DJ Wizard Kelli is one of Atlanta’s finest. She started DJing seriously in 2021 after moving back to Atlanta, and she quickly established herself as one of the best vibe setters the city has to offer. She pulled up to the rolling out studios to talk about her come up and give us a review of 2024 in music.
How did you get the name DJ Wizard Kelli?
I don’t know if you’ve heard of Cartridge, but if you know. Cartridge, they’re legendary in the gaming and also like just creative music space. But yeah, I reached out to them to see if I could DJ at one of their events. And this was yeah, like 2021, I guess. And they went for it. And that was my first time like officially DJing in a space. And when they put my name on the flyer, they put it at as Wizard Kelli. But I was going by my real name Kelli J because that’s what I go by for my art name. And they put my fly my name on the flyer as Wizard Kelli. And I didn’t like that because I really didn’t think that people would get that. I thought they would assume wizard would be like Wizards of Waverly Place or some. But yeah, that’s the name situation.
How did you get into DJ’ing?
Getting started with DJing kind of came about like kind of in my college days a little bit like I was just f—-ing around on like a laptop using virtual DJ, and it was like so pathetic. But you know, I did what I could. Here’s a little bit of DJ lore if y’all want to hear it; My first major event was doing a college thing, I DJ’d for Spring Fling, which was like our school’s spring festival. And like, I said, like. Bard is very much so hippie dippy, like free spirit out in the world. Very, very white. Very Palmers. Yes. And I’m with all that shit. I love it, man. But they didn’t really have of a hip-hop culture that I’m used to coming from Atlanta, I’m born and raised here. So, like, I was like, okay, we gotta switch some s—t up. Like, the rock music, it’s real cool. But let’s do a little something different. So, when I DJ’d for Spring Fling, I was very, very, very drunk. I drank like a half a bottle of tequila. And I was just like wasted as f—k up there giving the people more than a show. Like, way more than a DJ show. I was like swinging all over. It was like the event had a tent over it you know, there’s like poles to support a tent. I was swinging off the damn poles my whole set.
Why is Sahbabii having such a big resurgence?
He’s having a major comeback. Vikings is definitely one of the top songs I hear right now. He’s always just been like that mysterious shadow in the night. I feel like no Shade, I felt like Sahbabii is supposed to be where Playboi Cardi is at. He does his own thing, which I really love. It’s like he has his own fan base that he appeases. He doesn’t really care about trying to attract new fans. He even had his own, like, religion thing that he was on. I f*cked with that.
Who do you listen to?
I’m listening to King Tubby, who’s a dub reggae artist from, like, from the 80s. I found out about him through Lee Scratch Perry. He’s like another legendary dub reggae artist. Revolutionary. I don’t know a lot of music that I hear either comes from, like, snippets of things that I hear. I always have my Shazam on. On rock and, like, no matter where I’m at, but like, even like, TV shows, movies. I like movie soundtracks. I think it would be dope to score a movie, which is like, a lot of different genres of music for one film. I like a lot of, like, deep House (music) and, like, Massive Attack, like, post punk type stuff. I like emo music. Like, I just discovered this this genre called Math Rock, which is, like. It has something to do with chords. And it sounds similar to Wisconsin Emo or like, something like that. I just saw that, like, in a comment section on Instagram, and I was just like I gotta check this out, because I’ve never heard of Math Rock or Wisconsin emo. I don’t know which one but it’s beautiful. It sounds like a Windows loading screen.
Who was rap’s MVP in 2024?
I would give it to Future. Yeah. I’d have to say Future, he’s consistent. He’s a consistent toxic king. And we love him. We love him here in Atlanta. Thug locked up, so there wasn’t much he could do but Pillow talk Mariah. But Future’s like, he’s the king of Atlanta. As quiet as it’s kept. He don’t do too much of the Internet stuff, which I like.
