DJ Clark Kent
DJ Clark Kent is so much more than sneakers and records. Besides being a remarkable human being, if HIP-HOP had a photo definition his image would be in it… Read our conversation on Music, Hat/Fitteds, Sneakers, Hip-Hop and life!
WIT: Why DJ Clark Kent? Is that your real name?
DJCK: No way…
WIT: So what’s your name?
DJCK: My name doesn’t have to be disclosed… Why Clark Kent? When I was really young I used to wear glasses and the kids used to make fun of me because of my glasses calling me: Clark Kent, Clark Kent, Clark Kent so I promised them that when I got older and became a DJ. I would come back and the name would haunt them…
It does haunt them because all the kids that use to make fun of me saw that I did go become a DJ and make money with that name they used to make fun of me with…
WIT: Let’s stop here for a second. When you were young, you already knew you were going to be a DJ?
DJCK: YES, when I was young I knew I was going to be a DJ!
WIT: What was it about being a DJ that you knew that’s what you would become?
DJCK: When I was 9 years old I used to stay with my uncle and aunt a lot. He had a sound system. I used to mess with it. He used to DJ in his house. He wasn’t like a club DJ. He just used to DJ at friends parties. I used to mess with his sound system.
I loved music so much that when I got the ability to actually mess with the sound system that was it… At that point I decided that’s what I wanted to do. Unbeknownst to anybody else but my self, I knew that that’s what I wanted to do.
WIT: Lets fast-forward through time. Now you are on your late teens, did you attend college?
DJCK: Yes, I went to Emerson in Boston.
WIT: What did you study?
DJCK: Mass communications in radio. I also graduated with double and triple majors in Math and English.
WIT: You have a complete education. You’re not just talking the talk. You have walked the walk?
DJCK: I’m not sneakers and music. I’m a person. I’m a human being first. It’s just that I happen to love music and I like sneakers…
I don’t love sneakers. I like sneakers! My first love is music and living! My family and GOD! I’m much more than the sneakers…
WIT: Everything that’s happening today, we’re sitting here and Japan is going crazy with tragedy: How do you see our world? I ask because every day we go about our business but not many people are world travelers like you, what do you see going on out there?
DJCK: I’m one who firmly believes that everything happens for a reason so I can’t really say: Okay what’s going on in Japan is this or is that. All I can say is that God does what he does for the reasons that he does them. This is planned out hundreds of thousands of years a go. God knew what was going to happen all the way through… Like when we think, we think in linear time. God thinks in space-time so anything that we can think of is already been done in his mind. He put it together so all of this could happen; therefore, I can’t put my mind to try and think the way that he thinks (GOD). So I have to think in linear and I have to think about the line that I’m walking. I have to accept the things that are happening…
Do I like it? Do I like the fact that my friends over in Japan are going through this tragedy right now? No, No way.. AND, at the same time, My friends in Japan, have to think about the fact that the Twin Towers were bombed and I was here or we may have a terrible snow storm and be buried in 25 inches of snow. They could think the same about us. All I can do is take what’s happening for what it is and keep living…
WIT: Now we’re going back in to the music: You are a big part of music. You have been part of the history of Hip-Hop working with BIG putting Jay-Z on. Today where do you see music or what’s your involvement with music?
DJCK: I’m still a record producer and I’m still always looking for new talent. It’s just that I’m extremely picky about new talent. I want real actual talent!
I mean I don’t want something that’s going to work for a year, and then it’s over… I actually want something that I believe has a legacy behind it. I’m extremely weary of what I’m listening to. I respect a lot of things that I hear. It’s just; I don’t believe everything. I want to believe what I’m hearing. I’m extremely careful… I’m very calculated about everything all the way through. I just hope that the artist that are coming out, or the artist that are letting music out, for them to have a greater sense of responsibility for the culture that we’ve created, Hip-Hop. Not only think rap but also think Hip-Hop as a whole. If they do, then they’ll be more responsible with the music they’re actually making…
Me, I’m producing and being careful…
WIT: With that in mind, what is Hip-Hop to you?
DJCK: Hip-Hop is life. It’s a lifestyle. It’s a culture. It’s one of the fabrics of what makes me. I always loved music. When this thing that came along the Hip-Hop intertwined break dancing, graffiti and music. That’s what proofs that Hip-Hop it’s a culture… The fact that there are art pieces, there are music pieces, there are dance pieces, there is history behind it, that’s what proofs it’s a culture…
I grew up from the beginning of that culture. Moving and shifting with that culture so to me it’s my life! It’s just the way I was brought up. Like some people are brought up during the times of racial in-equality. Which we’re still in, but I’m referring to the times when it was blatantly in your face… Therefore, they think differently and they move differently so when they see kids, who did not grown up in that, they look at them funny instead of accepting the fact that they have a different experience.
I grew during the Hip-Hop era so I look at that as we built something for our selves. It became our way of life and we keep moving forward with our way of life…
WIT: It’s obvious that you have a passion for the culture and you support the culture in many different ways?
DJCK: I am the culture! I used to do graffiti. I used to try and break dance. I used to think that I could be a rapper. I’m a DJ! I’m the full embodiment of what Hip-Hop is all about… So what’s the question?
WIT: The question is: how do you stay so grounded?
DJCK: I don’t think I’m better than everybody else and I don’t think that there is anything that I do, that somebody else can’t do… I just think that I’m actually making a decision to do it!
I don’t think that there is anything that anybody can’t do, if they decide to do it! It’s something that God actually gave us the ability to do. He gave us the ability to do anything. As long as we believe and understand that we can’t do, what we won’t do…
You can do whatever you want to! If you’re determined to do it; so I don’t look at the next man because he is not doing something as if he can’t do it… So I wont look down on him. I wont feel like I’m better than him. I actually believe that everybody has the ability to do anything. With that I can’t not be grounded; I come from a third world country so we grew up differently than everybody else.
I’m not Americanized I speak with my accent. I may not speak Spanish but I grew up in a Panamanian household and we learn certain values and I live with them. So, “if my brother is in trouble, so am I!” That’s what I live by: “If my brother is in trouble, so am I!”
WIT: Meaning that…
DJCK: Meaning that if I see something that’s bad. That can happen to you and I don’t tell you, then it’s happening to me because my brother should matter to me. When I say brother it doesn’t mean that you actually are physically related to me. You have to be human…
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