Handling Cancel Culture As A DJ 🚫

• How to deal with one unhappy group in an otherwise packed happy room.
• Why positive energy from the DJ and the crowd matters. 
• What to do if you're cancelled for a show. How to handle it like a pro.
• How Cream & Gary handle dropped or swapped gigs. How and when it's ok to do it. 
• How has cancel culture can impacted DJs and their music choices significantly?
• Why it's important to take care of the venues and bookers that have supported your career.

Chapters

• 0:00 Navigating a Busy DJ Season
• 2:54 Dealing with Cancellations
• 6:01 The DJ's Energy and Audience Dynamics
• 12:09 Understanding Venue Identity
• 17:48 The Impact of Cancel Culture on DJs
• 30:02 The Diddy Discussion and Cancel Culture
• 52:01 Playing Controversial Music
• 57:59 Upcoming Gigs and Wrap-Up

Transcript

0:01

All right, what's up guys? Welcome to the 164th episode of the Grow My DJ Business podcast brought to you by the Grow My DJ Business Discord, Digital Music Pool and the Pyrrhoi Production Academy. My name is Kareem. Gary W here and just really trying to get through this week. This is gonna be a quick episode, guys. Gary and I have just been like completely non-stop for the last, for this entire week. And it's taking a toll on your boys here. we're always so slammed. I hate those people that are always so busy. I'm always, always so slammed. But truly this week was a little rough. I feel like that fall hit where we usually get busy, first two weeks of September all got lumped into this week for whatever reason. There's a lot of Halloween stuff going on. There's a lot of private events stuff happening. Yeah, wedding season's kinda come into a close here, probably at the end of October in our market. And there's just a ton of shit happening. And here we are. Yeah, how I explain it to anybody when they ask me how I'm doing, I'm like, well, I have four jobs, I guess, and all of them are the most busy between September and New Year's Eve. It's true, but you know, we got to enjoy some time off in the summer, which was nice. Don't forget about that, that we get to enjoy a little time off. You can't lose sight of that. been weird. I've had some Fridays off here recently. I had like a scheduled Friday off and then I had a cancellation. I talked about, you know, the venue that didn't open. Had to push back the grand opening. like, we've been super busy with our back end stuff, but I haven't been DJing really as much as I normally do. So I guess there's a little bit of a give and take there. It's been nice to be a regular human on a couple Friday nights this month. Real quick, just to, because you don't get canceled a lot, how do you deal with cancellations and the repercussions of it, whether it be financially or how do you maybe even take advantage of it as having a time off, from a time off perspective? I know we've talked about having nights off, but these unplanned nights off for some people are a little tougher to navigate, I think. Yeah, mean, luckily we have enough stuff going on that financially, sure, it hurts to not make that money that I was planning on making, but there are ways for me to make that up, right? Like I can create more music and, you know, I can try to pick up gigs other places, or maybe I'd take a day shift that I normally wouldn't take just to make up that money a little bit. You know, it's football season, so technically I could work every Sunday if I wanted to. So instead of those two Fridays, I can get myself booked for two Sundays kind of thing. So luckily, because we do have the booking stuff happening, I can sort of be flexible there. Last weekend, I legit wanted to go out and network and every person that I hit up or went to go look to see where they were DJing was out of town. like, I'm like, maybe I'll pop out and see Cupid at Nebula or... you know, I'll go see Chachi or Rick somewhere in the city or I'll go see this person like Chachi's in Japan and Rick is in, I forget where Rick was, but everybody was traveling. So yeah, I did nothing. I was asleep by 12.30 probably on Friday and I just, I spent that time prepping music and making music and I had Cream and Friends that came out last week. So there was a lot of stuff that I was still working on from that. So I just kind of worked on the cream brand and I relaxed in that time that I didn't work. I think these are great lessons for younger DJs that you might get canceled. When you're a younger DJ, sometimes you do get canceled because, the bar is going to be slowed, so we're going to cancel you this week. And in our industry, there's just not a lot of contracts, so there's not a of ironclad ways to be getting paid. So those are great things to do, whether it's go find a gig that maybe you haven't played or you want to play and it's on a Saturday afternoon or a Sunday afternoon, especially during football season, and you got the MLB playoffs going on. So maybe you can work a sports bar into playing the playoffs and doing the commercials and things like that. Just getting creative and how to get booked is a great way to make up that money. And then also it won't only make up that money, it might also generate new money moving forward. So. Yeah, I think also how you react to someone canceling you is extremely important. if you get canceled for a gig, don't get mad. Don't give the person a hard time. Be understanding. In most cases, it probably wasn't that person's fault and they're just carrying out the execution, so to speak, right? Where they're the person that has to let you know that they were canceled for whatever reason. giving them a hard time is not going to get you booked again. So if you're you can say you're disappointed, you could say that sucks, but you understand. I think the most important thing is, okay, can we get another date on the calendar to make up for this date? That is the most important thing that you can do. If you can knock out that date that literally when you get canceled, that's the best possible scenario, right? Because it's on that person's mind, they probably feel a little bad. and they're gonna try to help you out and make up for that gig. So if you can get it locked down in that first conversation, that's your best bet. If you can't, you need to follow up like Tuesday, right? And if they don't answer you, follow up again on Thursday and you have to really stay on top of that person to make sure that they make up for that lost booking. And if they don't, maybe you don't wanna work with them ever again. Yep, 1000%. Love it. All a little throw in there. Something we didn't have plans to talk about, but a little throw in. Yeah, what I do, I want to talk about something that happened again this weekend to me. And it's at one of our spots in New York City, Downtown Social. It's a very EDM dance music driven room. That's sort of the brand, right? This this company owns a number of venues in New York City and down in Charleston. And this is what they do at all their venues. They