By: DJ Cassius Cain
Atlanta transplant DJ Cassius Cain is one of the most underrated Disc Jockey’s in the music industry. Haling from Detroit, Michigan the home of Motown Records, his rich love for music started at a young age. After purchasing a keyboard and turntable while attending Full Sail University, he fell in love with the art of Djing and has not looked back since! With over 70,000 mixtapes handed out his influence of southern Hip-hop continues to take over the Atlanta music scene.
I had the pleasure of catching up with the Detroit native for a candid interview in Atlanta, Georgia. As he discusses breaking in the industry, the life of a dj and fighting to create longevity, it becomes clear of how raw his true talent is. Check it out below.
DJ Cassius Cain Interview
RESPECT: What made you pursue a career as a DJ?
DJ CASSIUS CAIN: To be honest I always looked at it as something to do in my free time. I was at Full Sail University studying engineering and rapping a little but for some reason I ended up around a lot of djs. Every time I wanted to hang out with someone, all of this djs would be around and they influenced me. I had just got my keyboard and turntables for my studio but I never saw myself as a disc jockey. I created my studio to be able to engineer but the day I got my turntables and it was on and popping form then. I started scratching sounds and fell in love immediately.
RESPECT: When did you catch your big break?
DJ CAIN: I don’t know because I don’t feel like I caught my big break yet. I just feel like I have a lot of support and recently I have been persistent. But I am still figuring out things in my personal life and grinding hard to get to the next phase of my career. But because I don’t have that Benz paper yet and not on trips living the lifestyle I know I want to pursue, I remain humble until my time comes.
RESPECT: How has being from the south impacted your career?
DJ CAIN: I started in Orlando and then moved to Atlanta. I just kept working hard and my work ethic helped me a lot. I was always present at any show, meet and greet, listing party to make sure people knew who I was. It always helps when you are popular. I am not saying I was an athlete, but I was the tall homie in the hood that everyone loved. As a result I got a lot of affiliation because of my size and my personality.
Everyone just started messing with me heavy. I was able to turn my support from my neighborhood into my fans and support system when I started djing. The south loves my mixtapes and that is how I became that n***a. By doing live mixtapes, I appealed directly to the southern artists needs. I never had a plan I just started doing it. These turntables, I want to get rich off of.
I wasn’t getting a lot of jobs in atl, and would spend money on interviews but end up starving and never get the job. I finally told myself, “f**k this job interview I will spend my money making music that’s what I came to Atlanta for”. I started handing out mixtapes; hustling and started paying my bills off of the money I made networking.
RESPECT: What sparked you creating Mixtapemessiah the brand and site?
DJ CAIN: 2015 I always called myself the mixtapemessiah. Detroit diva music group was my group, so I created the site to help push the group and my friends’ mixtapes. I also sold t-shirts. I closed the site because my focus wasn’t websites. Then someone bought my domain name and tried to sell it back to me for 5000, so I had to recreate the website. So I reopened it and called it mixtapemessiahdaily .
At that point, I had matured into a REAL grown man, and did a lot more soul searching which sparked my new vision. The daily is me rebranding my self as a website. Now that I am doing new things I figured out a way to share it with my audience. That is what the site is about. Producing urban content for us by us with no negative connotation.
Black people been doing good things in hip-hop and r&b and deserve to be highlighted for it. So when black people come to the site they might get their life changed off of reading news articles, and being encouraged. We try to focus on curating thought provoking content.
RESPECT: What advice would you give to someone wanting to enter the entertainment business as a DJ?
DJ CAIN: You made one of the best decisions you could have ever made. There would be no rap music without dj’s, so the industry caters to you. But its up to you not to get stuck behind those tables and build your own following outside of a promoter. It is all about your vision. Everyone’s path is different. We created this whole genre of rap. We can be a publicist, manager or a&r because we have all of the resources to do so.
To learn more about DJ Cassius Cain, be sure to follow him on social media @djcassiuscain.
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