Carl Hollier August 10th, 2022

Carl Hollier August 10th, 2022

In this interview, Carl Hollier talks about being born in Detroit and how that shaped him growing up.

Detroit Historical Society

Detroit Historical Society

en-US

Carl Hollier

Carl Hollier was born and raised in Detroit, he eventually went into the music industry under the name D.J. Invisible.

Billy Wall-Winkel

Detroit, MI

8/10/2022

1:20:00

Taylor Claybrook

BWW [00:00:01] Hello. My name is Billy Wall-Winkle. This interview is for the Detroit Historical Society's Hustle Project. Today is August 10th, 2022. We are in Detroit, Michigan, and I'm sitting down with–
CH [00:00:14] DJ Invisible.
BWW [00:00:15] You give me your real name, please.
CH [00:00:18] Yes. D.J. Invisible is now my real name. No…my parents named me Carl Hollier.
BWW [00:00:25] Can you please spell that for me?
CH [00:00:26] Carl is spelled C A R L. And my last name is Hollier H O L LIER.
BWW [00:00:34] Thank you so much for that.
CH [00:00:35] Yes, indeed.
BWW [00:00:37] We're going to get some basic things out of the way. Where, where and when were you born?
CH [00:00:41] I was born in Detroit, Michigan, right here at Hutzel Hospital, June 21st, 1974.
BWW [00:00:50] Did you grow up in the city?
CH [00:00:51] Oh, born and raised, yeah. Grew up and my parents, when I was first born, we lived off of St Mary's. We lived on St Mary's off of Grand River over on the West Side.
CH [00:01:01] And about 1979, my parents bought a house in the historic Boston Edison District on Atkinson, right off of Woodward. So I grew up on the, you know, the part that I remember on the North End of Detroit.
BWW [00:01:24] What was it like growing up for you in that neighborhood?
CH [00:01:26] It was awesome. So the...the big old houses in the Boston Edison area are amazing. You know, they're… you don't appreciate them until you move out. I think so. I lived there until I went to college. I went to Eastern, but, through high school, through elementary school. It was amazing. You know, I would… my friends would come over and they would see our big old house and think that we were rich. You know, like. Yes, sure, of course. If that's what you want to think. Yes, of course. But it was good to be in. You know, my dad was a
firefighter. Mom was a social worker. You know, I went to Saint Benedict in Highland Park until fourth grade. And then my parents put us at Shrine of the Little Flower out in Royal Oak, which was an eye opening experience for an inner city kid to be going from a… I was at private school. You know, Saint Benedict's was a private school, but it was mostly middle class African-American kids. And there were you know, there were some white kids and a few Latino kids, but it was mostly. You know, city black kids that were there and then going out to 14… or was it, it was a 12 mile every day. So when I was there, the grade school was at 12 Mile from K to eight. So fifth grade to eighth grade being in a totally different situation. It was…it was eye opening. It was, it was cool and awkward and weird and awesome all at the same time. And I did well there. So I really enjoyed that time in Royal Oak. But come eighth grade, I was done with private school. You know, I never felt as though I had broke the barrier with athletics, and that's what I wanted to do. So my parents sent me to King High School down in the city, and I was in the MSAT program, and the program was math, science and Applied Technology. It was one of the three programs in the city for high school kids that were… that was like a straight college prep. You know, you're going to college, you have no choice. You know, your parents have made this decision for you. It was Cass, King, and Renaissance at that time. And I was trying to be a professional basketball player. You know, I was 6’2, fast, I could jump. And I loved King. It was a great school. I went to Eastern Michigan University after that, didn't… I blew my knees up playing basketball and I went to Eastern for a summer program. Right before I left, my neighbor came home from Tennessee State University, and Marty had given me two turntables and an old mixer, and he was like, You should mess with this. This is fun. And he had been deejaying in college just as a hobby. So he gave me my turntables and I went to school and set them up on my dorm room table. And every opportunity I had, you know, I was kidnapping records from my dad, like seventies records, funk records, you know, jazz records. And I was, you know, just goofing around, playing with his music. And then I started to really have more fun with it, and people started to ask me to play certain songs. So I would go record shopping when I could and get a couple of records. And I was just doing parties in my room for my friends that were on that floor. So that was the beginnings of my, my serious interest in music. And I went straight off course from–
BWW [00:04:52] No, that's not.
CH [00:04:53] Right. But yeah, but you know, I would still be in it Eastern. It was awesome because I was close enough to come home so I would go to school Monday through Friday and come home on the weekends because mom cooked and laundry was free. So, you know, that 30 minute ride to Ypsi was a… it was an often transit for me, but it was also cool because the good record stores were still in the city. We had one record store in Ypsi called Puffer Red's, and that was the spot. But if you wanted to really dig, you had to, you know, get into Buy Right in the city and Record Time out in Roseville. So I really enjoyed being in that proximity at Eastern. It was, you know, just still cruising along with my, you know, studies and playing basketball every other day and spending any and every opportunity I had for anybody that would listen until people started asking if I would deejay an actual party. So first party I got was…my sister was at Cass Tech and she was having an AU basketball fundraiser party. She had asked me to deejay a party. And I am a very confident person who will take on any musical
challenge now. But back then I was a little hesitant. So she asked me to do this party and I said yes, had no speakers, so I borrowed my dad's home sound system, his big Marantz receiver and you know, he had two big, really cool home speakers. And I had two turntables, a mixer and a crate of records. I borrowed his cassette deck and I bought a…losing my train of thought.. What is that thing called? Oh, we don't use them anymore. A CD player. I bought a CD player from Ziedman’s Pawn Shop for like 30 bucks. So I had all this stuff set up on a table and the kids started coming in about 8:00 and I'm playing my records. And from 8 to 9, I was the greatest deejay on earth because I had bought all the hot records right then. About nine, the place got packed. Everybody was having a good time, you know, the pizza was out, pop was out, and candy bars were everywhere. I ran out of records, so I'm like, all right, cool, let's just play some of these cassette tapes. So I was going to go cassette tapes, CDs, and record, just so that I could keep mixing. So I played a cassette tape and at that time it was a song called “ My Cadillac’s Got That Bass”, and my cassette deck was sitting right on top of the receiver, which at this time had gotten hot because I was banging it out. So the tape deck started to drag and the song is going, My Cadillac’s got that bass, bass, bass, [slower] My Cadillac’s got that bass, bass, bass… And the kids thought that it was cool at the time. They were like, oh, he's doing something new until the entire song starts dragging, until it's the tape part and the boos started, you know, kick in quick. So I was like, No problem. Straight to the CD. So the hot song, you know, was “Shake What Ya Mama Gave You”. Shake What Ya Mama gave you is going so keep in mind I bought this used from a pawn shop. The CD player started skipping right on Shake What Ya Mama. So I was like, shake what ya mama shake what ya mama shake, shake, shake. And that actually sounded it was skipping right on beat. And I was like, If it could have gone wrong, this is the way you want it to go wrong. So I'm like, Oh, great, this is gonna give me a chance to, like, get another record together. So I'm struggling, trying to find a record that I played early enough to where most people don't remember I played it. And at that time I looked at and somebody had thrown like a Mountain Dew bottle at me and I'm like, All right, I'm the Matrix. I'm dodging all of this stuff. Pizza hit me in the side of the head and a Kit-Kat bar flew over my head and it was just horrible. So I was able to just go straight records and I just recycled. I was playing B-sides, I was playing number seven on a full album that no one had ever heard before just trying to keep music going. And keep different songs playing but at that point in time, I was like, I have to practice more and I've got to get more records and this will never happen again.
