Today we’d like to introduce you to Big and Lil Toot.
Big and Lil, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
We are DJ Tootz, Big Toot and Lil Toot. Twin DJ Duo from Memphis, TN. So when we were in high school our big brother, DJ Nick Nifty, DJed our sweet 16. He told us that we should be DJs then. But at the time we were worried about playing tennis and being the next Venus and Serena Williams. Also, our dad was a DJ but he passed away from cancer when we were 13. So fast forward to college around mid 2013, I (Big Toot) brought the DJing idea back up again. We used to listen to DJ Big Sue on K97 every Friday at noon during our break from classes. That’s when I said “We could be DJs, DJ Big Toot & DJ Lil Toot”. But Lil Toot wasn’t feeling is at the time. Lil Toot thought it was just another one of my fads that I had. But I didn’t stop pressing the idea. I kept talking to her about it for about 3-4 months. Then Lil Toot said, “If you get us a mentor that will guide us in the right direction I’ll do it”.
So that’s when I decided to hit DJ Big Sue who we had been listening to on the radio up. I emailed her and to my surprise she emailed me back. She asked me to email back in two weeks to see if we really wanted to DJ. I emailed her back in two days. I told her what kind of equipment I wanted at the time, which was a Numark DJ board. Big Sue said, “Hmmm that’s cute, but if y’all want to do it right, this is what you two need”. She sent us over a list of equipment she thought we should get. The list included Technic 1200 turntables, a pioneer mixer, serato box, and needles. From there, it took us an entire year to get equipment once we found out how expensive DJ equipment is.
Then we contacted Sue for her to teach us how to DJ. She busted our bubble by telling us “ I can’t teach y’all how to DJ, that’s up to you two to do, I can’t teach you how to train your ear, how to crowd interact, how to blend, you guys have to do that”. So to YouTube, we go. We spent countless hours watching videos, reading books, anything to help us DJ. And from there, DJ Tootz was born. We started out just djing in the room because Sue said we are nowhere near ready to be djing out. But we started telling people we were DJs and so one of our good DJ friends, DJ j Brown, booked us to DJ at Club Elements, so while we were djing, in the middle of the song “I think I love her” by Gucci Mane, our computer crashes, Lil Toot said she was done djing it didn’t want to do it anymore. Even though we were getting booed out of the club I still decided to DJ on DJ J Browns equipment. At that moment, we learned the importance of not to let mishaps take over your entire night. But we still went a bought a new MacBook the very next day.
From there, we just kept networking, being at all of the events, running into the right people. From about 2015 until present day we started djing everywhere in Memphis. Our name got very popular in the city. We even got involved in doing comedy sketches on YouTube. The last thing we got involved in is skating. We didn’t even know we would become skate DJs. Skating has its own world, and we are proud to be apart of that. Now, we live in Atlanta. We talked about moving here and to LA when we first started DJing. We have done quite a few gigs here but we want to keep growing. Atlanta is much different from home, it’s like the black Hollywood, everybody does something! Our goal is to become like headlining DJs. Like Carnage. We want to sell out arenas just because people are coming to see us DJ.
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?
I think one of the most challenging things for us was being female in a male-dominated industry. We used to get a lot of backlash from guys because they would think we can’t turn up like the dude DJs. But then we hop on the tables scratching and talking on the mic, then they shut up. In our heads we say the ladies can do what y’all do too, if not better.
We’d love to hear more about your work and what you are currently focused on. What else should we know?
We are Twin DJs. We consider ourselves open format DJs. So we play everything from Pop, Reggae, Hip Hop, R&B, Old School, Rap, and even Arabic. But we are now branching out and adding the EDM and Trap to our catalog! Everyone knows and loves us for our funny personality. Also our skills on the tables. We’re not your average pretty girls that DJ. We get up there and mic check just like the guys. I think that’s what shocks a lot of people. We also do comedy sketches. Since a lot of people used to tell us that we needed a show, we decided to start a YouTube Channel, Tootz TV. There you can see some of the funny content we post. We were casted to play skater roles in the upcoming Netflix film Uncorked which was directed by Prentice Penny. Being on a real set made us grow our love for film and production more so we are writing a script for our TV series “The East” I think we are most proud of our versatility. We don’t do just one thing. That’s what makes us Tootz! And that’s what separates us from the others.
Is there a characteristic or quality that you feel is essential to success?
Being humble. If you ask anyone who’s knows us they will tell you we are very humble. That’s the best way to be. We don’t focus on competing with anyone. We just stay humble and stay in our lane.
Contact Info:
- Phone: 424-242-4762
- Email: djtootz901@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/djtootz901
- Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/djtootz901/
- Twitter: https://mobile.twitter.com/djtootz901
- Other: https://m.youtube.com/channel/UCV0RlFSqzn-75a87ATfAvsA
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