's important to for listeners to understand and for younger DJs to understand that that's that's a huge thing. Like we've talked about each aspect of that in a larger episode but never really packaged it together in a way that it's like, okay, well this is how to understand my DJ identity. All right, let's go to this next topic, Gara. Obviously, we're not gonna go super long on this, but a lot of the DJ community conversation over the last couple months of us not recording has been around streaming music and everything that BeatSource has been doing. And I really do think it's an important topic that we should touch on, even if all the other podcasts have talked about it, because I really do think that our industry is so far behind. when it comes to streaming that, number one, it's like mind blowing to me, but number two, it's like, we're gonna get to this place eventually and we all need to learn to embrace it and figure out how to use it. And I sort of wanna talk through why it's not as drastic or crazy as some people make it out to be. Well, I'm going to just start as everything that we consume at this point, at least everything that I consume is streamed. stream like I stream all of my TV. It's all on YouTube or some app. It's not I don't listen to conventional radio or conventional television. Like I don't. the newest episode of whatever to your computer so you could watch it? Like, that's so fucking crazy to me. The only thing that I download at this point is like my running playlists on my watch. because like in case something drops, in case my streaming drops, I want to make sure I have something, you know, and that's I think those are the only points in which I'm downloading anything. And then I go to my professional life and I'm like, here I am fucking downloading stuff. This is foreign to every other thing I do in life. It's completely different. It's wild. behind the tech, like we're so far behind in the DJ world. And granted, know DJs are usually super late adopters. They don't like change. They don't want to move to the next thing. But guys, like this is what's going to be the norm in the next two years. You want to talk about late adopters? I just watched Spider just put up a video of him and DJ AM doing a Mavi jeans, um, like in store from two wait books that for them for like, for like 2000 from like 2005 or something. And he was playing on Serato. And I'm like, you want to talk about late adopter? Like I didn't get started. It's like mid 2008, um, at least mid to late 2008. So like that, and that shit had been out already for probably for like 60 years, I think at that. in that, but it was the same thing. It was the same thought process that we're going through now. It's like, is this safe? What if the computer crashes? It's all of this worry about is something going to happen where the music's going to stop, right? about stuff that you don't need to worry about. You're just uneducated on how it works. Well, exactly. Just like any other change is just it's that being scared because you don't know. So vinyl to CDs, CDs to MP3s, or vinyl to Serato, which then brought CDs and MP3s eventually. And we've sort of been in this same download MP3s, load them into my USB stick or my computer and play it that way for many, many, many, many years. Yeah. And like, think about DJs, you know what I always use as like an indicator of like the old school don't want to change DJs or the new DJs when Serato DJ Pro came out and that was like the new thing. How many DJs were on Scratch Live for like seven years after Serato Pro came out? Yeah, I'm sure you did. No, I did too because... there were certain mixers or controllers that you had to use Scratch Live with. I jumped over immediately with that because there were features that were amazing and you, you know, I wanted to utilize those immediately, but like, better believe scratch live is there on the desktop, just in case that shit crashed. was moving over immediately. and or use Scratch Live? Shame on you if you do. No way. It looks so different. It is wild, but. had a, they could like put the scratch, the scratch live skin on Serato, on the DJ Pro, which like a bunch, we had like a meetup and a bunch of DJs were putting the scratch live skin on their Serato DJ Pro, which I thought was funny. It's scary when you're in front, I mean, you're in front of like three, four or 500 people and then like you have to, you know, make this change and it's scary. Like it is a very scary thing. Like the worst thing that could happen to a DJ when you're playing is having your computer crash or having having something crash, you know, whether that be a CDJ or something happened to that's going to affect the way that you're performing and But let's dispel that right now. So, for anyone that has Spotify and uses it as a consumer, you can go on Spotify, you can create playlists, you can then download those playlists so that when you're not connected to the internet, you can access all of that music. DJing is going to be the exact same way, where you're gonna prep your folders and you're just gonna download them to the computer or to, you know, the program or however that works technically, and you'll have access to all of those folders that you download locally. And it's the same thing in Dropbox, right? Like you could put stuff on Dropbox that's offline