have, you know, sports bars or bars that do elevated nightlife where they have stages and some visuals and lighting and they bring a fun factor to nightlife. This particular room is also very college driven. So it's younger, you know, all those pop vocals that are hitting right now, they work either as an original or as an EDM remix or edit. So I'm DJing in the room and we're starting to get busy. It's peak hour. We're going and the room's packed and people are dancing around, jumping around, we got glow sticks out there, and I'm having a good time, except for the fact that there's a group of girls directly in front of the stage. Now, the stage, there's no barrier. you're, I could like high five people if I wanted to. There's a group of girls right in front of the stage with like sour pusses on their face. look, clearly not having a good time when everyone else around them is having a great time. And it was bothering me. because I'm trying not to look at them. don't want to see their negative energy or feel their negative energy, but I do. can't help it, right? You feel that energy, whether it's good or bad. Everyone else has given me great energy and I feel it on the sides, in the back, but directly in front of me, I have this black hole of terrible energy. And so like, I got to a point, I'm like, what's wrong? Like, why aren't you guys having fun? Like, what's the problem? They're like, we want hip hop. And I'm like, well, look around like this is what we do here. We don't really play a lot of hip hop here. I can and I do, but that's not predominantly what we do. It's in very small spurts. And what they said to me was, well, the DJ last week played a ton of hip hop. And I'm like, well, they probably shouldn't have. That's not what we do here. I literally just kept saying that's not what we do here. What we do here is like fun up tempo EDM stuff. And like, I'm having this sort of back and forth throughout the course of 10 or 15 minutes. And it just sucked. Like it was, it was like one of those things where like it was, it was such a great night minus this negative, this negativity in front of me. This went on, they stood there for that long, for 10 to 15 minutes. don't, someone please explain to me why these miserable girls hang out in front of DJ booths when the, it's always these miserable, this small group of miserable girls. Every time you see a video of this, and if you're listening, I'm putting my phone to my head. Every time you see a video of that, everybody behind them is having a great time except for that person. 100 % of the time you see that. Why do they feel the need to put themselves right in front of the DJ booth and look miserable? Because you're right. The minute the DJ picks up on that, that's the minute where you get a lot of positive and great energy just sucked out of you because it makes you feel awkward. It's going against everything that you're trying to accomplish in the room. And I don't know if they're doing it purposely, but if you're listening to this and you're one of those people, get the fuck to the back of the room because like you just, you know what? And we'll just wait, just wait until your music comes on, right? Because obviously everybody else in the room is having a good time. Like just go do something else. And I hate to say this because I, this is, never want this to happen, but just go somewhere else. Then just go to a different bar that plays that music. Sometimes I've lost my temper and lost my cool in these situations and I will literally say like just leave go somewhere else and That's just me getting frustrated and my temper boiling over and me just losing it and like having enough Because these these people these groups of people that do this they give you like this didn't happen They didn't give me the thumbs down which to me is like the ultimate disrespect and I fucking hate my blood will go from zero to a hundred in point one second if you do that to me. And like if you do that to me, if there is someone that works in the venue that's around me, I will be like, can we just get these people out of here? Like can we buy them a shot? Can we just kick them out? Can we do something to get them away from me? Just get them away from me. Because it's now affecting my DJ set. Because it's affecting my DJ set where I'm in a flow state and then I have this disruption. And when they do that to me, I don't want to give in and play what they want. I want them to get the, I wanna do the exact opposite of that. They don't deserve to have this negative behavior, like, reinforced by getting what they want. Like, fuck you, get outta here. But you get the thumbs down, you get the eye roll, you get the, like, the stank face, just all the negative body language. And, yeah, I've, I've literally called people out on the mics. I've done everything over the years to those people. And it's like the minute they walk away and they leave that space, it's like a weight's been lifted off your back. I've seen a lot of video where DJs have been keeping it professional, especially lately. They're keeping it really professional, but then there comes a point where somebody crosses over, they step over the line. And then the DJ can react accordingly, whether that be calling them out on the microphone, whether that be getting them removed from the space right in front of the booth, or getting them removed from the club altogether. It's important though, think, still to stay professional until that line is crossed, right? Whether that be a loud boo, or they're yelling at you, or they're making a scene. And then it justifies some kind of action being taken. I think a good rule of thumb here, and I know it's really hard to do, but if you just kill them with kindness, at least they'll be like, well, this guy's not a dick. He's at least trying to be cool about it. And maybe that is getting them a shot, or maybe that is getting them a drink, because number one, gets them away from you. And number two, you're giving them something to try to help their mood or what kind of fun they're having. Why is it, let me ask you this question, why is it always, The people that want to hear hip hop are the ones that are giving me the thumbs down and the whatever. Is it because I just don't play that much music anymore? But it always seems to be the hip hop people, the people that want to hear hip hop, that are giving me the thumbs down when I'm playing EDM. A lot of people that, that was gonna be a general, you know what I was just going to say was going to be a general statement, blanket statement that would have been true 15 years ago, it's not true. Yeah, like the Tech House bros, I'm sure, can be annoying and harass you about music too, but it just seems to always be someone that's asking to play hip hop that's harassing the shit out of me. I think because some of those people that want you to play hip hop, they want to just be able to sing along to a song, you know? Whatever specific song that they're