So what did I do before I became a writer and comedian?
Remember that douchebag from your high school that walked around acting like he
was black? No, that wasn’t me, but pretty close. I was actually a hip-hop DJ.
I’m not fucking kidding. When most people think of DJ’s nowadays they think of
Avicii, Deadmaus, Calvin Harris, etc. But this was the 90s. Music like 2 Live
Crew and Sir Mix-a-Lot were the rage. When I was 16 I went to a dance party and
noticed two things out of place. #1) The guy playing the music was ugly. #2) The
girls around the guy playing the music were not ugly. A light bulb went off in
my head, and then shorted out. I instantly came to the conclusion that if you
can make someone dance, that was a good thing. I started out with speaker
equipment I borrowed from my uncle who played in band, and bought turntables
and a stack of old vinyl from a Mister Money pawnshop my cousin worked at. I
taught myself how to mix. Soon I was playing basement parties around our
neighborhood. Within two years, I was playing bars and clubs around the
University of Chicago. During the day I was taking art classes at a local
community college, and then I would take a bus downtown and play music all
night, sometimes not getting home until the morning. I wasn’t making a lot of
money, but it was fun considering I wasn’t even old enough to be in most of
these bars. That’s where I got the name DJ Kidd. People thought I was nine
years old, so I always wore a hoodie and grew stubble (hence the pic). Soon
after I turned 21, a rep from Anheuser-Busch came out to see me and signed me
to a promotional contract. It was a program called True Music Live. They had
bands also, one of them was an up and coming group from Chicago called Fall Out
Boy. As part of the deal, I had to promote Budweiser products. In fact, the day
Dale Earnhardt died, I was performing NASCAR trivia at a karaoke event when I
heard someone yell, “Hey, turn the music down, The Intimidator crashed!”As I
looked down, my next trivia question was, you guessed it, “How many races did Dale Earnhardt win?” I guess to make up for
pulling me out of class to play at these daytime tractor pull events, once a
month they would FedEx a box full of Fubu sweaters and some hats with whatever
company uses that elephant logo. I felt like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but more
like Eminem at night and Larry the Cable Guy during the day. Eventually I lost
my sponsorship after showing up at a regional directors meeting in Sun Prairie
Wisconsin high on Ecstasy (you can hear that story on my podcast).
As I got
older and more into writing, I decided it was time to move on. After many drinks, a few few late nights, and much reckless behavior, I moved to California at
the ripe ol’ age of 25. Occasionally I still perform at events, although these
days they are much more reserved (hence the other pic). Who knows? If you see
me someday at your wedding supplying some fat beats, come up and say hi. Just
please don’t call me DJ KIDD.
