The Full Story

DJ StrapZ Bio

DJ StrapZ, A talented, multi genre producer/engineer from the DMV area, has been producing countless genres of music for over 10 years. As a child, his mother, father, uncles, and cousins exposed him to genres like soul, jazz, funk, rock, hip-hop, and house music at a very young age. This lead to his fascination and appreciation of all genres containing drums of some sort. Some of his influences of these genres are James Brown, Mass Production, Jeff Beck, Timbaland, Prince, Michael Jackson, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Tupac, The Notorious BIG, Marshall Jefferson, Kool and the Gang, Candi Staton, Left Eye, Zhane, ATC, Robin S, Roy Ayers and many, many more. In middle school, DJ Strapz started out playing the recorder and the saxophone and later moved to playing the drums. Early in high school he realized that a lot of the instruments heard on the radio weren't actually played live but played using computer software which lead him to download the digital audio workstation (DAW) Fruity Loops, or FL Studio. This allowed him to make instrumentals at the click of a mouse. Sophomore year at Clarksburg High School he had played one of his hip hop instrumentals for a group of friends. They were so astonished by his work that they wanted to own it for themselves and add lyrics to it. It was at this point where he realized he wanted to do this type of work for a living. Junior year in highschool he had made a Baltimore Club style mix titled "Germantown" which had his whole track team dancing! After high school, he attended Norfolk State University for one year, where he met his life long friends and team 10o10 Productions. Here, he realized different audiences favor different styles of music and Justin Jones of 10o10 Productions would help him better his instrumentals by teaching him what he didn't know about the software he was using to make make his music. He and his friends also picked up DJing to get a better feel of what the people at NSU liked and didn't like. Unfortunately, his time as a party DJ did not last very long due to lack of interest. Later, he and one of his best friends, Eddy Wow, challenged themselves to find and make the style of music everyone could appreciate. Just when things were going good for him and his team, he found out that would could no longer attend NSU due to the high priced out-of-state tuition, which postponed he and his friends challenge. He was forced to attend UMES for 4 years after he left NSU. There,he met another group of lifelong friends, N2B, 4- Kast, Certified Civilian, as well as various other individuals and groups who helped him perfect his craft of production and audio engineering over the years. Since then, he has produced for artists such as Bankroll Fresh, Fat Trel, Uncle Murda, LightShow, 4DaFame, Ant Glizzy and Solo Lucci. He also has produced and hosted several mixtapes for independent artists for over 5 years. Currently expanding to the EDM genres, he hopes spread his positive energy through universal music to reach countless listeners from all around the world.