Meet Asia Shabazz

Today we’d like to introduce you to Asia Shabazz.

Asia, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Well, I began dancing at the age of three. Growing up in Los Angeles, Hollywood was my playground growing up. I started booking commercial gigs, print jobs, and dance gigs at a very early age. I just naturally loved all things music. At the end of my teen years, I discovered singing and wanted to dive into that a little more. As an artist, I was a complete sponge. If I was in the studio, I learned how to use protools, engineer, produce, anything I could absorb- I pretty much took in. I ended up inking a recording deal with Sony Red via Kedar Massenburg and they moved me to New York in 2014. We had a single with Fetty Wop called “King Me” that was doing pretty well on the R&B charts over there, and I had pretty much had everything I had been praying for.

But, ironically, I was also the saddest I had ever been in my life. After being in the industry for so long, I found myself drained by the typical “Hollywood BS” aka “Show Biz” lol. I decided I wanted to take a break from the music industry, but I fell in love with New York and wanted to continue living there. One of the label reps who id grown close with and started mentoring me, suggested I use the relationships I had built and start deejaying to keep me afloat out there. My best friend is a DJ, and so I had always played around with deejaying but never took it seriously. After moving to New York I discovered the DJ culture out there was AMAZING. So diverse, and multi-cultural and just completely different then LA. In 2016, I got my first residency as a DJ and that really helped me create a following and start to open up the door to the DJ community. I pretty much just worked and hustled my a** off lol. Trying to get as many gigs as I could. At this point, I was traveling back and forth from LA to NY.. living on both coasts, and just trying to really master my craft and utilize all my relationships. In 2017, I gave birth to my son- so I decided to take the year off and focus solely on being a mom to him. Literally right after he turned 1, I got a call to DJ and decided it was time to go back to work.

A couple of months later, I started working and touring with Bhad Bhabie and that little girl changed my life! lol. Since then I’ve traveled six continents, multiple countries and cities deejaying and performing on stages as big as 20,000 people. Literally crossing off bucket list things every month lol. I just recently passed my one year anniversary from starting to work again and looking back I am so amazed at the clients I have, the jobs I’ve done, and the places I’ve been. I’m a super disciplined, structured, goal-oriented person. I keep notebooks on me at all times and whiteboards all over my house writing down things I want to accomplish, ideas, mood boards, people I want to work with, etc. Erykah Badu said it best, “write it down and see how real shit gets.” And I live by that! lol. I pray and ask God for the visions and then I go after it little by little, step by step. The formula is there it’s always up to us to be consistent and work towards it. Every day isn’t easy and I have lots of moments when I second guess myself and doubt everything I’m doing, but my faith is so strong and I know at the end of it, if I do my part, God will take care of the rest.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Absolutely not. Lol. I was actually just having this conversation with a friend a couple of days ago. I’m not a psychologist or anything but I feel like artists are more likely to suffer from depression than people with regular jobs. We are constantly putting our whole mind, body and soul into our work which can be extremely draining. When you are following your passion as a career you tend to take things more personally then you would a job you don’t really care about. Which can be emotionally draining. I feel like because I’ve evolved so many times in my artistry (going from dancer to singer, to DJ) I felt the need to continuously prove myself to people. THANK GOD I don’t think that way anymore lol. It’s easy to get caught up in comparing yourself to the next person. Or looking at the grass on the other side wondering why it’s greener. I have to constantly remind myself that what is for me is for me and no one can take that. Everything happens for a reason, and the dots eventually connect we just have to keep pushing and being humble and open to what God places in front of us.

We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
I am a DJ, performer, and entrepreneur. I specialize in curating vibes! Raised in the 90’s so I generally like to make that the base of my sets and then infusing all the other genre’s and today’s music within it. Being a dancer first- I typically like to take the listeners on a ride continuously keeping them moving during my set. I like to call myself a performer because I use all my talents when deejaying… that being singing, dancing, hyping up the crowd, etc. As a DJ, we are setting the soundtrack for the listeners, and I like to take it to the next level and also set the tone visually. If people see me having a good time, it’s usually contagious and gets them to have a good time. I think what sets me apart, is me being me. I’m the only one in my body and so I’m the only one that can give off the vibes I want to give off lol.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
Being able to provide for my son (cause babies ain’t cheap! lol) and doing what I love for a living is my proudest moment.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.asiashabazz.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/AsiaShabazz
• Twitter: www.twitter.com/asiashabazz
• Other: www.soundcloud.com/asiashabazz

Image Credit:
Rahim Fortune, Monte Christo, Jay Badillo, Gabriel Gasparinatos, Blake Jones

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