mode, right? So that you can access it whether you have internet or not. Very, very simple, very quick fix that alleviates the, what happens if I don't have internet? That's not a thing. Right, I have to dive into this because this is something that I would, with the amount of playlists that I make unprofessionally that I probably use professionally, is enormous. And I'm sometimes doing... and access stuff from Tidal, BeatSource, Spotify. Like, if you want to do that, you can set up your Serato to do that right now. Now, where there's a gap is, well, Cream, I don't just play the original song. Of course, none of us just play the original song. But as you see on BeatSource, they are starting to bring over editors and remixers so that you can access that music streaming on BeatSource. This is the future. This is where this is going. What it's gonna look like, I'm not sure. Are you gonna have to have a Club Killers thing, a DJ City thing? Like that might be a little bit annoying. Or do you just somehow have access to those and you could drag those folders into a playlist as you normally do now as if you downloaded the song, but just as the streaming version that you download locally to your streaming Serato. You know what I mean? you would hope that companies don't get stingy where they're like, well, you have to specifically be in like this, I don't know, this folder in order to access the songs from our website. You understand what saying? And hopefully you could like drag that out and like do a, you know, do a DMP, pull a DMP folder into and then combine it with like an HMC folder kind of a thing. You know, hopefully you don't have to toggle, right. able to go access DMP Top 100 Songs and be able to drag those songs into a folder that I'm going to DJ out of that has songs from DMP, from Clubkillers, from whatever streaming, whatever site you're using. Like, that's the user-friendly, logistical way that this is going to work. Now, record labels and record pools and all working together to make this happen. That's where there's gonna be a hold up. But we're gonna get there guys. This is gonna be the thing. So start learning about it, figuring out how it works. If nothing else, guys, you can literally, you're, this is great for events for sure. Any event. If you're working an event and you have access to let's say title and someone comes and requests a song, the person that booked you let's say, where it's like, I need to get this song. You don't have to scramble to get on the internet and get on a download site or do a YouTube downloader. You can just go to the title thing, open it up, find the song and stream it. And like, how amazing is that? How much less stress is that than like, fuck, I gotta get this song. The person who paid me all this money needs me to play this song or we have this thing that's happening that I didn't know about and I don't have the song that goes with it. Yeah, there's endless positives to this, endless. Yeah, stop being an old cranky DJ and accept the new technology and learn and go, just go learn about it and it'll alleviate any of your stress. That's it. Love it. Stop being cranky old DJs. Shit. That's why I love talking to the young DJs now. Yeah, they keep us young, like that's, you need to know, you need to adapt or die as we say always on this show and to all of our DJs, adapt or die. Either you're willing to do it or your career goes away. know, like it's very simple to me. Either you want to 20 TikToks about your new song that's coming out or you just don't care about your song being that successful. Don't hate me for all my reels and TikToks I've been harassing everyone with every day. The other aspect of that, though, really quick is that like venues are going to have to have the equipment that can handle the streaming, right? Like, can I, because I don't have 3000s at home, but obviously you can, the 3000s can handle it, but can the older stuff handle it? Yeah, if you're playing on a computer, sure. If you're playing USB sticks, that's a little murkier. But like, if you're playing USB sticks... You're probably playing like a set, like a set set. Yeah, that doesn't matter. you're not playing a five hour or four hour DJ set, probably. Hopefully. Or if you are, it's like, you know, you're playing all tech house kind of thing. Right, just a random thought. All right, good place to wrap. All right, cool. Little promo. When you guys are hearing this, my song with Solano will be out. Light uh it up. Solano and Kareem, a little bass house banger. It's got some like UK aspects. It's a little abstracty. It's a little Henry Fong-y. It's a little different from stuff that's coming out right now. ah It's been getting really great responses in my shows for the last five months. So... We're really excited that it's coming out or out whenever you hear this. We'd love and greatly appreciate you guys going in, you know, adding it to your playlists, downloading, listening, just supporting the track. So appreciate you guys as always, and really excited about this one. If you're watching this on YouTube, I'm going to try to throw the track here on the end. Yeah, we'll put the links everywhere, so... It'll play us out at the end of this episode. Sweet. All right, thank you guys for listening to this episode. Excited to be back, and we will talk to you guys soon. Peace.