CH [00:09:1] So that is the… That is basically the beginnings of deejay Carl the Invisible Man, which is what I was billed on that flier, the longest name ever. This stuck for years. So that is at the beginning, a story. I know you asked one question and I went left.
BWW [00:09:36] So that was perfect, though, because I was going to be my, my next setup is when did you start? So what year was that party?
CH [00:09:43] That party would have been the summer of 1992. It was funny cause a bunch of my high school friends and my long-time high school friends went to that party, too, you know, because it was a high school party, you know? You know one of my best friends, Mischa, drove me to the party in her parent's minivan, and it was just having your best friend still
tease you about bad parties to this day is the worst. They're like, oh, like she came to one of the Eminem concerts that I did, and I was having the time of my life. You know, I'm walking, I'm floating off stage. I was just…It was such a good show. And she was like, Hey, this is much better than that high school party you got hit upside the head with pizza, but hey, you know why.
BWW [00:10:33] She got to keep you humble?
CH [00:10:34] Oh, I have so many of those friends that it's hilarious. Oh, yeah. So yeah, 92 was the…The beginning and they said my, I wanted to be an athlete. So I had my letterman jacket and my letterman jacket was my… I got it for basketball cause that's what I wanted to do.
So I had a big Jordan on the back of it and they ask you what name you want to put on the bottom of it. So my mom was paying for this jacket and at the time my basketball coach from high school and I were not seeing eye to eye and we were reading The Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison in English class. So my mom was teasing me. Oh, you want to put something on the back? Why don't you put Invisible Man? I was like, Why would I do that? She was like, Because you're invisible on the basketball court. I was like, ow, this is my mother. If it was like my siblings all fell out, my dad's cracking up. And I was like, Okay, that is actually hilarious and that is so true. Hilarious. Let's do it. So my letterman jacket is hanging in my closet in my dorm room, and someone had asked me to deejay a party.
CH [00:11:42] And they were like, Well, what name should we put on the flier? And I was like, I don't know, what do you mean? Like, we got to put a deejay name on the flier to make it seem like it's a legit party. I was like, Oh! And they looked aside and they were like, All right, what about The Invisible Man? And I was like, That sounds dope, that makes sense. It's okay, no one has ever called me that. But let's, let's, let's go with it. And then the flier came out and it said, Deejay Carl the Invisible Man. And I was like, That's me. I like my name so sure. I should have said, just put invisible on it or Invisible Man, because that's stuck from that early 1992 on through college. It was on every college flier. When I got out of college and came back home and started doing nightclubs and parties, I was DJ Carl the Invisible Man, and then when it was abbreviated, it was just Deejay Carl. So there is a whole group of people from, I'd say like 96 to 2001 that still in the city call me DJ Carl. And I’m like nom we've moved on from that. I've, I've done some cooler things since then so yeah. Deejay Carl deejay at Cafe Mahogany in Harmony park from 96, geez say 96, 97 to, 2001. And that was my like after college I'm going to do this time in my career. So I had had I don't know if you want to keep rambling here.
BWW [00:13:22] Okay, no this is great.
CH [00:13:23] All right. So in 96. I came home from Eastern. I had I was at that point, I am 21 years old and I was a new father. So I had,I had to work to make money. And that is where my initial… which I think is awesome the name of this is called The Hustle. That is where my initial hustle really, really kicked in. I started deejaying any and everything possible. If it was offered to me, I said yes. So I was doing weddings, I was doing backyard parties, I was doing picnics.If you had $50 and wanted me to deejay and make you a mixtape, I was going to sit there and make a mixtape. I cruised along doing just really anything. I was deejaying like a
whole lot of weddings. I was deejaying like parties for Alcoholics Anonymous in weird little hole in the walls. I was deejaying at parks. I'd rent a generator and go out to a park into a family reunion. I did that solid for a couple of years, and to be honest with me, in 90… 97 is when Café Mahogany really kicked in for me. And Café Mahogany was a poetry spot in Harmony Park downtown. Like it's right north of where we're. Actually is at north or south. That's right. It's a couple of blocks away from the Tiger Stadium right now where Comerica Park is. And Café Mahogany was a poetry spot that started off as a really small Tuesday gathering in a coffee shop. And it grew to be the biggest poetry spot in the Midwest. So there was a movie called Love Jones. It came out and everybody wanted to be a poet. All the guys wanted to be poets because they could pick up women. And that's, that's what happened in the movie. And so that's what was going to happen in real life. And ladies just love being able to go up and say, you know, the most seductive things and just fully embrace their femininity. And it was beautiful because you had people of all cultures and all backgrounds and everybody would get on the stage and be in the same spot in life.
CH [00:15:44] So I thrived doing that because I had opened up D.J. Carl, the Invisible Man, to a whole nother group of people. A year after that, like late 97 going into 98, they started a after hours hip hop night there. So I do Tuesday poetry night, and then I do this late hip hop after hours. And when I say everybody came through Cafe Mahogany, like the Black Eyed Peas, the Black Eyed Peas early on in their career did a concert and they would come to Cafe Mahogany. Erykah Badu used to hang out at Cafe Mahogany when she was in town and the local group Slum Village, Eminem would come through and freestyle, Royce da 5 '9. These folks would come through just to hang out because it was the place to be for like, you know the cool people. You know, you'd go to the underground battle spots and if you wanted to like get a little classier, you would come hang out and be seen at Cafe Mahogany. So the host of that night was a guy named Fluent and…Fluent was just like so charismatic.
And he would be on stage doing his thing and he would tell silly jokes and then bring poets up. And then I would play a song that was kind of making light of whatever that poet had just said. So guys would come up and talk about how their love had just been lost and how she was the greatest thing that's ever happened. And now she's gone. So then I would play like Michael Jackson “you are not alone”, you know, trying to lighten the mood up. And after a while, I had it figured out I could play a song. No matter what you said on stage, I could play a soundbite from a record right after you got done just to lighten it up. So the crowd was still having a good time and Cafe Mahogany lasted through the late nineties and 2000. You know, the casinos started coming into play and the rent went up, so they had to move out of that building and it really just didn't transition to the new building. They moved over onto Broadway and it was just a different vibe, you know? It just really didn't work out the same. But at one of those Cafe Mahogany events, I was approached by KRS One's manager, and KRS One is like one of the goats of all hip hop. You know, he's an emcee, he's a writer. He's just an awesome guy. You know, he started a I think called it Temple of Hip Hop, which was going to be like the Museum of Hip Hop. And KRS One’s manager approached me and asked me if I would deejay this show for him. He had a show in town and his DJ wasn't able to make the trip. So I was like, Heck yeah, let's go. Yeah. So I show up, we do a rehearsal and he's like, All right, you're good. You got this. We do the show. I killed it. I was on 100% on my own team at that point, out of the greatest D.J. of all
time, I can do anything. So the next KRS One was like, I want you to go on tour with me. This is amazing. You know, next show is Chicago, where the Atheneum Hotel. Be there like tomorrow morning and 9:00 AM. I guess I have it. You know, mind you, my home situation at the time was interesting because I had just moved out of my parents house. I had a loft downtown at Grand River and Griswold. I had the whole third floor view of this building. And the funny thing was that in the late nineties, my rent was $300 a month, and when the casino started kicking in, the owner of the building was like, I'm going to have to raise your rent $100. And we were like, Oh, no, no, no, not to $400. This is terrible. Why are you gouging? So my parents were still trying to figure out how I was going to make it as a deejay. My dad was a firefighter. Every day he would get up and go to work. And when I like, right when I came home from school, I was back at my parents house and every day he would wake me up at 6:00 in the morning, like, you got to go do something. And I was like, I just did something. I literally just got home.
