DJ Hapa on the Business of DJing

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At first glance, Los Angeles based DJ Hapa seems like a typical, super successful DJ. You’ll find him at hot clubs from LA and Las Vegas to Hong Kong. He’s also a DJ to the stars, DJing private parties for the likes of Carmello Anthony, Chamillionaire, Busta Rhymes and others.

But those achievements only scratch the surface. Hapa has become a leader in the DJ community through his work at DJ Scratch Academy, a school for aspiring DJs that he runs in LA. He also tells an incredibly inspirational story about his battling epilepsy during his days as a student at UCLA when he began his career.

We caught up with DJ Hapa in LA where we discussed the business of being a DJ, his role as a mentor to the young DJ community and the role technology plays in making everything work for him. Check out the interview and take a peek at DJ Hapa in his element in the video below.

367 Addison Avenue: What does a day in the life of a DJ look like? When you’re not onstage, what are you doing to grow and manage your business?

DJ Hapa: I am a bit of a hybrid in some ways. I would consider myself an entrepreneur on one hand, a DJ on another. It’s very interesting how there is an intersection between being an entrepreneur and a working DJ. I started as a DJ first, which gave me the basic skillset I needed to be a small business owner.

On the DJ side, there are several things I do. A DJ is unique because he is an artist who doesn’t necessarily play or write music. It’s more about obtaining new music and digging for old music that people haven’t heard in a while and finding ways to put that music together. DJs have to stay up on what is going on. You are breaking new records or introducing your audience to music they aren’t aware of.

On the business side, being a DJ is a lot like being a band. You have to identify and cultivate your brand as an artist and an individual, book gigs and cultivate the right relationships. You have to stay up on all the gear and technology and all the music. And, on top of that, you have to market yourself. You have to be on Facebook and Twitter. You have to have some sort of online presence. You have to have videos on YouTube. You have to have music on a SoundCloud. You have to be out there.

367AA: Your diagnosis with epilepsy also had a huge impact on your life. How did it work out?

DH: I was diagnosed with epilepsy in ‘98 before I left for UCLA. It completely flipped my world upside down. I was an athlete in high school with a 4.2 GPA, and then all of a sudden this thing happens. I wake up in the middle of the night on the floor in my room. I had no idea how it happened. The next night, the same thing. I was rushed to the hospital and the doctors told me I had epilepsy.

One doctor in San Francisco told me that someone with my condition shouldn’t go to college. I was 18 at this point and I decided I was going to do it anyway. I can’t thank my parents enough for supporting me. It was the best and worst thing I’ve done. I was getting Cs and Ds and incompletes because I was dealing with my seizures. That was also that time I started working on business we started called DJ City. I only had seizures at night when I was sleeping. So I just decided not to sleep. I worked 21 hour days. I created this unreal work ethic and drive and passion. I don’t think I’d be nearly as successful if it weren’t for my epilepsy.

The flipside is that I have to share those experiences with people with similar challenges. I need to give them inspiration and drive. Everyone has a form of epilepsy in their own way. People come from broken homes or have a weight problem or whatever. If you strip it down, it equals a hurdle. And everyone at some point in life is going to have a challenge or a set of challenges that they have to rise above.

367AA: From your online bio, it’s clear that you’ve always had a passion for DJing and music? How did you turn it into a business?

DH: It was interesting how it worked out. In ‘98 I moved down to LA to go to school at UCLA. I was DJing purely for fun, but I didn’t really know what I was doing. Then I started hanging out with a couple older DJs at UCLA who had a crew. I met a guy from the crew who was about the same age as me, but had been DJing a bit longer. He had this idea to start a business by buying multiple copies of records we found at record stores, and then sell them on eBay. We had access to so many records in LA. It kind of took off overnight. His name was DJ Quickie, and we ended up partnering with another guy named Xclass. Xclass was the web guru, and Quickie and I were more on the DJ side.

In the end, that little project turned into a business called DJ city and my role in the partnership was to help with distribution. Since I have always been comfortable talking to people, I was in charge of making sales calls to stores across the country and in Europe and Asia. We were running this out of a small third-floor apartment in west LA. I was calling Europe in the morning and the East coast, then going to class. In between classes it was stores in Texas. Later in the afternoon it was the West coast and then Asia. The business side was cool, but we still wanted to be DJs. It’s always been this fine line between being an artist and a businessman. I constantly go back and forth. It is never 50/50. Some weeks it’s 90 percent business, 10 percent artist. Other weeks it’s the reverse. You have to learn about balance.