talking about. but like every song I'm playing in this room has like vocals that people know. It's a sing-along room. Sure, maybe it's a harder EDM or tech house remix, but every single song I play is going to have vocals that you can sing or know. Yeah, I don't know why the hip hop requesters go so hard. But I've had Taylor Swift requesters go pretty hard too. So like it goes both ways and I think it depends what it depends on the person that's requesting it. pop rage can go hard like during bad bunny time had money was went real hard. predominant for like 18 months that was going on. like, it just depends on, you know, the crowd and kind of what's popular at the time. And, you know, just kind of what people are yearning for and want. it's just there's just a lot of spoiledness going out on out there. you know people are just kind of self-centered and everything revolves around them and what they want is what they socks but this is this is what we deal with you know this is what we do let's jump back to one point where they said, the DJ played a lot of hip. What do you mean the DJ played a lot of hip hop last week? This is sort of leads into what we were talking about last week when it comes to when a party has a vibe or a theme or style of music that's associated with it. An identity. If a DJ goes off that identity, it can mess up the flow of that room for weeks afterwards. And that's why when I was in the room that we talked about on the last episode, I really wanted to stay in that up-tempo dance music lane because that's what they do. And I don't want the next DJ to also have to go through what I went through of dealing with this back and forth of like, I leave the format or I do what the people want in front of me kind of thing. This really is specific to places that have that identity. And you know it when you play there that you're there to play a certain music. Open format rooms, you can get away with a little more house one night, a little more hip hop the other night, maybe a little more Latin the next night. Open format rooms, they don't have a quote unquote identity, right? You can really do what you want. Right, and that's why, you know, it takes a specific DJ to be in those rooms. So when you have, it's kind of funny to me because a lot of our guys that DJ that room, they are house DJs. They produce house music. That's it. They produce only house music and they want to DJ only house music. Then you stick them in a room where you can play only house music and they go and play hip hop. It's wild to me. Wild to me. But you're, that's what it is. is what it is. It's just like that's what we normally have to do in many places. And it's like, that's just sort of what everybody expects to go do every weekend. I don't blame them for it because their inner DJ says go and go and play this music because the the the vibe the energy in the rooms coming down a little bit. Let me switch the energy and then we'll get back into house music. It's just when you're going to do that and if the venue allows you to be that a little more versatile DJ in that identity driven room you need to know that you got to be in and out. You got to kind of be you got to step in and out. Yeah. switch up that vibe, switch up the energy a little bit, send a couple of those EDM bros to the bar, and then come back to that stuff probably within 10 to 12 minutes, because you know how many songs, you know how many songs you can hit in 12 minutes, right? You can hit 10 songs in 12 minutes. You can hit every popular track there is. you know, out right now in that 10 or 12 minutes and then come back to the house stuff. So you're switching people's ear up, you're getting people to the bar, and then you're coming back and reestablishing the identity of the room. And this way people aren't confused next week, the next week where it's like, last week's DJ sat in hip hop for a half hour, this is probably an open format room. They're not thinking that like in those words, but that's what they're thinking. So. Right, like, that DJ played all the new hip hop for 20 minutes last week. Like, let's go back to that place, because we're going to hear hip hop. But you shouldn't be. Except in that particular room, in very small spurts, like we just talked about. Yeah, you should be hearing that stuff spread out. Like throughout my set, I'll drop down once, twice, you know, and do a quick hip hop set or a quick Latin set or a quick like fun bar sing along set, like originals. But each of those sets, like we said, five, six, seven, eight songs. And I'm right back to the regularly scheduled program because that accomplishes everything that you're trying to do by changing the tempo, right? Or changing the style of music. You go hit some other stuff. You change people's ears a bit. If the manager's like, why are they doing this? Then you go right back to what you're expected to do. And managers are happy, customers are happy, and you're good. You scratched an itch for a group of people in the room, and then you're back to what really normally happens. Yeah. Yeah. All right, I'm going to preface this next conversation by get down DJs. Please don't be offended by this, but we've created monsters, Gary. We've created monsters. We have somehow created the normalcy of DJs being okay with dropping bookings. And when we started this whole get down thing, it was important for us, right? It was something that we sort of wore like a badge of honor. Like, guys, like we're all going to work as a team. We're going to help each other. If better opportunities come along, you know, we're going to do our best to try to move people around so you can go do this better opportunity. We still do that, but you fast forward five, six, seven, eight years back then, Aldez shouts, Al, Al Dez posted a memory of like us posting on Facebook or somewhere like that. We had eight DJs booked at eight venues and we were like promoting it like get down DJs. Let's go. And like, fast forward to now, you know, don't know, however many DJs we're booking in a month, hundreds of DJs per month, the drops and the DJ drops are getting harder and harder and harder to deal with. And it's a struggle. It's a struggle on our end. And because we want to help the DJs out, right? We want the DJs to be able to go do what's best for them. But it's reached a point where it is now hurting our business and it's not what's best for Get Down. The reason we're bringing this up because it's come to light that other bookers are prefacing or putting out notifications. And this isn't just one booker, this is a couple bookers that I know very straight up, are putting out notifications to their DJs that they're booking that they are not allowed to drop gigs. I hate to always go back to how it was before get down DJ group, but we're going to, because that was what the norm was is you took a gig and you did not drop it. You did. I don't care what happened in life. You did not drop the gig. You know, it's, like, it's like when a performer signs to go play Madison square garden and then they say, I'm going to postpone. I can't play that gig. is extremely frowned upon within the fan community. Correct. for sure. like people are, know, the venue, the bartenders, you know, if you're a regular DJ at a place and that, and you're being booked there because repeat booked there because you're a popular DJ there, you did a good job last time you were there, you provide some kind of value for that room. That's why you're getting booked at that venue. If you've played there before, there's value there. The minute that you drop that gig and give it to somebody else, that value goes away. And that's why it hurts so much. For the Booker, for the bar, for the bartenders, for everybody that's involved in making money at that place. Right? 