The Heavy Hitter DJs Are Passing the Torch

Episode 2 of the Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast is out, and the theme that runs through the whole conversation is one that does not get talked about enough in DJ culture: legacy. Not the legacy you build for yourself, but the one you hand down.

DJ Enuff, DJ Camilo, DJ Kast One, and Lboogs are back in the room, this time joined by DJ Lonnie B from Richmond, Virginia and his daughter Aliyah the DJ. What starts as a conversation about Camilo’s run as the international club king turns into something deeper: a group of DJs who built careers their kids grew up watching, reckoning with what it means when those kids decide they want in.

Watch Episode 2 below, then read on.

Episode 2: Passing the Torch. Produced by Merric Studios.

If you missed Episode 1, that is where the origin story lives: how the Heavy Hitter DJs came together, what the crew means, and why mixtapekings.com has a personal connection to it. Read that piece here.

Camilo Built the International Blueprint

The episode opens with DJ Camilo breaking down how the mixtape circuit sent him overseas before most people knew what an international DJ booking even looked like. His first trip was with the Beatnuts in 1999. He landed in Switzerland and walked through the crowd to find his own mixtape already being sold there.

That moment says everything about what the mixtape was before streaming: a physical object that traveled further than the person who made it. Camilo did not know his tape had made it to Switzerland. The tape did not wait for his permission.

From that first trip, he built a career that has taken him to Germany, Russia, Japan, Dubai, Malaysia, and beyond. Seven crates of records on international flights, learning each city’s culture, figuring out that Turkey had the best food in Germany, and eventually walking into clubs with nothing but a backpack when the rest of the crew was still hauling crates to the spot. He earned the name International Club King one city at a time.

Lonnie B: The Library and the Legacy

If you do not know DJ Lonnie B, Episode 2 is your introduction and it is a good one.

Lonnie B is from Richmond, Virginia, which by his own accounting puts him in the bottom three markets of the entire Heavy Hitters crew. He has never used that as an excuse. He has been in radio for 28 years, currently on air in Richmond, Raleigh, Charlotte, Houston, Ohio, and Washington DC. He received the key to the city of Richmond from the mayor. He once called Ralph McDaniels to identify a rapper in the background of a scene from Coming to America. Ralph did not know. Lonnie B called it: K9 Posse.

He is also the guy that DJ Enuff and others credit as one of the most complete music libraries in the game. The kind of DJ who, if you need a record, does not just send you the file but sends you the year, the title, the composer, the album, the track versions, all of it. He once sent Enuff a hard drive with everything on it. Clean versions, charted positions on Billboard for every track, organized so he can pull up any producer’s full catalog with a single search. That is not hoarding, that is infrastructure.

But the biggest thing Lonnie B brought to Episode 2 was Aaliyah.

Aliyah the DJ: She Is Already There

Aliyah the DJ is Lonnie B’s daughter. She grew up in his studio, started practicing on his turntables, and eventually began running his radio mixes without the program director knowing it was her behind the board. When people hit Lonnie B to say he was killing it during those slots, it was Aaliyah doing the mix.

She is currently finishing her degree at Virginia State. She plans to be a doctor. She also wants to be a better DJ than her father, and based on what everyone in that room said about her, she is already on her way.

The moment that lands hardest is Lonnie B telling the story of a trip to Baltimore a few weeks before the episode recorded. A guy in a Virginia State jersey had no idea who Lonnie B was, did not care. But he knew Aaliyah. Lonnie B said it plainly: “Soon they will not know me as Lonnie B. They will know me as Aliyah the DJ’s dad.” He did not say it with any sadness. He said it like it was the plan all along.

That is the kind of torch-passing this crew represents. Not handing something down out of obligation, but watching someone earn it and getting out of the way.

Episode 2 Guests

LB

DJ Lonnie B

28 years in radio. Richmond to DC. Key to the city. The most organized music library in the game.

@djlonnieb

ADJ

Aliyah the DJ

DJ Lonnie B’s daughter. Virginia State student, pre-med. Running her father’s radio mixes before the PD knew it was her.

@aliyahthedj

What the Crew Built

The broader conversation in Episode 2 touches on what happens when the culture you built starts showing up in the next generation in ways you did not script. Enuff talks about his son finally clocking how people react to his father on the street in the old neighborhood. Camilo watches his son take the business brain instead of the DJ instinct and decides that is also a legacy. Kast One went to Antarctica. Nobody in the room could argue the international crown on that one.

There is also a genuinely honest exchange about music and generations: Aaliyah admitting she is not the biggest boom bap fan, the crew pushing back but ultimately respecting it, and a broader point that lands: hip-hop is 50 years old. Expecting every generation to love the same sounds is like expecting someone born in the 1970s to ride for Frank Sinatra. It is not going to happen, and that is fine.

What the Heavy Hitters figured out is that the culture does not need everyone to love the same records. It needs people who care enough to keep passing something real down.

Why We Cover This

The Heavy Hitter DJs are not a crew we cover from a distance. Kast One and Lboogs were on the boards and behind the mic for the mixtapekings.com show on Sirius Satellite Radio in 2005. DJ Enuff is in the Special Thanks on MixtapeKings Radio Vol. 1. That tape is in the archive if you want to hear where this all connects.

Episode 2 is not just good content. It is a document of a crew that built something worth carrying forward, and the people who are now carrying it.

The Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast is produced by Merric Studios. New episodes on YouTube, Spotify, and Apple Podcasts.

The Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast: Episode 1 | Episode 2