• Conference Schedule

Keynote Interview with DJ Drama

(Interviewer: DJ Charlie B) Legendary hip-hop producer, DJ, promoter, label executive – that takes up too way much space on a business card. DJ Drama, born Tyree Simmons, is best known simply as “King of the Mixtape.”

Born in Philadelphia at the dawn of hip-hop, DJ Drama, got ATL branded in his brain during a Southern family trip, with Outkast blasting from the car speakers. An aspiring DJ since his mid-teens, he enrolled at Clark Atlanta University, met his longtime partner Don Cannon, and became a local legend, playing school parties and clubs, and selling copious amounts of mixtapes to a fast-growing fandom.

It was the D.I.Y. birth of his iconic Gangsta Grillz series, since favoured by the likes of Jeezy and Lil Wayne.

In this highly-anticipated Keynote Interview with Canadian collaborator and admirer DJ Charlie B, DJ Drama talks about his years riding the wave of new sounds and artists, and the evolution of nightlife and the music industry through the first quarter of this century.

He’ll tell stories about some prize talent discoveries, like Lil Uzi Vert and Jack Harlow, and where and how he found them.

We’re going to “go there” and get him to spill his top-three collaborators (from a ridiculously fame-filled list that includes Lil Wayne, T.I., Meek Mill, Wiz Khalifa, Ludacris, Chris Brown, Fabolous, Roscoe Dash, Post Malone, Young Thug and many more).

We’ll go deep to talk about the divide between being DJ Drama and being Tyree, which is the real artist and person? And what would he say to the ambitious young DJ Drama, knowing what he knows now?

And we’ll examine the chemistry between him, Don Cannon and Lake who’ve stuck together on GenerationNOW as friends and creators in an unforgiving, pressurized industry that takes its toll on relationships.

All this, and we’ll dare him to deny his Toronto love, given his history of rocking the city throughout the past decade. We may not be Atlanta, but he’ll have something to say about “The 6.”