75 % of the time, your replacement is not going to do as good of a job as you would have done, or you normally do. Yeah, because guess what? That replacement, he would have been asked to do the gig before you if he was gonna do a good job. Make sense? Would have just asked that guy. And next time, because he or she does a great job in that venue, guess who's gonna get asked to do it? Your replacement. 100 % of the time, your replacement will get asked to come back if they do a great job. Because this is an industry of Next up. when we were coming up, as you said, this was never a thing. And in fact, if you canceled or swapped out a gig, you were likely never getting booked again, ever. Like you're just out at that venue. Do you know how many times, there was a point where I was opening and closing at a number of high end great spots in New York City. And... I wanted to play those all the time. It was awesome. It was the best. It was the best feeling ever for me when I was a young DJ. And that's what I wanted to do. But that stuff would always be super last minute. Hey, cream, can you book? Can you work this Saturday night? Well, I'm already booked. I can't, you know, everything in me wanted to move the gig that I did have booked, which was probably back then some shitty local bar in Hoboken or Jersey City, not right, not not one of the better places. It's one of those things where like, I'm booking this because I want to be a full-time DJ and I want to make money and whatever. This is a place that I'm working monthly, let's say, or every other week or whatever. But like, I just had to tell the better opportunity no, because the right thing to do and the thing that was expected of me was to work the agreed upon gig that I agreed to a month ago. They don't give a shit if I have a replacement, you know? They don't care. They're like, Kareem, we booked you. We need you there. The booker that's trying to book you for that other gig will respect you more in saying that I'm already booked with so and so. Hit me up next month, I'll make sure I have some dates available for you. They'll respect you more, for sure. date, but here's the next two months. Here's my availability. I would love to lock in a date. Right, right. And more often than not, that booker is going to come back and call you because they're going to respect you for not leaving another gig. I can't tell you how many times that we've told that we've spoke. We speak to every booker in the state and also in New York City, right? I can't tell you how many times I've talked to them and they were like, I didn't know that such and such was booked with you the night that I booked him. I didn't realize that he was booked with you and he dropped a gig to come. work for me or she dropped a gig to come work for me. And like they were like almost appalled and apologetic. And it's like, well, you know, the, and that's how I know that that booker would be like, no, I got a, I already got a gig hit me up again to book me for a gig next time. would a hundred percent do that. Yeah, and those bookers have told us straight up, like, no, we don't allow our people to drop gigs. Like, what? That's crazy. It's as our business has grown, right? It's just increasingly harder to, and not only as our business has grown, but as our DJs have grown, because our DJs are all working, heavily working DJs. So if someone's dropping a gig on a Saturday night, it's going to be extremely unlikely that someone on that same talent level or someone that normally plays in the room, that's being dropped is available. So we then have to go to this second group of people who maybe have never played there before and the manager doesn't know. And you know, that just creates this carry down effect of stress and worry and more work for everyone involved. And I get it as a DJ, yeah, I wanna go take that better opportunity. And... In many cases, I will do my best to help the DJs go take those better opportunities, right? Like, hey, Kareem, I just got an opportunity to do Atlantic City. Is there any way we could get make that happen? I will do everything I can to make that happen because I know how important that is. But like, it just reaches a point where like we are gonna have to make some sort of a change and I think we're approaching that point where, you know, we voice concerns and it really hasn't made a difference kind of thing. This is a huge testament to the talent level of our DJs. Big shout out to literally every one of our DJs, especially guys that are being asked to go play all over the place because these guys are putting in all the work that they need to to be the best that they can be. And that's why they're being asked to go play everywhere else. Very, very talented group of guys and girls that we have and super proud of them for all of this stuff, you know? And I get it, like all that temptation, especially when you're young, especially in this day and age, everything moves very fast. Everything can move very fast. Sometimes you expect it to. So, you know, if you think that next gig is like one step up, you want to take that, that step up obviously, right? and so I get it. I understand it and you understand it more than anybody. I know that. And it just, I, I understand. It's almost like a badge of honor that they're doing this though too, because it's like, all right, these guys are sought after, these guys and girls are sought after. You love that portion of it, right? It's just the portion of trying to fill that great talent with other great talent is difficult. And I think that's the point being made here. It's like, you work your way up and you wanna do so in a way that makes sense for all the people involved in your DJ career. it's hard to sometimes understand that you're leveling up and the next person behind you isn't, and that's maybe not a fair replacement, let's say, for a gig, right? It's sometimes hard to adjust to understanding your talent level and where you're at in your DJ career. like, you you get it from both sides, but super proud of everybody for all the hard work that they do for us as well, you know? Everyone has grown, like everybody. And I love to see