BWW [00:19:48] You were asleep, right?
CH [00:19:49] You were asleep when I came home. And now I don't want to get up. I'm sleeping. So I was like, I got to go. I got to figure out ahead. So I moved downtown into this loft, and so downtown Detroit at that time, in the late nineties, was a ghost town. After 5:00, you could not order a pizza from across the street. So Grand River and Griswold,there was a Domino's directly across the street, which I think now is a coffee house or some upscale, nice little place. But right there at that corner, there was the… it was the ZImco Textiles building which was on Grand River as well. Across the street, it was a parking structure which is still there. Across the street, on the opposite kitty corner was the Grind Adult entertainment ladies strip club. And then across the street from that was like a parking lot, Domino's Pizza and another, like, weird apartment complex. But I couldn't, or I could see Domino's from my window. 5:00, we will not deliver a pizza to you. And they might not even open the door if you went to buy it. It was just rough down there. It was like a ghost town. So anyway, fast forward back to my story so KRS-One who asked me to come to the hotel at 9:00. The tour was going to Chicago. I'm the guy. I'm deejaying let's go. I get there. I got my suitcase, two turntables, my mixer and my backpack on my back. I get to the hotel, I walk in. Everybody's like, is DJ Carl the Invisible Man is here. And I'm like, you know, I'm thinking, this is my oh, this is going to happen for me. My dad dropped me off. He had to come pick me up, load up my gear and drop me off. I get there, walk in. And KRS is like, Carl, let me talk to you for a sec. So I sit down next to him and I'm, you know, young. This is my my shot. He's like, well, we decided to go in a different direction. So what we're going to do is we're going to get the hot deejay from every city just like you, and that'll bring in more people to the show. And I'm like, Yeah, that's a good idea. So are we going to Chicago to find like the other? He was like, No, no, no, no. We're going. We're going to go to Chicago and get another deejay to do what you did here. And I was like, Oh, so you don't need me to go to Chicago? And they were like, Yeah, but thank you, man. You killed it. And I'm like, So what in the hell am I going to do now? Everybody has seen me come in and knows over the hotel staff. Detroit is a small, big city, so I'm like, Yeah, okay, cool. So I'm trying to hold back tears at this point in time.
CH [00:22:26] Right? So I'm sitting there and they're getting ready to go and all the guys are coming up, dapping me up, you know, good job. You did a great job. You killed it last night. So they all get up and they leave, right? So this is before cell phones, before we could afford cell phones. Right. So I had to get up and go get change for a dollar from the front desk to go to the payphone and call my dad. So I call home. And mom was like, yeah, your dad's not back yet, but when he gets back, what do you want me to tell him? Are you, are you, you know, are you at your first rest stop right now? I say, yeah, no just tell Dad to come back and pick me up. Things didn't go the right direction. So Dad came back and help me put my stuff in the car and I sat there and didn't say anything. It is when you know you got a cool dad. He was like, they don't deserve you. I was like that helps. Thank you. Love that. Yeah. So my parents have been ridiculously supportive after that point in time. So fast forward to going back to my nightclub thing, having a blast, killing it. Just, you know, getting all kinds of other ridiculously amazing opportunities. So now I'm starting to get opportunities to open for national acts at the state theater and at Hart Plaza and St Andrew's Hall. And I'm actually… I got the opportunity. I was the deejay at St Andrew's Hall so the previous DJ had a difference in opinion as to where the music should be going. So he had moved on and they brought me in and at the time, I'm like I'm a commercial deejay. I'm playing what the people want to hear. I'm not keeping it real. I want to keep it hustle. I'm hustling. I want my paycheck to show up. I don't want to have arguments with the staff about playing obscure records that kill the dance floor. I want the bar to succeed. I want people to have a good time. And I want people to remember who it was that gave them that good time. So my reputation in the city had turned into that, you know, Oh, he's just a commercial deejay. But I had a car, I had an apartment.
I was paid, feeding my kid. So this time killing it. You know, I'm not rich, but I'm comfortable. You know, that's where I was at, at that time. And so I'm doing St Andrew's Hall and opening for all these different bands. I'm doing The Shelter. I'm doing a bunch of the rap battles. I had done some shows. I deejayed for Royce da 5’9. I deejayed for Eminem at the time. There was a couple other, you know, local rappers that would call me to deejay their shows.
CH [00:25:11] Then in 99, I was doing one of these late night parties. at Cafe Mahogany, and a guy named Champ Town came up to me. So Brian Champtown is a very instrumental part in several big rappers careers in Detroit. Champ Town is one of the reasons Kid Rock became famous. Champ Town is another reason Eminem, you know, got the street cred that he had early on before the record deals. Champtown came up to me and asked me if I would deejay his tour that he had coming up. So he had a very controversial album cover that was Joe C. from Kid Rock fame, who looked like a kid at the time. And he had two scantily clad women and he had his hand on both of their rear ends. And he had that as the cover art on his record. And it was nationally controversial, which is good if you're trying to go on tour, so he had booked… he was an opening act on the Public Enemy. There's a Poison tour. So he came up to me and asked me if I would deejay for his upcoming tour with Public Enemy. And I was like, I don't know. I mean, think about it. This is a big tour that'll be going across the country. You know, I have just been recently dissed on another tour, so heck, yes, I jumped on we were in. It was planes, trains and automobiles on this tour. We were flying from certain cities. We were on tour buses. We had SUVs and vans so I mean, it was amazing. It was…It was my first introduction to a serious music tour. Public Enemy was like the coolest group of people, you
know, that I had ever met as a complete band. Flavor Flav was exactly how you would expect him to be. He was loud. He was wild, he was a whole lot of fun, he was a genuine, nice guy. Chuck D was about his business. He was cool. He was extremely loyal. He remembers your name. He taught me how to tour, and I don't think he knows it. He would tour with one suitcase. Super simple. He had the clothes for stage and like some clothes for off stage and he didn't travel with too much crap, which made his entry and exit really quick. He was always on time for lobby calls and he was in and out. So touring Public Enemy was amazing. That was just a great time in the history of Deejay Invisible’s career. After that, I ended… actually ended up injuring myself goofing off, jumping off of a tour bus and came home was like, Hey so parents about this insurance thing and they were like, Yeah, you're not on our insurance anymore. So my dad told me to apply for the Detroit Fire Department so I applied for the Detroit Fire Department and became a firefighter in like early 2000, which was an interesting change from what I've been doing because I was usually a night owl. I would get up late, go d.j something late, and then get home late and wake up late and you know, wash, rinse and repeat. I would do it again the next day. So the fire department gig, I had to get up at 6:00 in the morning and be somewhere by, you know, quarter to seven.
