Life & Work with Malak Williams of New York

Today we’d like to introduce you to Malak Williams.

Malak, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I’ve always been around music since as far back as I can remember. My parents always had music playing in the house when I was growing up. My folks met at a well known underground club called ‘paradise garage’. So I heard a lot of music that was played at that club during the majority of the 80s. My father grew up with a few trailblazers in the hip hop world that I would consider my uncles; so I was always around hip hop and its music. My dad played hip hop party tapes of groups like the cold crush brothers, treacherous three, grandmaster flash & the furious 5, groups like that. In my adolescence, I also heard a lot of BDP/KRS1, Public Enemy, Rakim & Big Daddy Kane. The Root’s “Things Fall Apart” and Black Starr’s self titled album had a big influence on me as well. My mom was more on the gospel and r&b side when I was growing up; TLC, Prince, Minnie Ripperton, Kirk Franklin, Fred Hammond, etc. In 5th grade, my mom was dating a guy who was into production and put a music program on our computer and that kinda got me started, this was late 99/early 2000. I have been breaking (bboy) since I was 8, in 2000 when I was 11, I started going to jams. Shortly after I noticed a lot of the breaks were funk and soul records I had already known because of my dad and his peers generally. I started collecting breaks via Kazaa and Limewire and file sharing amongst friends on AIM. I stopped making beats around 2003 and started back up in 2012 and have been going ever since. Collecting breaks has been an ongoing journey. I decided to start DJing in 2012 as well and both of these crafts have opened a lot of doors for me in the past 14 years.

Would you say it’s been a smooth road, and if not what are some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced along the way?
When I started DJing, I noticed how expensive everything was. I’m a sneaker head and was kind of on the collector side of it at one point. In short, I ended up selling a lot of sneakers to have enough money to afford equipment. I had about 25-30 Jordans around 2012. In 2026, I own two one from that batch and another fairly new. I always do my best to bring more than what I need to, to be prepared for any technical difficulties for gigs. There was gig I had at a very big and prestigious venue and one of the turntables didn’t work so I had to change the mode on my serato and play songs back to back rather than scratching and doing cuts and doubles. There was a gig once back when you needed scratch live and the venue didn’t have it. So one of the other DJs took a cab home to grab his scratch live box. Someone’s phone was attached to the house system so I just faked the funk for 45 mins to one of my homie who was getting the scratch live box mixes making it look like I was playing. Another time a drunk lady got mad because she couldn’t find her debit card at that moment and flipped my table and caused a whole scene all to find it after she calmed down. When she flipped the table, she clipped my headphones and I had to catch my laptop and controller at the same time. Other than that, it’s been pretty smooth lol

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I’m a DJ/Producer based out of New York City. Generally, I specialize in hip hop. To be specific, as a DJ, I play funk, disco, soul, new wave, neo soul, rock, reggae, afro beat and various sub genres in hip hop. I grew up on a lot of music, so I like to be eclectic. As a producer, I focus on boom bap hip hop, lofi, breaks and making remixes. I’m proud of the places I have been able to play and companies I’ve been able to collaborate with. Some of the those places include, Quad studios, events with redbull, new orleans, texas, ohio, Columbia University, NYU to name a few. As a producer I’m proud that I have a lot or projects out currently and having been able to work with a lot of up and coming and established artists. DJing and Producing has places me in rooms with people I wouldn’t imagine working with. I’m forever thankful and grateful.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
I have a lot of 6 degrees from hip hop greats and have been told a lot of hip hop lore from the 80s to present day

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @_ruggz
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKxEBT9EIJkT0tmPDcGS3Ag
• Soundcloud: https://soundcloud.com/ruggz89