it. Yeah, it's great. It's great. But it's just not it wasn't the norm and it's still not the norm. But I think we've made it the norm within our our group. I think it's just maybe, you know, coaching in in in how to go about a lot of these situations. I would like to know from outside of our market, is this normal? Do you drop gigs? You know, if you're in if you're in a different market, I would love to hear it in the comments like, you know, is dropping a gig something that is normal within your within your city or is it super frowned upon? it get you completely blackballed from places? as you know, that used to be, that used to be the norm here. Yeah, I think you have to pick and choose your battles and you never really know how people are gonna react and... My favorite story still is the New Year's Eve story for you. Because it's such a glaring one. So before I tell this story, I think it's important to say, we're always trying to grow, right? We're always, most of us, many people are trying to grow, book bigger gigs, try to get out to other markets. And that's constantly in the back of our heads. Like, how do I get to the next level, the next level? That's well and dandy and great. But at the same time, you have to take care of the venues and the people who have taken care of you over the years. And if you don't want to work with them anymore, then just always take the better gig. If that's what you're going to do, that's what you're going to do. But I think it's really important those home bases, those residencies, those owners and managers and bookers where you have a really tight knit relationship with, number one, you could have this open conversation with them and explain, hey, this is what's going on. Can we make this happen? Can we not? Is this going to hurt my relationship with you? If it is, I won't do it. But you got to take care of the people who have helped you get to where you are, right? So here's my example, right? I have been the resident at Birch at this point in time in my career. I was there, I think almost every Saturday. Birch was a new club in Hoboken, New Jersey. It was like the best spot in the area. Bottle service sold out every single Saturday. Amazing party, super fun. And I was there every week. I don't even know, man. 2018? Yeah, 17 or 18. It was in that area. there. Before COVID, I'm pretty sure. a lot very much before COVID. So that's what I'm thinking. It was like 17 or 18. At the same time, HQ2 in Atlantic City had just opened. I DJ'd the soft opening. I DJ'd an event with Jamie Foxx. I was heavily involved in playing in Atlantic City pretty much monthly from the opening. I was opening for the artists, right? A number of different artists would come in and I would play the opening close set. And I loved it. It was awesome. At the time, it wasn't paying a lot of money. I don't think I was even getting a hotel room at that time. But I just really wanted to be in Atlantic City and playing that room. So I did. So we're getting to New Year's, right? Like, and I'm booked at Birch. Birch is the ask me first. They're taking care of me. That's my residency. That's my family. know, Slav and Justin, promoters who I've worked with and we've come up together, we're part of that party. And like, that was my party. I said yes to that. Maybe a month before New Year's Eve, HQ approached me to open for Sunray James and Ryan Marciano on New Year's Eve. And I was stuck with this dilemma. Do I cancel on Birch, who's been, is my people, right? Like they're feeding me. That's my residency, my every week. They believed in me. They asked me to be the guy there. They're paying me way more money on New Year's Eve because they want me in the room. They're already promoting me and selling tickets. Can I cancel on them to go be an opener for HQ? Now, at the time, absolutely, I wanted to go do the HQ. This is an incredible party. It's New Year's Eve. It's high profile. It's with artists, what I wanted to do. But the right thing to do, and which is what I did do, was say, I'm sorry, HQ, I can't do this. I'm already committed to something else. They're already promoting the party with my face and my logo on it. So... That's it, I'm like, all right, that's fine, like, we're gonna move forward, it sucks, it is what it is, but Birch is gonna be amazing, and we're gonna have a great night, and we did. You and I talked this out for a week. We had the same conversation over and over for a week. to multiple people in my inner circle about this. And it was, I know we've told the story in the podcast, but if you haven't heard it here it is again. And we talked it out and you know, we, both were like, man, it'd be so great to go play, you know, down in Atlantic city. That'd be a great look. et cetera, et cetera. But we both knew in our gut at the end of the day, you needed to stay loyal to the local gig and a birch and the people that have, that, you know, brought you up, you know, through the ranks here in the Hoboken area and And that was the final decision. the last thing we said was HQ will call you back. Boy, were we wrong. Boy, were we wrong. beyond, like, the people who were booking me left HQ. That's sort of part of it too. But at the time, directly after that, those people were still there. So I don't know if I was blackballed because I said no. I don't know if, I don't know what happened and I'll never know. And this is one of those things where sometimes you do the right thing and Maybe it doesn't work out, or maybe it did work out because I'm now the entertainment director for Birch, and maybe if I canceled on them on that New Year's Eve, I wouldn't be in this position, or I wouldn't even be playing there anymore. 100%. 100%. I could see that. Right, so you you have to pick and choose your battles and you can't have it all. I was just talking to Martin on the phone, I'm like, bro, you're doing amazing, but you have to realize you can't have everything, right? Like, you can't be in every market, you can't be in every city, you can't be in every venue, even in our own markets, you can't be everywhere. And you really have to pick and choose and focus on the people that you have the best relationships with or you think give you the best lane to succeed, you know? Yeah, I love it. mean, that's all that's all really good information to take with you in making decisions moving forward, guys, because you're right. You can't have it all. We all want it all. We all want everything. Right. You and I want every venue in Jersey City and Hoboken and most of them in New York City. Right. But like, it's just not realistic. It's just not realistic. You know, we could yell about certain spots and we do. And but it's like you get all worked up for nothing. But it's make calculated decisions because you just don't know what's going to happen in the long run, right? Maybe you took HQ, you lost Birch, and then two months, that's exactly what would have happened. Because we all know, as soon as the booker or the manager moves