CH [00:28:38] And I did the fire department training and my dad being a firefighter, it gave me a whole different outlook on training to do something because before that had all been, I got to do this for myself to take care of my little people. So the fire department. It was a different eye opening experience. I had to do good because I wanted my dad's friends to not think that he just gave me the job because I was his kid, you know, or that he got me in this position because I was his kid. So I took the fire department written exam. I did, I did okay on that, I passed. But when it came time for the physical agility stuff, every day I ended up throwing up in a garbage can. I was trying to kill it and break records, and I think I did. I did break the physical agility test record the year that I took it, and I ran straight out and threw up in the trash can and was probably passed out in my car of exhaustion for a little while. But I loved it. I mean, firefighting was probably my favorite job of all time because it was like giving… being in a position where you could be a superhero. You know, you run into burning buildings. Everybody's running out and you're running in, you know, but the blue stuff on the red stuff and get everybody safe. So I loved it, but. I still have this love for music. So the fire department, I would go in and I would work my shifts and then when I had days off, I would schedule parties. So I'm still a deejay and any and everything I can to fit into that space. But I had insurance now, which was awesome. That was a whole…that was a whole New World. I was like wait I can go get glasses like my…this is awesome. So that was where I was like, okay, I'm growing up now. And I started taking my DJ career to a whole different level as well. I started seriously trying to market myself. I started trying to make mixtapes. And right before the fire department thing kicked in, I had signed a record deal with Modern Tribe Records. And I will say nothing but good things about that, that experience. Even though sometimes it sucked, but when you sign a record deal, you should have somebody look at it and you should sign a record deal with somebody that is a…yeah, nevermind. We'll keep this all positive. But that was an interesting experience. I sold a whole lot of mixtapes. It got me national visibility, which turned into international visibility with some of the features that I had on that particular mixtape. I invested a whole lot of my own money into the marketing and promotion of the mixtape. I had features from
Dr. Dre, I had features from Eminem. It's like a laundry list of, you know, any celebrity that came to town. I found them and got some kind of feature from them to put on this mixtape, and that was something that no other Detroit deejay was doing at the time. So the mixtape blew up. It was in every little record store. It was the gas station behind the bulletproof glass. And it's sold a lot. I have no idea where any of the money went but it looked good for deejay Carl, the Invisible Man, to have, you know thousands of mixtapes sold locally and 10,000 sold internationally. So when I got to the fire department, you know, people were like, oh, you know, other firefighters are like, Oh my God, you're your DJ, Carl the Invisible Man. And half the people are like, No, that's Captain Hollier’s son, this dude is like a deejay. So I ended up getting more parties because, you know, just because the firefighters had parties. So I was there just enjoying where I was at in life with deejaying nonstop being a firefighter. Then I started my my little family grew and I got married and I got injured fighting a fire. So ran into a fire and there was a flash over that injured and retired three of us and a couple other people were just injured and ended up being able to go back to work. But the captain and another senior firefighter of mine, we were all retired from that fire.
BWW [00:33:25] What year was that?
CH [00:33:26] That was 2002. Yeah. 2002 was the end of my fire department career. I tried to go back a couple of times, and the doctors were like, Yeah, no. They were going to put pins in my wrists and fuse bones together so that I would have the Miss America permanent wave. And I was like, I wouldn't be able to pick my kid up. So I passed and they, they retired me. And that was like super depressing because I loved that job. So at the time, one of my cousins who I have been in touch with since we were, you know, super small, he moved out of Detroit when he was nine. Excuse me. My cousin Alvin moved to New Mexico and he would call me and he would rap on the phone. He's like, Hey, Carl I got this new rap. And I would sit and listen to raps on the phone. And this is like all through, like eighth grade, all the way through high school. He would call and just rap on the phone. What do you think about that one? I was like, that was not good. That was dope, you know? So I got this back and forth every night in my mouth. Hey, Carl. Alvin's on the phone, and I go listen to raps on the phone, which was cool. So fast forward to, you know, this is like 2000, late 2000…or no, early 2002. I got a cast on my wrist. I'm bummed as I can't be a good deejay right now. Mind you, I was still doing parties I just couldn't scratch, I had this big wacky cast on and I was having multiple surgeries to put pins in and take pins out. So one day I'll have a cast on that was elbow to my fingertips. The next day I would have a cast on that. I would have just barely a fingertip showing and pins and rods and looking like Edward Scissorhands. So yeah, I got a call from another cousin of mine, said, Hey, you should come up to Em’s studio, studio 54 up on a nine mile. So I went, I think it's Studio 54 is the name of it, but Eminem Studios on Nine Mile in Ferndale. I went up to the studio and I walk in and the first person I saw was Busta Rhymes. Redman was there, Eminem's winding around, all my D12 friends were there. And like, I grew up with Eminem's deejay name, Kevin Bell, D.J. Head. He's like, Oh, Carl, what are you doing here? I'm like, Oh, my cousin Al called me up. He was like, Oh, welcome. So everywhere you turn, there was some awesome rapper wandering around and my cousin Alvin was there and his name is Xzibit, so Xzibit walks up to me and he's like, Carl, what are you doing this summer? And I was like, Nothing, man. The fire
department retired me. I am you know outta work right now. He was like, You're still deejaying, right? I was like, Yeah, you know. I'm still a deejaying because on the Public Enemy tour, we did the House of Blues out there and the part of his crew was at the show, and they were calling him, telling him, Your cousin is out here, we're public enemy. So he was like, he asked me if I wanted to go on tour with him. I said, What were you going on? He was like, The Eminem tour. We're getting ready for it right now. You want to go? I was like heck yes, I don’t have anything else to do. Let's go. And he was like, No, I want you to be my DJ. And I was like. Yes. So I did the whole “let me think about it for about a fraction of a second”. Then I said yes. And that changed my entire life right there. So he told me to talk to management. And at the time his manager was Paul Rosenberg, who was Eminem's manager. So they set up my flights. I went to L.A. We did rehearsals for you know, the… let's see, that would have been yeah, that was the winter into spring of 2002. So I flew to L.A. in May and was gone from May to August. So we did rehearsals and then we did that tour that entire summer, and we were ready to keep going in August. But Em decided he was going to not take any more tour dates on because he wanted to take his daughter to school for the first day of school in September. But that's where it was amazing. Like the last day of rehearsals. We get to this big soundstage and we pull up in one of Xzibit’s ridiculous cars and I'm getting ready to jump out. And I look in and I see this big house that was constructed inside of this big soundstage.
CH [00:38:19] And you can hear the music playing. And they were filming one of Em’s videos. So I'm excited to get out and see everybody before you know the video. I'm getting ready to jump out and there's a Ferrari sitting right next to the car that big, so awesome silver Ferrari open a door and a bouncer comes up and he's looking at me and I'm looking at him and he's like, Close the door. And I tell him to get out because the door is… I'll open the door for you. So he comes around. This dude is just guarding Dr. Dre Ferrari, right? So he opens the door so I can squeeze my big butt out of it. I get out and go in and Alvin introduces me to Dr. Dre and I'm like, Yeah, we met at St Andrew's Hall. He didn't remember me at all. But he's like, Oh, okay, yeah. Which was awesome. But he was like, This is my cousin Carl. He's my DJ now. And he was like, All right, all right, you ready for this? And I was like, Man, I was born ready for this. And he was like, nobody was born ready for this. Are you ready? It was like, yeah, man. I’m, I am let's go is going to be, you know, amazing. He was like, okay, we'll see. We'll see. So I was like our challenge of Dr. Dre now. So after a couple of rehearsals, Dre came up to me and gave me the nod. He was like, Okay, I see you up there. I see you Detroit. Because I would every every time I spin, I have my Tigers hat on. I am 100% represented but it was just an amazing transition from being a kid that deejays, nightclubs and parties and is in that daily grind to every day you're on a different stage. Every day you see different people. Every day is a new experience and with a new crowd. And I mean, that tour lasted through the summer. And as soon as that tour was over, I was like, Oh my God, this was the greatest time in my life. And I was ready to shut it down. I was like, Thank you for bringing me on a tour. You know, I'm thinking some other deejays are getting ready to jump back in. And he he was like, all right. Well, the last day of the tour was, we had two shows here in Detroit at the Palace of Auburn Hills. And one show I wore my Lakers, I had a Lakers jersey that had DJ invisible on the back. I had DJ invisible on the back and I had a Pistons jersey that had DJ invisible on the back. So I'm rocking my, my Pistons and my Lakers gear back and forth because I'm deejaying for a West
Coast rapper, but I'm the Detroit guy. The last show in Detroit, I had been approached by his manager, and his manager came up. I was like, All right, well, we go to Europe next week, so get all your stuff together you need from Europe and give me your tech rider and get whatever gear you need because we're getting ready to head overseas.
