SOHH.com recently caught up with Irie on his way back to MIA from Los Angeles, where he spent part of the weekend performing with Jamie Foxx for an upcoming NBC television special. Prior to the L.A. trip, he was doing a gig in Puerto Rico, a second home for Irie, who visits the island at least a dozen times a year and has headlined P.R.’s Coors Light “Temple of Sound” event for the last two years. He works constantly, moving crowds for the NBA All-Star Weekend and Heineken’s House Party in Ocho Rios, Jamaica as well as doing gigs throughout Europe and the States. Back in Miami he has very little time for sleep, but he admits that he doesn’t need more than a few hours to function and confesses to slipping in an occasional nap before hitting up the club for his usual residencies.
Well known for his easygoing smile and good natured attitude, Irie’s name fits him perfectly. He says he got the name while in his teens, working as a DJ at a Miami skating rink.
“My first DJ job was at a skating rink. I came back from boarding school in Jamaica because of Hurricane Andrew when I was 16 or 17. I was part of a little sound crew and one of the DJ’s at the skating rink was doing competition across the street, so he got caught and they hired me. The security guard said ‘First order of business, you are not going to be DJ Ian. You’re always Irie so we’ll call you DJIrieI.’ I was DJ Irie I until I started to do the clubs.”
Ironically, it was his skating rink gig that would later inspire Irie to accept an offer to work for the Miami Heat. When the American Airlines Arena was built, the powers that be wanted to have a DJ. They planned initially to bring in different forms of entertainment, first a DJ, then a band, then a singer. Two members of the arena committee were avid in Miami’s club scene, another had used DJ Irie for a birthday party. All three were sure he was the man they wanted, but Irie was far from certain. “When they called, I said ‘No thanks, what I do in the clubs I don’t see working in the arena.'”
After turning down the initial meeting, Irie got another call from the committee member he’d DJ’d for, this time asking just to meet him. When Irie arrived he found the entire committee waiting for him.
“I said, ‘Just to be frank, I love basketball and I’ve been to one game, but who are the people that are always at your games?’ When they said 40-50 year old Anglo/Latino males, I told them those weren’t the people at my clubs. But they didn’t want what I do in the club, they wanted a certain energy/personality. It struck me like a ton of bricks. I was in tunnel vision mode thinking about Miami’s hip hop – reggae fans, the cool crowd. When I did the skating rink I was playing everything. I realized people of all walks of life like to skate. I had worked at the skating rink for five years. I realized I just needed to get in that frame of mind.”
Irie remembers back to the Heat’s opening day in 2000, recalling “I was horrible. It was bad. I left there that night and I knew I embarrassed myself, but I’m not a quitter, so I made adjustments and the next game was a lot better. I thought it would end in December but by January it went so well they wanted me for the season. Fans were sending letters after the season and they had such an overwhelming response they called me back.”
That was six seasons ago. Now Irie’s job extends beyond just providing music. He’s hosting contests, working with tv personalities, being sent all over the place. Before Miami made DJ Irie their official DJ no other squad had someone branded with the team. His phone was soon ringing with requests for help finding DJ’s for other cities, “I believe there are now 8 or 9 team DJ’s and all that was started by what we accomplished in Miami,” Irie says.
While his work with the Heat is without a doubt his greatest accomplishment yet, Irie says his biggest event was in Miami this summer, during MTV’s Video Music Awards weekend.
“I did Ocean Drive Magazine’s party for 3000 people. There was a huge twenty foot wide DJ Irie banner. I haven’t been nervous in a long time, but that night I was nervous that all eyes were gonna be on me. But the force was with me. It was one of the most incredible parties I’ve ever played. That’s when Jamie (Foxx) was like, ‘You’re my guy no matter what.’ Afterwards, Jerry Powers, founder and publisher of Ocean Drive, called me and asked me to do all their events.”
Ironically enough, Irie almost passed up working behind the tables for a career in medicine.
“I went to school to study to be a doctor, at FIU. I was campus DJ and doing club stuff and by the time I was getting ready to graduate I realized I had paid for it all with money I made DJing, but even if I wasn’t getting paid I would have probably done it anyway because I love it. I had applied myself to school and realized I could apply myself as a DJ the same way. In life if you do what you love to do, you will never really work a day in your life. From that point on I put everything I had into it. That was ten years ago.”
