They Met in College on Long Island. Now They're on Hot 97.

I went to SUNY Old Westbury. Kast One and Lboogs went to LIU CW Post. Different schools, same Long Island, and back then that meant you ended up at each other’s parties. Special events, campus nights, the kind of shows where word traveled fast enough that you would make the drive just to be in the room. That is how I met them. Not through the industry, not through a mutual, but through the circuit that connected every college kid on Long Island who cared about hip-hop and who was throwing the best parties on a given Saturday night.

That shared geography is why this episode of the Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast hit different for me. Because what Kast One describes, building something from nothing in college, beefing with the guy down the hall, ending up roommates with him sophomore year, and then both of them walking away from their whole crew to go live a different life, that is a story I was on the edges of without knowing what I was looking at. I knew they were special. I did not know yet how important it would turn out to be that our paths crossed. Listening to this episode, I am still learning things I did not know. That is Long Island.

Episode 3 of the Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast is out now on YouTube. Watch it below, then read on for the story behind the story.

Episode 3: Long Island to Hot 97. Produced by Merric Studios.

If you missed the earlier episodes, Episode 1 is the origin story of the crew itself, and Episode 2 is where DJ Lonnie B and his daughter Aliyah the DJ enter the room. Episode 3 is more personal. It goes back to where Kast One and Lboogs started, before any of it existed.

Cedar Park Was Outside His Window

Before any of this, Kast One grew up on Burnside and Sedgwick Ave in the Bronx. For anyone who knows hip-hop history, that address means something specific. Cedar Park, where the early park jams happened, where the whole thing started, was visible from his fire escape.

Not a fancy balcony. A Bronx fire escape.

He was not watching Kool Herc in real time. He will tell you that himself. He was younger, and by the time he was out there it was park parties, free food, people playing music, kids playing basketball and getting in trouble. He did not know what he was watching. He was just there. But the elements were in the air and they landed. Graffiti first, then DJing, both self-taught, both figured out alone. He did not meet another DJ until he was 15 or 16, by which point he had already been at it for three or four years, doing everything backwards: one turntable, one mixer, a tape deck for the instrumentals, figuring it out by ear.

His graffiti tag was Kast One. The name came from a summer school book report on graffiti history that he chose out of the library because, in his words, he was a criminal. The book had Kay Slay in it. He did not put that together at the time. He was ten years old.

LIU Post, Fifty DJs, and One Roommate Who Changed Everything

When Kast One left for college he gave away everything. Every record. Every piece of equipment. He was done with it. He was going to school to study film and video editing and that was that.

He got to LIU CW Post and there were fifty DJs in his dorm. All of them, in his words, trash. The ones with the best equipment were the worst. He was not going back. He was done.

Then he saw a guy getting paid two thousand dollars to DJ a school talent show. That changed the math fast. No records, no equipment, tuition to pay. He needed to get back in.

Lboogs was already there, a year ahead of him, and already the guy on campus. Kast One’s whole freshman crew hated him for it. Thought his squad was trash. Came in ready to take over. That is how college works.

Sophomore year they got assigned as roommates.

Kast One says it took him about thirty seconds to decide he was clearing out his entire show crew. He looked at Lboogs and thought: this was meant to be. They had a radio show, they had parties, they had a room that was always packed because neither one of them ever wanted to leave. Lboogs already hosting. Kast One already DJing. No conversation needed. It just worked.

The Hofstra Party

Lboogs had been grinding his way into Hot 97’s orbit through an internship on the street team. He kept telling Kast One to come through, that DJ Enuff needed somebody, that this was real. Kast One kept brushing it off. DJing was basketball to him. He played every day but he was not going to the NBA. He had a test tomorrow. Leave him alone.

Then there was a party at Hofstra. Two thousand students. Enuff was DJing. Something happened that night that Kast One says he still thinks about. You need to hear him tell it himself.

Gleason’s or a Different Life

They were doing Saturdays at a bar in the Bronx called Gleason’s. Kast One on the turntables, Lboogs on the mic, sometimes DJ Beans, sometimes others coming through because the party was that good. Getting peanuts but it was their thing. Every Saturday, every Saturday, every Saturday.

One night Enuff was there and gave Kast One a choice. Two options. One of them was Gleason’s. The other one changed his life. Press play and let him tell you which one he picked.

2026

Kast One is on Hot 97 Mornings with Mero every day. Lboogs is on-air at Power 105.1, iHeartRadio, and Apple Music. Both of them built it the same way they built everything: together, from a dorm room on Long Island, with no blueprint and no permission from anybody.

The Heavy Hitter DJs Podcast is where they tell the full story themselves. Episode 3 is on YouTube now. DJ Enuff, DJ Camilo, DJ Kast One, and Lboogs in the room, going all the way back. If you have ever built something with someone you met by accident and wondered how you got from there to here, this episode is for you.

Episode 3 Subjects

K1

DJ Kast One

Bronx-raised. LIU CW Post. Hot 97 Mornings with Mero. Built it from a fire escape view and one turntable.

@djkastone

LB

Lboogs

LIU CW Post. Power 105.1, iHeartRadio, Apple Music. The roommate who was already the guy on campus when Kast One arrived.

@lenboogsonair

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 | Episode 3