CH [00:40:57] I was like yeah. I mean, this is still happening. This is crazy. This is the way. So I'm going to Europe now and they're like, yeah, you're Xzibit’s DJ. We have to go do more shows. You're not done yet. And I was like, Oh God, this is great. So, oh my goodness. I went home for a week and you couldn't tell me anything. It was like I was at the time, I had started to learn how to market myself better. So I had not bought that entire summer. I hadn't bought clothes. I hadn't bought shoes. I was being given everything. So I'm like, Oh, this is rich people stay rich.You know, buy anything you just call a company and ask them for it. I had the NBA sending me jerseys. I had Apple computers giving me computers.
So it was amazing. I was like, This ride is still happening. So I went home for a week and got my passport together and and headed to Europe, which was deejaying on a whole nother level. The music appreciation that I was experiencing overseas was one thing, but when you grow up at Woodward and Clairmount and you see Northern High School is the biggest building in your block and you look in the tallest building you can see in your neighborhood is the Fisher Building. That's pretty cool. Fisher Building's an amazing building. But when you get to Paris and you see the Eiffel Tower for the first time in real life, and you can't stop staring at it and you go and spend an entire you blow a whole day at the Eiffel Tower just because you've been seeing it and reading about it in books your entire life. I mean, my entire world had changed. All I wanted to do was travel and see the stuff that I had been taught and read about in books. So every time we got to a different city, you couldn't find Carl for the first day if we had a day off. I was seeing something. You know, we’re in Germany. I was seeing all the big monuments, you know, in in Amsterdam. I am wandering around everywhere that you could see the red light district got to see it. Let's go. You know, it was just an amazing opportunity. And I started to notice that wherever you go in the world, you tell somebody from…you're from Detroit and they either know somebody or they've got a Detroit story, or they're that three degrees of separation away from something Detroit, you know. So that was just an awesome experience which would take me into probably nonstop touring through 2007. So we toured wiith Eminem to 2005 and then we did Linkin Park for a year, that took us around the world. You know, we did the 2007, I think, was the World Earth Day thing we did with an Al Gore hologram and, you know, performing in Japan with Rihanna. Geez, there's a laundry list of people that I've opened for with Xzibit and then by myself. But yeah, it's just awesome eye opening experiences through 27 in 2008. I ended up touring with another local rapper, or locally based artist named Mike Ellison, and Mike at the time had gotten hooked up with the American Cancer Society. And Mike took me on that tour and it was geez probably on and off for the better part of three years excuse me, doing a campus invasion style tour.
So we would go to a school and we would set up, you know, anti tobacco you know, posters. And we would go to the cafeterias and put up banners and then have a big concert at the end of the day or two that we were there. And that was sponsored by the American Cancer Society. And it was an awesome transition from being somebody's backup deejay. You know, I'm the deejay on stage. I'm one of two or three people on stage, but my name's not in lights. And doing
this American Cancer Society thing, Mike made sure that all of us got billing. So that was really cool. So that lasted for, you know, I'd say til 2011. And then Xzibit called me back and was like he was doing movies and he had taken some time off to do movies and TV shows and he called me back and was like Carl, we got to get back on the road. So 2011, we were back at it, you know, and we went back at it hard. It was like straight back to Europe, you know, we did the Cannes music, our Cannes film festival and. That being in the south of France, I was like, This is amazing. Glad I'm here. Can't afford to do anything. Glad I saw it. Gotta the hell out of here. Yeah, but, you know, it's not music. Can't afford to eat here. This is ridiculous. Like, the guy picked us up from the airport in a Lamborghini Huracan. That is a his is $1,000,000 car. I was like I have equipment. What are you doing? And he's like, no, no, no, no. Somebody else will get it. And he had this dude put the equipment in the back of some ridiculously big giant Rolls Royce. And he just shoves the equipment in the Rolls Royce like it was an SUV and was like, you want to drive? Like, No, it was crazy.
BWW [00:46:17] I will not be responsible for this.
CH [00:46:19] My insurance…my progressive will not cover your million dollar car. No, I don't want to drive. But it was crazy stuff like that that would just happen you know, I love cars and this is surreal. This dude is picking us out from the airport in this ridiculous car. But 2011, we're back full throttle. We're back on the road. And we're doing, you know, 30 shows in like 40 days in Europe, you know, just bouncing around just here, there, everywhere. And it was amazing. I'd never fallen out of love with with touring. It is you know, I love coming home and bringing my collection of money that I have from all over the world, putting it in my little stack of, you know, I have I have currency that doesn't exist anymore now that the euro is around. But it just helps remind me of some of the cool things that I've done. I had a big poster that I had framed and I would put pushpins in all the countries I've been to. And it's old enough now to where some of the countries have changed names. And then the kids also started taking the pushpins out and putting them in other places. So I was like, I have never been there, why is this push pin there? And my daughter's like that's a pretty color. I'm like, thanks, kid. So, you know I'm a big collector, so I have masks from African countries and South American countries that I have on a wall at home. I try and bring something cool back from everywhere I go, so that cruises me along until 2015 when I got a call from a rapper named Mahogany Jones. So Mahogany Jones had asked me if I would go to Pakistan and Madagascar with her and another singer named JC Capri. Mahogany is from New York. And I was like, Yeah, you know, I'm a hired gun. Let's go, what are we going to Pakistan and Madagascar for? Tt was a little off the beaten path going to places. And she said, Well, I'm doing a program with the State Department called the American Music Abroad Program. And the American Music Abroad Program takes U.S. artists on diplomatic missions around the world to smaller countries to do cultural diplomacy, music and cultural diplomacy. So I was like, Yeah. lets… Yeah, it sounds interesting and different.
CH [00:48:43] So I had to get my passport to her and found out that my passport was going to expire while I was gone. And then she's like, No problem. She put me in touch with
some. The people in charge just sent me a letter that they were like, Take this letter to the passport office and just give it to them and you'll be fine. And I was like, okay, whatever.
BWW [00:49:05] Proves it doesn't take eight weeks.
