Interview by Bryant Bowens (@arete88)
Here at FSD, we strive to shed light on the people who make your favorite rapper a cult phenomenon. These are the people behind the scenes– video directors, DJs, and producers. The man behind the man, so to speak. This is another installment of our “Who Shot Ya?” series, where we get the inside stories on the “unsung” heroes in the Chicago industry.
In our third installment, we highlight 18-year-old DJ Hustlenomics. We chopped it up with the outspoken disc jockey in what might be our most talked about “Who Shot Ya” piece to date. The young spin master discusses Chicago’s lack of unity, amateur DJs taking money out of his pockets, and the mixtape that got Chief Keef’s career rolling. Get the Yellow Tape!
FSD: What’s your life been like these past couple of months?
Hustlenomics: Man, it’s been crazy. A lot of clients I started out with, we still rocking. A lot of new clients I’m working with, as well as semi-major clients. I have a couple of industry clients in the works. I got a couple of events coming up as well.
FSD: For those reading up on you for the first time, how did you enter the world of DJing?
Hustlenomics: My pops was a DJ. He was like 12 or 13 DJing parties back when they were carrying crates down the street. In seventh or eighth grade, I went to school with a couple of friends that rapped. We jumped off the porch like that. I’ve been Hustlenomics ever since.
FSD: How old are you?
Hustlenomics: I’m 18 — everybody thinks I’m older!
FSD: What was the mixtape that put you over the edge as one of the leading DJ’s in the city?
Hustlenomics: It was Chief Keef’s Bang Mixtape. It’s an artist by the name of Edai, he made a status on Facebook asking “Who wants to host my mixtape?” I replied like, “Let me host it.” It was another artist by the name of S.Dot, which led to Chief hitting me up about hosting his mixtape. This was around the end of July 2011. It took us a couple of months to release it. It wasn’t until October when we dropped it, and after that our name was everywhere. By the time the mixtape came out, “Bang” was already 100K views–from there it was over with.
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