RESPECT.: In your 10+ years in the game what is the biggest thing you’ve learned about a hit radio single?
DJ Greenguy: You can have music that hits hard for the moment or a long lasting hit. Everyone is trying to make the biggest hit for today but not everyone wants the longest lasting hit.
RESPECT.: Tell me how did you get your start in music?
DJ Greenguy: I was rapping when I was locked up and the guy I used to freestyle with was signed to a label. He told me I was good enough to get signed too. I was feeling low and suicidal at the time and having someone who was signed to a label tell me that I had this kind of talent made me believe in myself. As soon as I got out of there I found a studio.
RESPECT.: Is radio still important today in music?
DJ Greenguy: If you don’t go for as many types of exposure as you can get you ain’t doing nothing! Hell Yes, it’s very important!
RESPECT.: What is the best way for an new independent artist to break his music with the DJ?
DJ Greenguy: Give the DJ an exclusive that no one else has yet. You heard it here first type shit.
RESPECT.: You’ve just released a new single “Player’s Club” can you tell us about what inspired the record?
DJ Greenguy: The single drops on all major platforms on Feb 23rd, it’s on Pandora and VEVO exclusively right now. It was inspired by a trip to my home town in Philly, where I performed at a strip club called the “Players Club” back in 2008 with Damo CCC and The Phillistines, along with Trizzy The Mouth of Vixen Gang University. I was coming back to LA and saw a female that looked like Trap Barbie and she was talking to my son, when I thought I might have seen her somewhere, IG maybe. Then when I got back to LA, I looked through my followers and found the Real Trap Barbie, we started following each other and became friends. I met up with her and PlatinumBrownSuga one night and we recorded this song. It was a wild night the first time we got together to record this track, Trap Barbie ended up getting wasted and barfed in my car on the way home. She apologized for that later and we had to redo her verse but we ran it back the next day and got the takes that ended up on the song.
RESPECT.: What do artist need to know about having a hit record?
DJ Greenguy: It goes as far as you push it, you gotta push your song!
RESPECT.: Should the artist show the DJ love first when building relationships in the game?
DJ Greenguy: Artists need to show love when it makes sense. Na mean, you gotta do what’s right.
RESPECT.: What do all of your years in the game mean to you and what legacy are you trying to leave with it?
DJ Greenguy: I love music, it’s been a wonderful time for me, personally as a musician. All my years show me how much music has changed but also how different people consume it. Yeah we used to make beats on the SP1200 and that machine is legendary. Like, no new machine can beat that one. It was the Michael Jordan of beat machines. My legacy I want to be remembered as the guy who turned his life around. I was in a lot of trouble earlier in my life and most of that is because my parents raised me to think I am no good and a low life screw up. None of the European kids fucked with a Greenguy. I took that low life screw up, mentality and let myself believe that I was the loser they told me I was until one day, I snapped out of it and started winning. Being a loser is a mindset, a choice, no one has to be that, if they chose not to be.
RESPECT.: What are your plans for 2020 and who do you plan on doing a collab with this year or near future?
DJ Greenguy: I would love to collab with my friends that I’ve made over the years, who I never did a song with such as DJ King Assassin, Big Spook Loc, Indecent The Slapmaster, and others. I made friends and close friends with a lot of musicians that I never did a song with. My plans are to realy promote this Thug Life Eternal album that is coming out on all major platforms Feb 26th, and it has a song by me on there called “Hands Up Don’t Shoot” which has Legendary Boss (Bossolo) and also Reime Schemes. For black history month, and for Makaveli, we made this song for the Black Lives Matter movement. If 2Pac was here, he would be making songs like this one. My wife is black, and we have 2 sons. My hope for the future is that one day our country, the world we live in, won’t be as crazy as it is today for black people. I want to make a difference.
RESPECT.: What does RESPECT. mean to you?
DJ Greenguy: A Respect is earned just like Trust is earned. The only difference between trust and respect is, someone can come in to my life and have a baseline of respect without even earning any extra, and that isn’t going to happen with Trust. I will respect anyone to a certain degree. I won’t just blindly trust anyone. Respect is something we need to teach our children better about. It’s an important virtue.
Listen to “Trap Girl” below and stay connected with DJ Greenguy on Instagram here.
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