DJ Skee is a producer, digital media pioneer and DJ. Skee, whose real name is Scott Keeney, is known for being the first DJ to discover and play superstar artists on the radio including Kendrick Lamar, Justin Bieber, Akon, Lorde and Lady Gaga. He is also the host of Skee TV, a talk show on the Fuse network that explores Verge Culture, which is the first generation of kids who have grown up with the Internet. The show covers music, sports, fashion, tech and style. Keeney spoke to Rainbow Rumpus about how he grew up to follow his dream of becoming a DJ.
How did you decide to be a a DJ?
I was born in New York but I grew up in Minnesota, where I went to high school. For some reason, someone donated a couple of recording studios to my school, so I took a class on engineering that piqued my interest in music. From there I stole my dad’s turntable and bought another from Best Buy, a cheap one, and broke them both the same night. But it was at that moment, I fell in love with records and DJing and knew that was what I was gonna do.
How did you break into the music industry from Minnesota?
I started off doing mix tapes in my high school and giving them to friends, and then local stores started carrying them. I went up to a local store owner and said, man, I really want to be on radio, and he connected me at the time with a guy who was on the radio, and he gave me a shift on his show that was at, I think, 4am on Saturday nights. Worst time ever, but it was my start and I loved it. From there I started getting noticed and got connected somehow to the CEO of Loud and Sony at the time and sent him a proposal of ideas for his label and what I thought he was doing wrong, and he loved it so much he offered me a job and moved me to L.A. when I was 17. I figured out a way to graduate high school early, moved out here, and I’ve been here ever since.
So what would you say to a kid who wants to do this?
I’d say to kids you’ve just got to go out there and make it happen. What always shocks me is when I talk to people, they feel like it can’t be them. I was a kid living in Minneapolis that made it to Los Angeles, living the Hollywood dream, and now with a TV show. If I can do it, and I’m not very gifted or talented, other people can. There’s no reason they can’t. It’s just about going out there and experiencing things, doing it and working hard. It’s about finding your plane, and once you find it, zoning in on it and outworking everybody. Everything I’ve done, I’ve found what I love and figured out a way to make a living.
How have you overcome obstacles to following your dreams?
The biggest thing, to me, for making it is persistence. For every great thing that happens, you’re going to have a hundred bad things or obstacles that force it. Even when I came out here, I was a kid and people looked at me like I was crazy. I was working in the industry, and they were saying, what are you doing here? They saw me as competition, and it was tough at certain times, especially being a teenager and not knowing what to do. There are times when you feel like quitting, and you just have to fight through them and know that at the end of the day that, if it’s what you really want to do, it’s going to happen. It’s going to work out. So it’s really about being persistent through all the obstacles. We still face it every day with the TV show and getting artists and all of those things. But one day everything’s down and you just keep working through it and eventually it all turns around when it’s right, and it all works out how it’s supposed to in the end, in a weird way. It always works out, looking back on it.
How important have friends and family been to your success?
It’s always important to have a good network around and people you can just talk to and that you can relate to and be comfortable with and share things. It’s so important just having a great structure, whether it’s family, whether it’s friends, and ideally it’s both, but making the most with whatever you have right there and being positive. It’s really just building a network of friends. One reason I’m here is because I know a lot of people. I didn’t start out as the most social person. I was scared to even stand up in third grade and give a speech. But now I’m speaking and performing at all these venues and I have a TV show. I’ve learned the value of networking, and this world is based off of relationships. People like working and doing things with friends, and you never know where those are going to be.
And you were the first person to play Lady Gaga’s music?
Yeah, the first! She shouted me out at SXSW at her keynote last year. I love Gaga. She’s great.
Season 2 of Skee TV returns to the Fuse network on October 2. More information can be found at fuse.tv and djskee.com.
