DJ L1GHT

On September 7th, 2018, Mac Miller died, and something inside me broke.

I wanted to hear his song Funeral. I couldn't find it on the streaming service I was using. He'd just died, and I needed the song, and the song wasn't there. So I went and got it myself from a DJ Pool.

I downloaded every file by hand to create my Mac Miller tribute playlist. I loaded them onto a digital turntable. No studio. No editor. I didn't even know how to edit audio files — so every time I made a mistake, I started the whole mix over from the beginning. One take. Start to finish. However many tries it took to get it right. It was both mentally and emotionally draining.

When I finally finished, I uploaded the Mac Miller Mix so anyone else who needed Funeral could find it. Then came 2018 Vol. 1. Then Hip Hop 2000s Vol. 1 — the final tribute. Three mixes, all done the same way. One take. No edits. No second chances.

Then something inside me just said, stop.

So I stopped.

For seven years I didn't release anything. I wasn't gone — I was listening. To everything. The whole lineage, top to bottom, over and over. The music was preparing me for something I didn't know was coming yet. It always had been. I just didn't see it until later.

I was hiding in plain sight the whole time.

So were you.