CH [00:49:06] It does not take eight weeks. So I took my, the letter, my passport and walked out with a new passport. I was like, this is the most balliness job I've ever had. Let's go. So I go to the you know, we do some rehearsals or whatever, and I fall in love with the music that she's doing and which really helps. So I've done, I’ve deejayed for a bunch of different people. And when you deejay for somebody and don't like their music, it kind of stinks. But I mean, her energy was crazy, so this was great. So I ended up going to the first stop was Madagascar and the only reference I had was the movies. So I'm like, Oh my God, it's going to be lemurs everywhere. And they were like, Yes, we're going to go on a lemur adventure. So being the goofy person I am, I had like trail boots and I've got khakis and I got my, pretty much looked like Crocodile Dundee and I was like, okay, I will be wearing that. I had this. I looked ridiculous, but I was having fun, you know. So I get there and we go on this lemur walk and we see the lemurs. And that was like early on in our trip. And then we started doing the work and the work was doing workshops and performances and collaborating with local artists, and that was music on a whole nother level to me. So I fell in love with that, that concept. So we did Madagascar and then we went into Pakistan and you know, all of the things that you hear about Pakistan. With the, you know, it being somewhat of a dangerous place for Americans. And we had security briefings and it was, the security briefings were more terrifying than anything else. And but when I got there, I was like, the people are nice. The food is amazing, you know? It did not seem as bad as they would have made it sound.
But I'm like, better safe than sorry. I'll come back here any day of the week, though, and I will eat my way through Pakistan. This is great. So we did. That was a good three weeks of being Madagascar and Pakistan and then coming back home and, you know, doing some one offs with Xzibit still and then I, you know, I had, geez from 2015 to the current time. I've done several trips with the State Department doing cultural diplomacy. I'm now a United States music and culture ambassador. So I'm doing a cultural diplomacy for the government, which is amazing, something I think I have bragging rights and none of my other friends can say that. In the music industry are that are deejays. So I've done Kazakhstan. I've been to Thailand. I've been to India. Let's backtrack just a little bit in 2020, right when the world was breaking, I was supposed to be going on Snoop's tour with D12 and Obi Trice. The world broke and then I got a call from American Voices, which runs the State Department's programs. And my friend Jacob calls and he's like, Carl, I need you to do a virtual program, you know, a virtual deejay program. So we did a virtual deejay program with Uganda and Ambassador Natalie Brown. You know, she was spearheading this whole let's keep engagement with the youth of the youth of Uganda through this. You know, shutdown. You know, the kids can't get out here. The kids can't get out there. Let's figure out some way to stay in touch and keep them engaged. So this Uganda program was like the very first virtual academy. So there was me and a beatboxer and we had let's see, we had some singer songwriters. And it was it was amazing. But I had to figure out how to be a virtual deejay now. So at home, I invested in some more gear, which is always fun to do. I had I got myself a black magic switcher and I've got a four channel camera set up in my house. And I
turned the one of the rooms of my house into a full television studio. So when I would have virtual programming, I would have my son sit down as my engineer to change camera so I could go from my overhead camera to my front camera to the over-the-shoulder camera. And then I would have a third, excuse me a fourth input showing my actual computer screen. So my son got fully involved in my whole little process here, and I would pay him 50 bucks to be my engineer. So it was, you know, it was transitioning into something else, but it was always trying to stay busy. Like when the world brought a whole lot of people just decided to sit down like, Oh, there's nothing to do. But I was always trying to find something to do. Like, I will always say yes to any of these programs because if nothing else, it's a cool challenge. You know, it might not make a whole lot of money, but as long as I'm not losing, you know, there's still some kind of win involved in it.
So we did virtual programming through 2020 into let's see, are 2020 into 21 when things started opening up. And then in 22 I was offered a tour through India and one of the heads asked me if I was interested in putting my own tour together. I was like, Yeah, what kind of tour is this. And she told me that the Indian consulate wants you to put together a hip hop tour through India and we're going to hit the big cities. So I called five of my friends. I called Miss Corona, who is a Detroit based M.C., who was in the Eminem movie in India. They had their bassline for hip hop is Eight Mile. So, you know, in this in the States here we have movies dating back into the, you know, early eighties. But them it was that eight mile movie was like, oh, this is what hip hop is. So I was like, this is perfect. My friend is Ms.. Corona, I'll call her. She was in the lunchbox scene at the beginning of the movie. I call my friend Richie the robot Steiner, who was a beatboxer who was on America's Got Talent or something like that. And I need a breakdancer. I called my friend Strings, who is from Detroit, but he wouldn't be able to go because he was going to L.A. to be in a battle. So we looked around and I thought about other people that I worked with. So I called Hans Pierre, who is a breakdancer, a modern dancer. He does everything, and he's from L.A.. So I called Hans, asked him to get down, and then one of my good friends from a band that I'm in called the Black Bottom Collective, Khary Kimani Turner. I called Khary. I was like, Hey, I know you got, like a real job, but by any chance, would you be interested in going on a three week stage tour with me through India? So he was able to work it out with, he works for the Coleman Young Foundation now. So he was able to knock the dust off and he came back and killed every show. So I took a group of my friends on tour as The Invisibles through India for three and a half weeks. And we did five shows… We did. Chennai, Chandigarh, Hyderabad, Goa and geez. There's one other city that we did… Mumbai or Delhi, no we didn't do... We didn't…. We flew into Delhi. Oh, geez. It'll come to me in a second. But so we did these big five shows and we were on Indian national television. And the one show that we did, there were 10 million viewers and it went viral in India. So that was amazing. We did some food blogs that have gone viral. That was just an amazing opportunity. And for me to be able to take some of my friends with me made it that much more fulfilling. You know, every day instead of looking up and seeing somebody had brought me along, you know, feeling good that like, oh, I was able to bring my friends with me. It was like one of the coolest experiences ever. So like three and a half weeks of that. And then, you know, going on to do another academy in Nigeria and coming home to see my daughters play and then flying right back out to, you know, Uganda to do a live academy with the same participants that two years later were on our virtual academy was amazing, you know? So I've been really blessed to be confident enough to say
yes to so many different things. And I'm having all these, like, wacky, surreal experiences. They just keep happening. Yeah. To get the call to do this was like, you know, when you're an artist from a city, you want to be recognized in that city. Like right.
CH [00:58:26] Now, I am internationally popular and famous and these weird, strange nooks and crannies of the world and home people know who I am. But to be recognized and appreciated for all the crazy hustle and hard work is really, really cool. So. Now, if you if you have any questions outside of that. I know I've rambled and I will just keep rambling or pushing out.
BWW [00:58:48] So the question is, at the forefront of my mind right now is that you mentioned earlier when as you were going around the world, everyone had a Detroit story or had that third degree of separation. How does it feel now that you are the Detroit connection for so many people around the world?