on, usually the talent changes, right? Especially at the opener level, because it's all local opener. So if it's somebody who's... a different local manager that want to bring in their different local talent, they're going to do that. So maybe long run, that was a great move on your end by staying local. We'll never know, but. I'd, maybe I'd be a monthly resident headliner at HQ. Who knows? I don't know. or maybe not. We said this was going to be a short episode. It's not. No, I know. This is an important topic and I really do want to hear more feedback from other markets and DJs, if you want to shoot us a message DM or comment on the YouTube, let us know what happens in your market because I do, Gary, really think that we have this unique thing where we've just created a monster, as I said earlier, for better or for worse. Right. Yeah. Let us know. Let us know. Hit us in the comments. I know you will. Yeah. All right. Final topic here. We're gonna get into some music and some some cultural stuff here. And I think we've been sort of holding off on the Diddy conversation, but I think we're gonna dabble into it a little bit here. Let's talk a little bit about Diddy. We're not gonna obviously dive into the case and the morality and all that stuff of it, but I think just talking a little bit about Diddy and cancel culture and social media and artists that are canceled and what we are quote unquote allowed to play or not allowed to play based on who's been canceled and who hasn't. Let me, can I start this with why I brought this up as a podcast topic? This is kind of unique because I don't usually dig into pop culture all that much, right? And I find my, I found myself completely like enraptured in everything that was coming out because there's a million different accusations and didn't know where the information was coming from. and then found myself like just going down a rabbit hole on like YouTube shorts. And then I found myself on tick tock, which I don't usually scroll through tick tock all that much where like I'll get sucked in and I got sucked in one night scrolling through tick tock. And I'm like, what the fuck is going on right now? Like I'm like completely like, like I said, in Raptured in, in, everything that's going on with this Diddy situation, probably because I was thinking about it, because I looked at his album No Way Out, and when it came out, because I put it on the other day, just to kind of like go back and see why he had become popular. There's some really great tracks on there, by the way. And it came out in 97, and that was the year that I got my DJ equipment, right? So I think that I was playing, I'm so into that era of music, that era of hip hop. I think that's why I kind of really dug my feet down and really got into this whole gossipy bullshit. It made me start to think, why am I doing this? Right? I've never gone to TikTok for anything, really, and really scrolled on there. I've never even gone into YouTube shorts and scrolled through things. I think that's a, you're a minority in that sense for sure. So what I was gonna say was I consume 90 % of my TV consumption is YouTube, right? The other 10 % is whether that be sports or whatever it is. So I'm doing this and while I'm doing this I'm like, what is going on? I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling, I'm scrolling and then I find myself, I'm watching 10 minutes of a 15 minute video on YouTube, like a short YouTube video and I'm like. All right, well, this sounds like bullshit. And then I go to the next thing. this sounds like bullshit. And then at one point, I'm just like. Holy shit, anybody with a microphone and a ring light can just report whatever the hell they want. This is a hilarious statement because I'm sitting here with a microphone and a ring light. But, you know, our credibility within the DJ culture is that we've DJed for over 40 years combined, right? The credibility of somebody that's sitting down in their mother's basement with a microphone and a ring light reporting ditty news where they've never done anything that has to do with entertainment is mind blowing to me. Right? Not only that, is that that same person that's in their mom's basement doing this, collecting a million views, the next person that is consuming this is believing everything that they say. Which is even wilder. more wild thing that's happening in American culture, in world pop culture. So it got my mind thinking like, well, if that same person could come out tomorrow and say, ex-celebrity did this, and it gets a million clicks, is that celebrity then canceled? With no credibility, zero. And that's what we're gonna get to. With zero credibility, somebody can get canceled because somebody said that they did this or that. I'm not saying, we all saw the, what's her name, the Cassie video with her getting beat up. I'm not saying that that all went down, right? We all saw it, different. clearly there's some bad things that are happening in this particular case, right? Like, there's evidence. So I just wanted to cite that because somebody's probably thinking, well, there was evidence that I'm not talking, I'm just speaking in general, general realities here. And generally, like, you know, a lot of these people that are getting canceled are just because he or she said something, right? It was just eye opening to me that this is how people are getting canceled. Like I said, I usually don't delve into the cancel culture. You know, if it's something that's as blatant as R. Kelly, yeah, 100 % into that. That's fine, cancel him. crossed over, it crossed over to a major, this is, you know, news, news news. Yeah. canceled, right? You can't play him, it's just a negative thing right now, right? Especially since that video comes out, it's just egregious. I'm thinking more along these lines of like the Lizzo situation where this got blown up on TikTok that she wasn't, I don't know, I think she wasn't paying her dancers or something. What the fuck do I care if she pays her dancers or not? You know what, that's a business thing that she has going on. I'm not involved in her business. Is it good business for me to play her record? Yes, it is. Maybe they were dancing for Clout. For brand awareness, Gary, it's gonna help your brand. get, we'll give you a bottle. You know, if it's something to do with business, that somebody didn't get paid or something like that, well maybe that person made a bad business move. You know, that's not really my, that's not my business, quite literally. there? Did you do do we know that maybe Lizzo made a deal where they weren't paid a salary, but they were paid a percentage of ticket sales. And we have we know nothing about that. And yeah, on paper, they weren't paid a salary, they didn't get paid. But in actuality, they did by they earned a percentage of sales. Like, I don't know the answer to this. But I'm just saying how things can be perceived and what could potentially happen in certain situations. I wanted