The youngest of three boys born to Jamaican parents, DJ Irie was raised in Miami but was educated at boarding school in Jamaica. At age 13 he befriended fellow Belair high school student Greg Cowans whose parents owned Jamaican nightclub Merrymakers. Irie had his first opportunity to put his hands on turntables while visiting Merrymakers with Greg. This experience in Jamaica became a defining moment for Irie, who soon spent all the money his parents sent him to purchase records.
“Every time I heard a song I liked I would buy a 45. I stopped buying lunch, clothes, books. All the money my parents sent would go to buying records. I would come home for the holidays with a suitcase full of records. I was running a record racket. When I got into the DJ crew as a teenager I had the illest records. They ended up using all my records to throw parties.”
If his parents were amazed by the suitcases full of records their son brought home, they were even more surprised by his decision not to use the college education he’d labored so hard for.
“When I told them I was not going to pursue medicine they first looked at me crazy, then they were like ‘we probably should have seen this coming’, because when they were sleeping I was in my room every single night mixing and cutting and practicing, but I would still be up every morning at 8. I never asked them for money to buy anything to do with DJing because I didn’t know if they would support it.”
That Irie’s parents came around quickly shouldn’t have come as a shock. He freely admits that he has music in his blood.
“I came from a music rich household. A lot of people have family entertainment rooms centered around the TV. My dad had a music room centered around the stereo. He had floor to ceiling speakers, Bob Marley blasting, Bunny and the Wailers. We had a party at the house when I was 13 or 14 and some of my family’s friends from Jamaica came and I notice my mom is picking out some records and this lady says to me, ‘Boy, let me tell you how your mother was one of the wickedest selectors in Jamaica’ it turns out back home, whenever they had a party, she was in charge of the music.”
With his family’s support and all of Miami showing their love for Irie, it would seem he’s got South Beach conquered. Asked whether he’d consider leaving Miami and he’s hard pressed to say yes.
“I was just thinking about that, talking to Jamie this weekend about the tour and all that. I have so much going on in Miami for me to pick up and leave for a month. It takes me being here to keep all this going. In traveling, I’ve been to 50% of the cities in US and Europe, but outside of Jamaica and maybe my new affinity for L.A., there’s just no other city where I can see myself. I count my blessings every day that my parents moved here and I got to grow up here. Living in Miami everybody is here — there are parts of this country you can go to and not see black people. I might stray from doing as much residencies and open myself up to play other cities, contractually I have to fulfill a certain amount of days in the month, but I would love a little more freedom. I’d like to travel more.”
DJ Irie’s Playography
Projects & Accomplishments for 2005
Created the “Kingz of Miami” Mixtape series with partner DJ Diesel aka Shaquille
O’Neal.
Kingz of Miami Vol .1, The Season Opener, Season’s Greetings Holiday Mixtape
& Candy Paint (All-Star Edition)
Launched the DJ Irie signature T-Shirt line & the DJ Irie online store.. Djirie.com/store
Voted “Miami New Times” Club DJ of The Year 2005
2005 Miami DJ Awards – Best Energy DJ
2005 Beach Ball Festival – Favorite Hip-Hop DJ
2005 Power Summit – Nominated Mixshow DJ of The Year
Became Jamie Foxx’s Official DJ
Launched Irie Records
MTV|2 Game Riot & Sucker Free Sundays Tour
Projects for 2006
First DJ ever to Perform/Host the Orange Bowl nationally televised Half-Time
show live on ABC
National Tour with Jamie Foxx
LRG Print Ad campaign
Major Motion Picture debut in the feature film “Miami Vice” with Jamie Foxx
& Colin Farrell in theaters summer 2006.
Watch List
Jean – New Latin artist signed to Sony/BMG Latino. Writes all of his own material
with a soulful latin sound.
DJ Rob Dinero – “One of the Illest DJ/Producers out of NYC. His production
is sick!”
Rick Ross – Signed to Slip-N-Slide/Poe Boy Records. One of the hottest artists
on the streets of Miami
Nolan Baynes & Tony Gentry – Manager of Music Marketing Tours & Freelance Event
Producer/Production Manager respectively MTV
Jared Nixon – Product Placement Manager for FUBU/Drunknmunky/Ether & Coogi
fashion lines.
DJ Erok – Miami’s new rising star DJ
Garcia – From the Crazyhood camp making a lot of noise in Miami and throughout
the countr
Woodie White – Brand Manager for LRG
Cory Gunz – Signed to Def Jam and son of Peter Gunz. “He’s going to be HUGE.”
Quote of the Year “Don’t speak about it, Be about it”
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