Big Tigger is a television and radio personality, and best known as the host of BET’s “Rap City” and “106 & Park.”
Currently, Tigger is the DJ and in-game host for the Atlanta Hawks, bringing the fans excitement and thrills as they watch their favorite team play. On Feb. 22, the Atlanta Hawks and Sprite came together to host a DJ mentorship session for HBCU students, where Tigger got an opportunity to speak about his career and offer tips to aspiring creatives.
Tigger sat down with rolling out to discuss mentorship and how he can help the next wave of music creatives.
Why is being a mentor important to you?
I didn’t have any of this coming up. I started as a teenager and I had a passion for it. In ninth grade, a group of my friends started throwing parties every Friday, and I never looked back. My mentorship was with my friends. Somebody was good at A, B, C, or D, and we all learned from each other. By the time we were a polished group, I was responsible for wiring the room. Other people would bring the speakers in, I had to wire the speakers, and I was also the backup DJ and the hype man. Everybody had layers to it, but we all learned different parts of the process from each other so we could all become multifaceted. Having opportunities these days to give back or offer insight to young people is a dope thing.
Does being versatile help you afvance after in your career?
I encourage people to master their lane first. If you want to be this, do that, and then you can widen. If you’re doing too many things, you’ll never be great at anything, you’ll be good at a bunch of things. You want to be great at something and then drift. I started as a DJ and radio personality, then I widened to television. You don’t lose that discipline in what you’re great at. You can always go back to it if you know the other things don’t work out. But be great at something, and try to be great at something before you widen.
What is your favorite song in your set?
That’s all over the place right now. I’m doing lots of mashups now because Serato gave us this thing called stems. I can strip a song down that I could never strip down before. There aren’t any Michael Jackson a cappella [songs] out there, and I could put trap music on there if I wanted to. I put a pop song over an R&B beat, and now it’s a whole new song. I don’t have a favorite song right now. I’m enjoying the process because this is something we never could do before. Technology in the year 2023 is now allowing me to evolve and become better and do different things.
