Born in Philadelphia, PA in late 1969, DJ 3rd Degree was relocated to Woodland Hills, CA in the summer of 1978 after the passing of his mother. He has always had music in his life, listening to the sounds of the 70’s with his mom then, listening to classic rock like The Rolling Stones and The Doors with his Dad. He was taken to his first concert in 1980 at the now demolished Irvine Meadows Amphitheatre in Irvine, CA.

Listening to various radio stations in Los Angeles in the early 80’s like, KLOS FM, KROQ FM, and watching MTV really drew DJ 3rd Degree into the music world. A self-taught DJ, he started making remixes of songs in 1983 and submitted them personally to KROQ DJ icon Richard Blade. Inspired by what he was doing, 3rd Degree got into deejaying at middle school, then high school lunch dances and house parties. In 1987, right out of high school, he was moved to South Orange County, CA to a town named El Toro, where he got a job as a clerk at Tower Records #138. Quickly he became absorbed into the record store culture and was promoted within his first year to singles buyer for the store. This exposed him to the record business, meeting with other buyers such as Violet Brown, and record distributors. During this same period, he was big into dancing, having been taught how to break and pop by Todd Non-Stop Campbell of the L.A. Breakers (in middle school), and frequented many of the late 80’s hip hop spots such as The Palace and United Nations where he danced against such icons as The Soul Brothers. In 1990, 3rd Degree was asked by his friends to move back to Los Angeles and form a rap group. Originally a DJ, he was asked to give up that role and start writing rhymes. At first negative about this idea, he embraced it and went on to write and create many songs over the years since.

 

In 1996, he went to L.A. Valley College and started his first radio show called The Coast to Coast Hip Hop Show. In 1998, he was asked to take the show on to the Internet as a video/audio show, one of the first of its kind. In 2000, he was asked to join a rock/rap group called Super Dank Brothers. With his rhyme partner M Da Pharoah, they created an album of songs and performed at all of the Los Angeles hot spots, such as The Key Club, The Roxy, Troubadour, Whiskey A Go Go, and the Viper Room, to name a few. This band lasted about 5-years, and during this same time, he was also asked to DJ for a soul rap group called Strange Fruit. Great music was created with both bands. In 2013 his rhyme partner, now going by Yums Jones, asked him again to join him in creating new music. They created a mixtape, under the name The Los Angeles Classics (The L.A.C.), using the amazing production of J Dilla (James Yancey) and gave a single named Turn Up The Microwave to a friend, Nasty Nes, to listen to for his industry and music opinion. Happily, Nes liked it, and asked them to allow him to take it to college radio thru www.rapattacklives.com. This action spawned them to take several other songs, thru Nes, to college rap radio, giving them two #1 singles, one to #3, the other to #5 on the charts. From the success of the L.A.C. project, DJ 3rd Degree was asked by an old DJ friend, DJ Legacy out of Atlanta, to join him and some friends on a website called www.endangeredspeciez.tv, and bring his Coast to Coast Hip Hop Show back. Encouraged by the positive feedback provided to him by friends and colleagues, 3rd Degree obliged, and the rest is history!

 

Current day, 3rd Degree is the host of The Coast to Coast Hip Hop Show (Sundays) on BlackCultureRadio.com (3pm Pacific). He is part of the Rap Attack DJ crew, reporting to Nasty Nes. He is the DJ/Producer for The High Children from Seattle, WA. DJ 3rd Degree is also a #1 charted rapper/singer/music producer, creating music for his own catalog, as well as for others (Pure Order, Xpression, The High Children).