367AA: You’ve said that your career really took off after you launched Rehab Projects, a vinyl record and lifestyle clothing store in West Los Angeles. How did it help you?

DH Eventually we were pushing out a crazy number of orders from that apartment. We would often have customers say “I am in LA, can I come and pick up my order?” We realized it would be great to have a physical location people could come to and pick up their records. We decided to add clothes and encourage DJs to hang out, and that’s how Rehab Projects was born. The name is an acronym for Real Experiences in DJs and Beats. The concept was to not only sell records, but offer up workshops and educate people.

In terms of my personal career, it was then that I realized I am meant to help people. Scratch Academy happened because we were looking around at Rehab and realized it needed to be more than a store. We all decided we wanted to start a DJ school. I had heard of Scratch DJ Academy that Grand Master Jay had started it in New York. The guys wanted me to call him, and since I was already making a ton of calls I picked up the phone and we struck a licensing deal and brought it to L.A. That’s what really changed a lot of things in my career. It gave me a niche in the DJ industry. In no way am I the best DJ in the world, but I am having an impact on how the art form grows.

367AA: How do you grow your business? You’ve started to become pretty comfortable in front of the camera and mic. Do your TV and radio performances play a role in promoting your DJ business?

DH: Those things are a huge part of building my business, any business. I think it’s a part of leadership. You have to communicate your passion and believe in what you do. People need to see that you believe in your personal brand, and what you’re selling and what you’re about.

It’s interesting because the TV and radio stuff didn’t happen overnight. In some ways, it was almost a mistake. Going back to the days of that first crew, we had ten people in it and I was one of the youngest with the least experience. We would throw these massive hotel parties and have to put up all this sound and lightening equipment. I was one of the ones doing the grunt work. During the shows, we would sit and take mental notes as the older guys performed. We used to get a lot of people asking the crew to make shout outs on the microphone, but none of the older DJs were that comfortable doing that. One day I just decided that I could do it, and I became almost an MC for our crew.

Then I ran into a woman at a show who asked me to audition for a TV show. At first, I said no, but she was really insistent. Ironically, that first show ended up being about technology. I face planted the whole audition. My saving grace was the Sidekick. All the guys in the crew had gotten one because it was way better than the phones that were around at the time. I had just gotten it that week and was using it like crazy. The cameras were still running after I bombed the audition, and I somehow ended up on my Sidekick. The producer noticed and asked what it was. I was like “this is the greatest thing ever” and it old them why. It turned out they were looking for people who were passionate about technology. Instead of reading off a script or a prompter, what I said off the cuff showed that I was connected to the subject and it translated on camera.   

367AA: Obviously, technology plays a big role in what you do. You’ve been a vocal proponent of HP’s Envy notebooks with Beats audio, which is your notebook of choice for DJing. But how do you use technology to run and grow your business?

It’s sad to say this, but I am definitely to a point where I don’t know how I would manage without technology. As an artist, I fought the technology wave in a lot of ways. I’m kind of a vinyl purest. I have seventy thousand vinyl records. Once I started to embrace technology though, I started to see how it could enhance what I do. I think everyone has to find that line where it helps you but doesn’t totally control your life. In clubs now you see DJs with laptops, and nobody is really sure how they’re using it and how they’re incorporating it into their shows. I see it as my duty to educate people about how they can use technology to add to the artistry but not take away from it.

I use the HP Envy as the central hub of my music. I have software that lets me manipulate the music the same way I would vinyl. I now have my music on a hard drive instead of in ten or twelve crates. I have also started to integrate technology into our business at the Scratch Academy. I use an HP TouchSmart to allow students to check into classes, check out needles and headphones and so on. We built our own app for that. When students aren’t in class, we have our own social network for them. They can login to check up on assignments, connect with other students or ask professors questions. That part of it allows us to be on the cutting edge of everything.

367AA: What advice would you give aspiring entrepreneurs?

DH: Love what you do. And do it because you love it. Let’s be real, you have to be conscious of the P & L. There’s a science there. But the way that you create something special is by having a passion for it. Life is way too short for you to do something because you feel like you have to. A lot of people think they’ll focus on their passions later in life. But anyone can get into a car accident, and that’s it. You have to find that balance where you’re pushing yourself, but also enjoying the ride and the journey. If you don’t enjoy the process and the ride, you’re not going to enjoy the destination.