this conversation to not get specific because we don't know either. We're not, we're not celebrity, you know, gossip. Right. Right. I don't give a shit. I don't care. I don't think my role is to be the morality police. My role is to play the music that the people in front of me want to hear. Right, right. I just think it's it, you know, I don't want to get like I said, I don't want to get specific, but I do want to get to how ridiculous sometimes, sometimes how ridiculous cancel culture can be and why it can blow up so quickly, obviously with tick tock and then no credibility behind some of these, you know, accusations or people that are pushing this agenda, obviously for clicks and likes and and views, ways to make money, and more power to them for doing it, right? More power to the people that are doing that and getting paid to report this stuff from their desk in their house. More power to them. Right? Everyone's trying to create clickbait content. Even when we put the podcast out, you know, we work with someone on creative, right? And and he's always pushing us to number one, talk about more controversial topics. But number two, like, what's the title going to be? What's the YouTube title going to be? What's like, this is just part of what everyone does. Everyone wants that heart, right? Everyone wants that click. We ask you guys to go follow and like and subscribe and all that stuff. and people are creating content specifically just for that reason. Maybe it's bending the truth a little bit because it's going to help their video. a different way to think about cancel culture and I think that's what I wanted to highlight here is that like it's not always it's not always what it's it's said to be on social media you know and I think where there's smoke, is fire, right? Most of these cases of all these people are going to talk about, like, there's something for sure that they probably didn't do right. Now, is it to the extent of what social media is saying that happened? That's also probably not right, you know? Well, you said like you were talking to your niece, like what she she uses TikTok as her news source, right? Like, that's insane. but that is that generational? Yeah. Right. Because I mean, you were me and you and I don't watch the general standard news. We get our news elsewhere, whether that be in morning podcast, whether that be it's that's usually what it is. news, Gary. Not the Wild West of sources. I know, but my point is that we're not using the, you know, we're not going to network news. We're not watching network news. something like our parents would do. Right, so like we'll use a credible podcast to get morning news, which I know we both do and we have our favorite shows. But like articles too, like I'm a huge on like reading credible sourced articles, like an article you found online that is an op-ed, which is completely different than a credible article, right? You know, my favorite, my favorite is like the group chats. And a lot of times it'll be like political stuff, but it'll be like the person who's sending me like, cream, did you see this? Read this, read this. And it's from, I'm like, well, let me see where like what this is. And it's like, DJ cream.com. Like that's the source. Like, come on guys, like give me a credible source. And now we can argue with like, you know, our major news stations credit. Like that's a whole other conversation we're not going to get into, but yeah. at least something that is mainstream, right? Like something that people at least know when they see the name of the company, like, I've heard of NPR or Fox News or CNBC or whatever it is. Right? editor just one? That's all I want just one editor like and it could be slanted But it could be a very slanted article, but that's up to the reader to decipher whether it is or not like that You know especially when things are coming from credible sources now if you're just getting things off tick-tock It's like you know it becomes it becomes a little ridiculous one video that I was watching there was a lot of alleged There was a lot of he said, there was a lot of she said. I'm like, I can't watch this anymore. This is ridiculous. Nothing that this person has said has any kind of credible sourcing. like, it's really up to the viewer to understand if they should take this seriously or not. And there are those like little sight words in there that you know that, okay, you could click past that or swipe past that. It's a generational thing, right? Like I said, our parents watch the news on TV. We more so will read articles or listen to a podcast or go on Twitter, you know, like Twitter has been a great news source over the years for me. Whereas this generation like, tick tock, I think has either surpassed or come close to Google as like the spot where people are searching right now. It's like the search engine. So it's It's just a generational thing. And I think young people right now are going more towards, let's say a TikTok to try and gather their news than other places. And you and I could think that's crazy. But they can look at us and be like, these guys are fucking so antiquated. And they're going on NewYorkTimes.com to read an article or whatever. Right, right, and you're consuming a podcast in the morning that's credible, that's old school, like we're not doing that. know, listen, TikTok's in a, I'm using TikTok a ton right now to plan my trip to Europe in a month, and it's done amazing things for me. I use TikTok for a lot of different things, just kind of like in a short form way that I use YouTube, right? So like if I'm looking to fix my sink like I was this morning, could just do it there on TikTok or YouTube, right? Depending on how long I wanna watch a video. And... So I love it for all that stuff. It just made me laugh in going down this ditty rabbit hole, seeing how much bullshit is out there and how much really people really care about this stuff, which I was like, like people in the comments just getting worked up about like ridiculous stuff that has nothing to do with their lives. in our comments, Gary. People—that's what the comments are for. but it's like, bro, like this has nothing to do with you ever. You never met Diddy, you don't know him, like you don't know the people he's abused. Like what are you getting so bent out of shape for? Like relax, you have to have something else to worry about in life, please. wild. It was a wild journey. more, more information comes out and more people are arrested and, you know, court and jury and trial and all that stuff happens, you know, we could speak more openly because there'll be more facts and actual information out on the table. Whereas right now there's a lot less. I think where, let's, let's move this into like, from a DJ perspective and how this affects us, right? Like, I mean, Diddy is instantly in the, you're not allowed to play Diddy, right? Like at any point, are you even considering playing Diddy? No. Even to the point where that one