About DJ Nate Da Great

Albany, New York raised me. It’s given me everything I need to grow and flourish. Most of my DJ career has taken place in and around Albany, New York. I made a name for myself sellings mixtapes at Albany High School in the 80s and 90s. I co-hosted a long running radio show on WRPI in Troy with DJ J-Swift (Rest In Power), and I’ve done sooo many interesting club and art gigs over the years. Check out my career highlights below for just a few of the opportunities that I’m grateful for having.

The College Years – Beyond Albany

My college years were spent at Hofstra University in Hempstead, Long Island. Hofstra was home to one of the oldest and longest running Hip Hop radio shows in the country. The Post Punk Progressive Pop Party (P5) was produced and hosted by Jeff Foss (Rest In Power) on 88.7 WRHU in Hempstead, New York. The P5 show featured some of the hands-down, most talented Hip Hop DJ’s in NYC and Strong Island: DJ Johnny Juice, DJ Spinbad (Rest In Power), DJ Slynkee, Tough Tom and Kool G (Ayatollah) and DJ Skribble, to name a few. I was lucky enough to be a regular DJ on the show from 1992 - 1996. Though, new management took over around ‘95 or ‘96 and started enforcing rules that would forever change that Saturday night timeslot. A hardening of the rules elminated non-student/community participation and prevented these “community” DJs from coming through and spinning at the station. That changed things a lot.

I was a student, so I got to stay – as long as I followed the rules. DJ X-Man and myself carried on the tradition as best we could. But, those early days with Jeff Foss were formative years for me. Meeting and working with top-teir DJs definitely helped me step my game up and influenced me to be the DJ and person that I am today.

The Superfriends

Many Albany-area Hip Hop heads still remember me and approach me about my time on 91.5 WRPI FM in Troy, New York. DJ J-Swift generously invited me to join him on his show back in 1997. I stayed for 5 or 6 years.😁 Together J-Swift and myself played the underground Hip Hop that didn’t get the attention of mainstream radio. We were playing music from some of the classic underground record labels such as Rawkus, Game records and Def Jux. But, once again, due to a management change around 2002 and new policies regarding “community members”, our show came to an abrupt end.

From the Radio to the Stage

Let me just say this… I’m a mostly-introverted geek who dreamed about mixing records in a radio studio mostly alone by myself. My dream wasn’t to fill arenas or even small nightclubs. At the age of 14, I didn’t realized that the heart of DJing is performing in front of people and for the benefit of people. I just loved the sound of scratching records and the idea of broadcasting new music to thousands of people like Mr. Magic and Marley Marl did in the ‘80s on WBLS in NYC.

But, after years of playing whatever the heck I wanted to play on the radio, I found myself back on the bar and nightclub scene. This change of scenery came with its challenges. It was now my job to entertain people who had their own idea about what music I should be playing. I quickly learned that they’ll let you know when they like something, and also when they don’t.

This was the start of a discovery process for me. Over the next 20 years or so, I would need to learn about balance – balancing personal creativity with other people’s needs. I would need to learn how to read a room – figuring out what other people wanted to hear. I would need to learn how to graciously accept and respond to feeback – good and bad.

Continual Growth

DJing has been the perfect vehicle for personal growth. Opportunity after opportunity to learn about music and culture, about interacting with other people and most importantly… learning about myself. I guess that’s true for anything in life. If you step on a path and put in some effort, you’re bound to learn a thing or two about yourself.

Career Highlights

I really love to hear stories about how I’ve impacted other people’s lives or inspired them in some way. Every once in a while I’ll run into someone that tells me how much they used to enjoy listening to J-Swift and myself (The Super-Friends Radio Show) on WRPI (Troy, NY) back in the day, or other DJs might tell me how they’ve drawn inspiration from me in some way. Hearing about how I’ve positively affected other people is one of the most rewarding aspects of my DJ career.

With that said, I’ve been involved in some really amazing events such as:

  • 9 years with The Beat*shot Music Festival in Albany, NY
  • 5 years with the Electric City Couture Fashion Show produced by Corey Aldrich + co.
  • many shows with the Charmed and Dangerous Burlesque Troupe at Tess Collin’s Lark Tavern
  • an amazing 4 year residency at Night Owl Saratoga
  • opening sets for internationally known artists such as Shaggy, Bootsy Collins and Ghostface Killah
  • backing artists such as JB aka Dirty Moses, J-Live, Akrobatik, C-Rayz Walz, Moses Rockwell
  • Great-Mastr events with my brother from another, DJ Trumastr
  • the BeatShot Radio Takeover Podcast from 2015 to around 2017
  • The Superfriends radio show with DJ J-Swift on WRPI (Troy, NY) (1998 - 2002)
  • The P5 radio show with Jeff Foss on WRHU (Hempstead, Long Island, NY) (1992 - 1996) which featured some of the dopest DJ’s, including DJ Johnny Juice, DJ Spinbad, DJ Kool G (aka Ayatollah), DJ Tough Tom, DJ Slynkee and DJ Skribble.
  • All of the college dive-bar parties with my brother DJ Jay-sahn (IYKYK) back in the early 90’s.