CH [00:59:03] That was amazing. So it's really cool. One of the funny stories is the…No, let's see, let's go back to find…I don’t know, people think of Detroit as the Motown city, you know, and as the techno city. So when I get to an airport and people are like, Oh, so-and-so was just here, you know, are you? What do you do? I'm like, I'm. Yeah, I'm DJ invisible. Right, right. Do you play techno too, like now? No. I mostly spin hip hop. But that's the thing. When you're a Detroit deejay, you have to be able to spin everything. Like, if you're, you know, the big techno guys, they don't have to spin anything but techno because that's where they became popular and famous and they made the music. So they're just spinning the music that they'd make so they don't have to veer outside of the box. But if you ask one of those guys to spin hip hop, they will spin hip hop with the best of them because they are a Detroit deejay, and they have to know how to mix to be able to to do what they do. So the cool part of being a deejay from Detroit is I was in Russia and I'm on stage and, you know, we had done Xzibit’s show and I'm just up there goofing off with the local deejay and there's thousands of people standing in front of us. And I got my laptop so I can play anything. He's banging out, you know, dance music and techno. And every now and then he would throw in like a random eighties pop song and the crowd would go nuts. And I'm like, Oh, this is amazing. Stop it. Let's go here. So I got my turntables here some scratch it, and then I would mix in an awesome Dre song like and or mixing, you know Amir Stine's A Day Without A Rhyme. Right. And a crowd would go nuts. They've never heard it before. So I started mixing in random Detroit songs. I played Aretha Franklin R-E-S-P-E-C-T at 3:00 in the morning. In Moscow and got the crowd to go bananas. The appreciation for music in Detroit. Music is Is mind blowing, you know. Playing My Girl at a nightclub in Amsterdam. And everybody was, you know loving it. People are singing it. You know, you throw another a breakbeat under the bottom and you're mixing and [mimicking beatboxing sounds] you hear everybody like just know the lyrics of the song, you know, like Detroit music is ingrained in everybody's soul and people that don't even know that it's necessarily Detroit know the songs. You know, which is really, really cool. Generations after the solid Motown era, people know that music. And then when you tell them you're from Detroit, it's hilarious that they're like, Oh, do you know so-and-so? Like, No, I, you know, I just so happened to know Eminem from the nineties, you know, in our touring in the early 2000s. But people think of Detroit as that small city like they
they know that the music from this era or from the the older era or whatever, and you tell them you're from Detroit, you're like, Oh, do you know so-and-so? And I’m like…And you start thinking about as I do that too, you know, you meet somebody from, you know L.A. you're like, Oh, do you know so-and-so? No, the city is humongous, you know. So it's it's a it's a really cool the Detroit hat. The Detroit D is is also the the biggest Don't Mess With Me card. We were in Paris right after some of Jay-Z's crew had been robbed for their jewelry, for walking through the hood, you know, being disrespectful to the people. So we just so happened to be in Paris and made a wrong turn and some some big rough dudes came up. And instead of doing the whole puff your chest out, you know, I'm from New York thing like they had done. I walked up to the dude was like, what's going on, man? I'm from Detroit. You know, you know, where where should we go eat? You know what's what's good? What have no. And they're like, oh, and those dudes, to this day, when I go to Paris, I reach out to that group of people like, hey, it's our what's what's going on? Where should we go hang out? You know, it was there's a Detroit confidence and a Detroit air that we carry that is just edgy enough. And Detroit has just edgy enough of a reputation to where people don't want to mess with you because they've heard it is super tough. But there is also air of respect that you get right off the bat before you say anything. So as long as you don't screw it up, you know, then you're good. You know.
BWW [01:03:53] My dad looks like Santa, and he travels a lot, travels the country to work. And he was working in a place and someone just off the cuff as like, oh, where are you from? I'm from Detroit. And he said by the time he left that building, at the end of it, everyone in the building knew he was from Detroit.
CH [01:04:09] Right.
BWW [01:04:11] And they were like, Yeah, back off. He's like, I look like I'm fine right now. I look like Santa.
CH [01:04:18] It is weird. It's so weird. So my friends had been teasing me that I do not sound like a hip hop deejay. Like when we're just out and about, they're like, You sound like somebody's schoolteacher. You know you are. I don't know. Not tough at all. And would you tell somebody from Detroit and it doesn't matter. Like, when I get on stage, I am loud and obnoxious and I am screaming and shouting and hands in the air. And I am DJ invisible from the time the lights go on to the time the lights go off. But as soon as I walk offstage, I'm Carl again. And Carl is goofy and Carl's tells bad jokes. I tell Dad jokes. Like it's my second language.Might be my first language now. But you tell somebody you're from Detroit, and those dad jokes instantly become like, way cooler. Like hell yeah, kids don't understand. So I've taken my son with me on tour before, and he rolls his eyes nonstop that people laugh at my dad jokes. He's like, It's not funny. Why? He's going to come home and do this to us, stop laughing at these things. Yeah, it's just. It's really cool being, being from Detroit is something that I carry with me, you know, as a badge of honor. You know, I have I'm currently wearing my Spirit of Detroit Award from 1984. You know, it's it's it's a really proud feeling. So. And another thing like when I'm at a state-lier affair, you know, I can't wear my Tigers hat. So, you know, I have my little spirit of Detroit pin on
and somebody will come up. Oh, you're from Detroit, you know. Oh, do you know so and so? And I probably said, oh, yeah, it is that smaller city here. Yeah.
BWW [01:06:01] When you went to work for the fire department, did you consider that or music to be your side hustle?
CH [01:06:10] Well, I dove into the fire department, like, 100%. I was proud it was my dad's job. And I look up to my dad as the greatest dad of all times. You know, he's the one that introduced me to the idea of making mixtapes. Yeah. We would take these big family trips down south in our Volkswagen Westphalia pop top van and Dad would have mixtapes made. So, you know, anything and everything that he did, I looked up To. So when he joined or when he. You know, pushed me in the direction of the fire department, I wanted to make him proud. So I was a firefighter first, and then I was a deejay second. But that the cool thing was that the fire Department schedule allowed me to seamlessly do both of them. So, I mean, it was just some days I would have rough days at the engine house and have to sleep until I went on stage. You know, but yeah, I still miss…the guys on tour started calling me D.J. Fire Face. Because right after. That was another injury that I had coming out of the fire department. I had burned my scalp. So I am in Xzibit video for “The Symphony in X major” and it is the Symphony in X Major. It was a video that we had where we were dressing up like some kind of mercenary, and we were fighting this karate master who had a TV show, cooking TV show. I can't remember his name, right, the bat. But, you know, we're in wardrobe and we're getting our outfits on. And the hair and makeup lady comes up to me and she's like did you get a bad haircut? And I was like, No, ma'am. I was a firefighter last year, and I burned my scalp. So it looks like I had like this big cowlick right here. And she was like, oh, so why don't you just cut all your hair off? And I was like, No, I got you. And they started teasing me, calling me Fire. Face. And that stuck to this day. So I'll be out somewhere and we'll be at a big festival gig and somebody that was around that stretch of time, aww fire face and I'm like, Dammit, I hate you. So it's, it's awesome having that experience and then having it here. I ran at the same engine house my dad did, you know I was at Engine 40 over on Dexter and Ewald Circle. And being at the same firehouse that my father was, that made it so much cooler. You know, I ran with some of the same guys that he did. I was embraced. I thought that it was going to be an uphill battle. But, you know, that was one of the greatest experiences of my life. And I would still go back if I could pass a physical agility test in a heartbeat. Yeah. So great time.
BWW [01:09:06] What would you say to folks that want to get started today?