house, I think we talked about this a little bit, but that one house song that came out the last night, I won't play it. And people were asking for it, I'm like, I really don't wanna play it. And then I played it, place went nuts, and I was like, God, I really didn't wanna do that. Is that what that is? I was just like, ugh. Shout to Danny Diggs, I subscribed to his Patreon, he put out a No Diddy pack where he took all like the hits where Diddy was on certain tracks and just took Diddy off the songs. It's great, it's great because it allows you to play all those songs and not worry about, you know, about backlash. Yeah. other day I played, is it Katy Perry? What song is it? Wake up in the morning feeling like P Diddy. So I started playing like an edit and I was like, fuck, this isn't the no Diddy version. I know she like redid the lyrics to say fuck P Diddy. So I literally jumped on the mic. Like this was one of my stronger moves lately. I realized it as I started playing the song, it's literally the first line of the song, jumped on the mic, I pulled out of the, completely shut the volume off and got on mic and said, fuck P Diddy and kept the song going and people went fucking nuts. They loved it so much. Are you gonna do that more often? I might have to. I would rather make it and have it so I don't have to have the actual wake up in the morning feeling like P2D line in a song that I'm using. think you do in the crowd controls. is the power move, right? those situations where it was like something I had to do in the moment and it just worked. Like not pre-planned in any way. It was like an shit moment that turned into like a highlight. And now you could use it. Now you could use that as a tool. That's great. But yeah, like going back to this, We're like, Diddy, can't play. R. Kelly, do you ever play R. Kelly? Like R &B and ribs, I'm sure R. Kelly goes the fuck off. I've heard that some of our DJs have been getting away with playing Ignition Remix and the reason why is because people that are 21 and I asked my nephew and his girlfriend, like, they don't know. They don't know who sings Ignition Remix. Came out. in an older room and you're doing brunch and like it's a hip-hop, R &B, reggae party, like R. Kelly's gonna go off. He's canceled up. A thousand percent. Him and Diddy are in like one category, I think. Is there anyone else in that category? I think Kanye sort of like toes the line, but his music is so iconic that like he gets a pass in some ways. in the Jewish community he might be canceled pretty good. I definitely play less Kanye than I ever have, but like, I don't shy away from playing Kanye if it just fits into what I'm doing. Some of it's just getting older too and like you're not gonna play it, you know? Unless you're in a room where that works. Right. I can't tell you the last time I played like an old school hip hop set. It's been many years. What about like, like Chris Brown isn't canceled? He's like beat on girls. He beat up Rihanna pretty good. Like how, this is what I don't get, right? This is what annoys me. Like Chris Brown gets a pass, but these other people don't get a pass. Like who's to say what's okay and what's not? It's just annoying to me. Like Lizzo, Chapel, someone told me Chapel Rhone was canceled last week. And I'm like, why? Like what did she, what happened now? Like here we go, what's next? It's like, it's this cancel culture and just not part of my. Not something I worry about until I play something and someone yells at me. You know. Jackson? There's fucking Netflix documentaries about him like abusing kids. Allegedly, allegedly. lot of a lot of kids came out said he never did anything to them so I Don't know got asked the morality police on tik-tok It's ridiculous. It's crazy, it's crazy. But it's just a crazy world we live in, right? Like this cancel culture and as DJs, like I said, I really wanna keep it about the music in most cases. And if someone gets offended or whatever, like just because I'm playing a song doesn't mean that I'm okay with whatever that person has allegedly or really done. Right. Right, you're not condoning the behavior, but know, but the song might fit the party really well. Right. Like you play Chris Brown, Ayo, excuse me, like that shit's going off. Right. You're playing Kanye Carnival in any of these newer sets? Like, it worked for a while. I was playing it. It worked. plenty of that stuff. Chapel Rowan is arguably the biggest pop artist out. What happens if she gets canceled? You gonna stop playing all these songs? It wouldn't bother me. I don't care, but... I don't know. It's something that I've always found to be a little ridiculous. And until it becomes egregious, like I said, then I'll put my ear to the street. until then, until it's absolutely mainstream news like this ditty thing's become, like... the judge hits the hammer. Well, before the judge is hit. I guess if you're going to court, if you're you're, if you get to that point of where the judge is going to hit the hammer on something, I guess you're, you're too far gone at that point. Yeah, for sure. All right, let's wrap. Yeah, let's wrap it up. Anything to promote? Anything coming up? What do we got going on? When are you up here next? coming in on the 10th of October. And I don't even know where I'm playing, to be honest. when people hear this, you're coming in this weekend. Yeah, I think I'm at 626 Latin night Thursday, 626 regular night Friday. I'm at Hair the Dog in the afternoon on Saturday. That is a great, so two Jersey City gigs, New York City on Saturday afternoon, four to nine. I love that set, it's a really great mixed crowd. I get to play a lot of different stuff. That night I go to Dear Maude. which is in Hoboken, little sexy, vibey restaurant slash lounge that I get to play, you know, a little more sexier house and then go up and play some fun, fun sing-along stuff. think the like, there's just good looking people over there. Like every time I go there, there's just like young, professional, like, I don't know. Everybody just like. It's the clientele is a little hot. It feels higher end. It's it you know what the I think the the the vibe and the sexiness of the room brings that kind of clientele in and people feel like they need to dress a certain way and present themselves a certain way to be to be in there in that room. guys, like people, people go there. Nice. Sunday, I got a throwback. I'm at the Shep uptown in Hoboken for football, which I'm excited about because that's like a little homey bar spot that I've played for many, many years now. Yeah, and I'm a local this week too. New York, New York, Hoboken, Hoboken. So I got a busy weekend. you know, playing a new room on Thursday, actually, which I'm excited to check out. Aura 57. I really don't know anything about it, but... We can't wait to hear you report back next week. All right, guys. Thanks for listening to this episode. We will talk to you guys soon. Peace out. Alright guys, peace. I almost hit leave.