Photo via DJ Bizzon
Tyrone Miller, aka DJ Bizzon, gave up a career in computer engineering to be a professional DJ about 11 years ago. Since then, he’s shared the stage with some of the biggest names in the music industry, opening for Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne, Pitbull, and Kendrick Lamar, among others. He’s filled a role as a teacher, instructing the art of DJing to youth organizations and nonprofits. He’s also part of the Milwaukee Bucks DJ crew and has a DJ instruction book, Hal Leonard DJ Method, which was published in December.
What are some of your earliest memories of music that influenced you?
My parents were always listening to old soul and funk like Stevie Wonder, Anita Baker, Gladys Knight, James Brown—all that kind of stuff. It was mostly my mom, my dad definitely enjoyed music if it was on, but my mom had her own record collection as a kid. Then in middle school, that’s when I got more connected to hip hop—my older sister Tiffany was always listening to Wu-Tang or something like that, so I was always getting it from other people before I was even getting it to myself.
You've been on stage with some of the best artists out there—do you have a particular favorite show or experience that you've been a part of?
There are two of them that pop into my mind—one of the first big shows that I did was opening for Mac Miller back in 2010 and I didn't really know who he was at the time. I got a last-minute call to DJ the show at the Rave, all they told me was ‘hey, he is a rapper.’ I planned this whole classic hip hop underground set and as soon as I pull up to the Rave there's about 4,000 teenage girls standing in line, waiting to get in. I was like ‘oh, they do not care about anything that I have planned at all,’ so I was sitting backstage reworking everything. I threw away the entire set and just put something together in 15 minutes or so. That memory is always just stuck in my head, just enjoying the nervousness knowing that was my first big show-- I was never that nervous about anything in my life.
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The other big show that I really enjoyed was when I opened for Kendrick Lamar in 2013 in Indiana, because that was a show where I played the music that I enjoyed myself and it just so happened that the crowd loved it too, so that energy going back and forth that day was just really special for me.
How did your book come about?
(Book publisher Hal Leonard) told me what they were looking for and it was kind of perfect because they were looking for a beginner instructional book and that's really what I teach. My classes are geared towards younger people or novices, so getting you from ‘what is the stuff you need?’ to ‘alright I'm DJing my first event,’ whether that's a barbecue or a birthday party-—something that is not too much pressure, but you still have to plan for something.
They said they wanted a manuscript on how to be a beginner and some video content as well. I've done a little bit of video content in the past in my instruction, so it just really made a lot of sense. I wasn't planning on writing a book, but I had so much of my own curriculum to look back on, it really allowed me to put everything that I had done in one place.
If someone is just starting out and they want to be a DJ, what's one piece of advice that you would give them?
I have seen really amazing DJs on really bad gear, and I’ve seen really bad DJs on really great gear, so for me it’s not about what you are using but how you are using it. I would just say be yourself in the sense that if I give the same set of music to ten different DJs, I want to hear ten completely different DJ sets. I told my students to set songs like a Lego sculpture—you find some Legos that look familiar—this one song that is similar to this other song—that make that connection. If you can keep connecting songs like that, you have your own sculpture, you have your own piece of art. So I always like to say get your hands on whatever you can get your hands on, max out the creativity and just be you—be creative and original in your own way.
You can find DJ Bizzon online at: djbizzon.com.