CH [01:09:11] In music. Yeah, yeah, that definitely. I think that music is one of the most amazing jobs that you can have if you have. I would start off with a backup plan as well. I would not quit your day job. But if you want to do it and you want to be successful at it, you have to take it on with a hunger and a passion that you have had for nothing else. If you want to be successful, there are people to start right now and unfortunately there are enough people that strike gold instantly that it makes everyone else feel like they don't have to do the same amount of hard work that the majority of the people have done to be successful. So that's just. I guess that's the same with a whole lot of other careers. Every now and then you hear some story
about somebody that made one song in their bathroom and it became a YouTube viral sensation. And now they've made millions. Yeah, that happens. Somebody also hits the lottery. You know, every day. And that's why people spend millions and millions of dollars on lottery tickets. So if you want to be successful in music, you have to have a hunger and a passion for it that you can't lose from day to day. You know, if you want it, you have to know that you're the best at it and you have to go into every opportunity like that is an audition for the next opportunity. And you can't expect that that next opportunity is going to be it. So you have to go into that with even more hunger and you have to stay hungry and ambitious and you have to be willing to think outside the box. Then you have to think of what you want your career to be. You know, you have to envision it. You have to set goals. It's it's a busy job. You know, every day I get up and I don't work for anybody. I work for myself. You know? So every day I get up, I have to go to my desk and figure out what I can do that day. If I am not hired by somebody else, what I can accomplish that day to be successful as DJ Invisible. You know, Invisible Entertainment is my company. I do something for invisible entertainment every day. If it's just some marketing thing, buying an ad on social media figuring out my next business card, figuring out my next, you know, it's I'll sit down and record something. You know, just you always have to stay hungry and busy if you want to be successful at it is not easy, you know? And the music business is not the same as it was in the past. You know, my son, I got him involved. He's a lover of music. He put out a record. And he's had over a thousand streams. He got 1000 streams really quick. Then it kind of fizzled off. And then he looked at the amount of money that he made off those thousand streams and could not put money in a parking meter. So the money is not in the sales of the music right now. The money is in. You got to figure out how to get out there and perform for people and make that money yourself. So it's this it's a different world of music right now, but it's still. To me, it's amazingly fulfilling. When I get on stage and I say, Put your hands up and everybody's hands go up. You know, I get on stage and I see people laughing and smiling and having a good time and dancing and moving or sitting down and nodding their heads and moving. I win. I'm successful. That's all I need. Right. So it's a it's an interesting feeling. Somebody that was not a big dancer, you know, I get to go to parties now and make people happy. You know, that is my that is my ticket to in. I mean, I can dance now, but my my ticket to the parties is me being able to go and make people have a good time. You know, when the when the economy had crashed and everybody was bummed out. My industry thrive. People still need to get out and have a good time. You just don't charge them as much to get in the door. You still got to make money, but. People need an outlet. People need to go and have a good time and move around and socialize. And music is like one of the greatest ways to do that, you know? And I'm lucky enough to be in the the world of noise making know, which is really, really cool. It's funny in the I got asked to do the Ambassadors 4th of July party at the Ugandan embassy or to me the Ugandan ambassador from the United States, Ambassador Natalie Brown, had asked me to do her 4th of July party and that is one of the biggest honors, because 4th of July parties at embassies and and for ambassadors, that's their big thing every year. So the second party that we had done there were people that they said had never spoken to each other. They were ambassadors and dignitaries and diplomats from countries that were not speaking diplomatically, but were dancing together. So I look at it like I could have possibly. Done some good here. I got people to dance and move because they like the music that I was playing. So music is it's it sounds silly to say it because people say it all the time, but it is an
international language. I can go and stand behind my turntables and talk to another deejay without being able to speak the same language. You know, I can stand up behind the turntables and another deejay and I can play back and forth and he can play his style of music and I can play mine. And we can both control the dance floor and show people a good time. So it feels really good. You know that Detroit guy out here making music and having fun, you know, internationally and its awesome.
BWW [01:14:57] That is great. I have two very quick questions and then we're going to wrap it up.
CH [01:15:01] I will probably have two unnecessarily long answers.
BWW [01:15:03] Oh, no. you’re good. When you think of the word hustle… or hear the word hustle, what do you what comes to mind?
CH [01:15:13] Well, it's kind of hard to describe. Hustle to me. Hustle is like, you know, you are you're making it happen. You are working. You are hard working. You know, you are working to make it happen and you are trying to monetize. And become successful with whatever it is you do. So my daily hustle is to be the most successful deejay invisible possible because I have kids to take care of. You know, that is my hustle. That is that is kind of what defines me. I am a husband. I am a father, and I have to support these people. So I have to get out here and do what it takes to make that happen. You know, making my kids right now are my, my, my reason to hustle. You know, my wife is my reason to hustle. My family, that is my reason to hustle. So I go and work extremely hard every day to make sure that happens. And I think that people look at deejays and musicians as not a real job. You know, you tell somebody that you're a deejay. And like, oh, cool, what else do you do? And I used to take offense to that. I got my kids…my daughter, my one daughter at Mercy right now. And the other daughter is she'll be a freshman in Mercy coming up. But when all my kids were in private school at the same school, we would go to events and have people say, oh, what do you do? I'm [da-da-da] this, that, and the other. What do you do, Carl? If they're not on social media, they're like, you know, you're a deejay. Oh, cool. That's that's fun. What else do you do? I like no. I travel the world internationally as a deejay. I've been doing this for 30 years and I've toured with some of the biggest artists in the world but you can't say that because then you're name dropping jerk. Right? So I just let it go. You know, I got to a point where I just let it go. I can sit in a room of doctors and lawyers and people that have, you know, more letters and initials behind their name and carry on the same conversation that they're in because of the experiences that I've had hustling as a deejay, you know.I have done a little of everything and I am proud of it. And I have made my parents proud enough to say ohh, yeah, my son is a deejay. And then their friends will ask them, Oh, well, what else does he do? And I let them figure that out. But yeah, hustling is it's a Detroit thing. You know, Detroit is a city known for hustlers, be it good or bad. You know, I think early on in the word, it might have had a negative kind of feel to it, like, oh, he's a hustler, or he's just trying to get over like now. Yeah, I was just trying to make it, you know, when you're hustling and you don't have anything, you're just trying to make it. And then if you stop hustling and you get lethargic and you start slowing down, then you get stagnant and you're not making
it anymore. You know, if you've gotten rich and you don't want to do it anymore, that's one thing. But I think as long as I am having a good time and I am enjoying, you know, spending records and making noise and making people happy, my hustle continues and I'm about this hustle. I love it.
It is it is a hunger that I have to feed every day, you know, getting on stage or getting behind my computer, talking to people and interacting, you know, it's just it's amazing, you know? It is so much fun. Yeah. Once again, one of the long, invisible answers.
BWW [01:18:31] That was great because my second question is like, what do you think of when you hear the word hustler? Because for so many people, I've had a few people we interviewed already go, oh, I hustle every day, but don't call me a hustler.
CH [01:18:42] Oh, please, you call me a hustler. It's the way you say it. Just with anything. You know, I'm a hustler. I am not hustling you. I am hustling my my music. I am out here. I am getting up every day, and I am tying my shoes up, putting my belt on, going out. And I am going to hustle up on some money by spinning records. I'm going to hustle up on some money by renting a sound system. You know, I've got a sound and lighting company. I am going to drop that when I can. You know, it's if if you got something that needs noise made or you have a show coming up where you need lighting. I'm going to hustle up on that opportunity to be your sound and lighting provider. You know, you need a deejay to do a party. Yeah, I'm not going to throw it to somebody else right off the bat. I'm going to see if I can hustle up on that gig myself. You know, tomorrow I'll be at the Royal Oak Festival in the street. You know, I hustle up on a cool gig and I love it. You know, there's a negative way to say it and there's a positive way to say it just with a whole lot of things. You know, I am not hustling anybody negatively. I am hustling for your business. That is the way I look at it. So, yes, Deejay Invisible is a hustler out here in the street enjoying being a musical hustler. Let's go.
BWW [01:19:56] That was fantastic. Thank you so much.
CH [01:19:57] Oh, no. Thanks for having me.