Loyalty begets loyalty, especially when you're King Knoxygen. Tampa's DJ Knox has been a part of Rolling Loud Festival since its first year, and over the weekend promoters Dope Ent — who Knox has been working with since 2011 — made the obvious choice to throw one of Tampa's finest onstage to rock with the people in between sets by guys like Action Bronson, Mac Miller, Curren$y and more.
Review: Rolling Loud 2017 is a sold out success with a lot to learn about the festival game
We caught up with Knox to ask him about landing the gig, nerves and whether or not he had to listen to Lil Yachty at any point in the day. Grab a pudding pop, and press play on the Sway In The Morning mix below.
Read our short Q&A, and get caught up on Knox's future plans, after that. Please don't stunt on us Knox!
How’d you score the gig, Knox?
I ended up getting booked for this gig because I have been working closely with Dope Ent since 2011. Three years ago I was apart of the first Rolling Loud and Tariq asked me to be apart of this one when I opened for the Isaiah Rashad concert they brought here. So simply put, my homie asked me to dj for his festival lol.
Were you nervous at all? What was it like to play to so many people?
I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be, years of opening for concerts and playing in front of people prepared me for the stages I performed on this past weekend. The feels that I was feeling were more happiness and excitement to see the growth of this festival.
Did you have to lie to Lil Yachty about liking his music?
Hahaha! I told him to his face I don't like his music lol. But seriously I didn't end up playing before him at all. I ended up playing before Mac Miller on the other stage that night!
What’s on the horizon for you?
In the near future I plan on running this new label my business partner and friend Jai and I started called Left Lane Ent. We also have two parties under that brand Art & Soul and WLCM2KNXVLLl which happen monthly, so continue to make those bigger and better. I DJ every weekend at Gaspar's Grotto and I plan to keep that party going strong. I am in the works of planning an event for my birthday week and doing a California DJ run before the end of the year. I also plan to put out an actual music project under Left Lane Ent. and King Knoxygen, and I have a few more bigger events coming up with I Love Driving Slow and Dope Ent.
Staying busy and giving people somewhere cool to go, good music, and expanding it so everybody can have a good time through what I/we do is the always the plan short and long term.
What would you tell aspiring DJs who look at these photos and say to themselves, “Man, I wanna do that one day soon."
I would tell them to work on their craft, take that time to become great at DJing. Once you get nice enough to get gigs don't be afraid to talk to people, for the longest time I was that way and I feel like a lot has passed me up by being that way, but thankfully people thought I was dope enough to book even with the shyness.
Also the most important thing, just have fun. It's a party, have fun with what you're playing and what you're doing. People feed off energy and when you're playing good music and feeling good the people will see that and feel that from you.
