DJ Skee had a hand in building Dash Radio and is now founder and CEO of The Realest, the platform trying to fix authentication in an industry the FBI estimates is up to 90% fraudulent. We talked to Skee about the moment he met a 16-year-old Kendrick Lamar freestyling for twenty minutes straight, why he named his company after the one thing the collectibles industry keeps failing to deliver, and why he thinks vinyl is really just the baseball card of music.
Before “breaking artists” became your calling card, what pulled you into DJing and radio in the first place?
Growing up I always loved sequencing music. I had a CD changer as a kid and would just play things back to back for hours. Then I got my first turntable, broke it the first night, but fell in love with DJing and knew I was destined to be a DJ. Not in a cocky way, it just felt like I found my calling, and I laser-focused my whole life on it. By 16 I was on radio doing a 4 a.m. slot Saturday nights on KMOJ in Minneapolis, where I grew up. It all started from that.
You've been credited as the first to play Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, and Post Malone, among others. What does it actually feel like in the moment, before anyone else knows what you know?
I've always loved identifying new talent and new trends, and even as my career expanded past music, those moments always stick with you. Kendrick was 16 when I met him. He came to my studio to meet The Game and started freestyling, and he was the most incredible rapper I'd ever seen, rapping 20 minutes straight before taking a break. I told him he just had to learn how to make an album and he'd be alright, he did more than that though. Gaga just had this ridiculous charisma. And Post Malone, I met him years before "White Iverson," I didn't even realize it when I brought him in for his first interview, we'd connected forever ago.
But to be honest, there are plenty of artists I thought would be huge that didn't make it. I never made anybody, they always had the talent. I just used my platform to help put them on and shine a light for others to see.
Looking back at the Dash Radio and mixtape era of your career, what's one project or moment you still think about?
Man, I've been lucky to live a lot of lives in this career. With Dash, it was clear traditional radio wasn't going to survive as it was, so we took a big swing at building something forward-thinking that actually empowered artists. Being a hub at the early stages, giving Odd Future a channel, platforming Post Malone, having Kylie Jenner and that whole crew hanging out at our office every day with everyone right at the cusp of pop culture was amazing.
On the mixtape side, "300 Bars" is what set me off, but my favorite project was probably a Jay-Z remix I did where I took American Gangster and flipped it over Godfather samples, my favorite movie. I did over 100 mixtapes and most were basically albums, some incredible ones with Kendrick, Evidence, you name it. That era is gone now, you kind of had to be there, which makes it more special for the people who remember.
You've moved from radio and mixtapes into sports, tech, and now authenticity and memorabilia with The Realest. What connects all of it for you?
Everything I've done starts with culture and storytelling. I've evolved from telling stories through music to telling them through sports and collectibles. I was always a massive sports fan and always collecting, even during my music career. For my TV show I'd produce posters, get artists to sign them, and give them to fans just because I thought it was cool. We did in-store signings with Kendrick and Nipsey at T-Mobile stores in South Central LA when I had them as a brand client, and looking back the quality of that stuff is insane. My gift has always been seeing where the puck is going. I watched collectibles exploding, had a fund in the space, and that led me to launch The Realest, which has become the definitive source of trust in memorabilia.
What made you want to tackle fraud and authenticity in collectibles specifically? Was there a moment that made it personal?
Fraud and authentication is a massive problem and it was personal for me. The FBI estimates up to 90% of items out there are fake. It happened to me, on some of the biggest sites in the world, buying items with certificates of authentication that turned out not to be real. And those sites didn't really care. I wanted to do it better, give the rights and the money back to the partners directly, straight from the source. That's why we named it The Realest, so you know anything from us is real.
The other side is storytelling. We're selling items that are old, dirty, scuffed up, but they're priceless because of the moment and what they represent, Ohtani's dirty cleats from his first game in Tokyo, Snoop's blunt, we authenticated Kendrick's entire Super Bowl halftime show. It's the same thing I always did on radio or in clubs, you don't just play all new music, you play a hit, then the new artist, then another hit to protect it and tell a story through music. It's all in how you frame the story, and my whole career has been about storytelling at the end of the day.
How has the definition of “breaking” an artist changed since your early radio days, now that everything moves through algorithms and social platforms first?
It's changed completely. It used to be mixtapes, radio, my TV show. Now it's Instagram, TikTok, playlists. Streaming didn't even exist when mixtapes were peaking. I was early putting mixtapes on the internet, and that's how I built my brand initially, again just seeing the obvious on where things were going as the internet was changing the world. I then was powering new music for iHeart, Sirius, and online. That was how artists broke, and those platforms don't work that way anymore. It's all social, streaming, and really brand-driven, it's a different world. And it'll happen again. Whatever is breaking artists now, there will be something new after it. What I was doing at the time was cutting edge, and now it's irrelevant. That's life, and we all have to evolve.
Physical media, especially vinyl, has become a real collector's item again in recent years. From where you sit now protecting authenticity in collectibles, what's your take on that shift?
It's natural. Nostalgia is the most powerful drug in the world, and we live on our phones in a world ruled by deepfakes, so holding something real matters more than ever. Over 50% of vinyl buyers don't even own a record player. It's to look at, to touch, to show your fandom and own a piece of something you love. Vinyl to me is the baseball cards of music. We're obviously making a bet on music collectibles at The Realest, and I think that space is so undervalued and underserved it's silly. It's about to explode.
What separates a genuinely collector-worthy piece, whether it's a record, a memorabilia item, or a mixtape, from something manufactured to look rare?
It all comes down to provenance. You can have the best item in the world, but if you can't prove it's real, it won't sell. No different than art. And with how easy fakes are now and how much money is at stake, the quality of the provenance dictates everything. That's the challenge we're solving, making it easier for new buyers to come in without needing to know a thousand nuances. Beyond that, it's supply and demand. Condition, the moment it represents, scarcity, cultural value. Same forces behind a hot pair of shoes, a handbag, a watch.
From where you sit now protecting authenticity in one space, what should music collectors be more skeptical of today?
Just be careful and start slow and get things you love. Vinyl is easy to reprint, and plastic wrap doesn't mean it's real, there are plastic wrapping machines and tools out there that mimic old school ones and are good. I've seen people put fake price tags on items to make them look vintage. Check the seals, know the source, and put in the effort if you're going after high-end stuff that's expensive. But mostly, follow what you love and collect things that bring you joy. There's real investment value in this space, but at the foundation it's about joy, not money. When I see these items it makes me smile. Nostalgia, again, the most powerful drug in the world.
If an independent artist or DJ wanted to build something with real staying power today, what's the one piece of advice you'd give them?
Follow your passion and find your own lane. Be aware of what's happening in the market, but don't clone it. At The Realest we laser-focused on authentication and storytelling, did what others weren't willing to do, took the hard route and built it methodically by bringing in teams, leagues, and the original IP owners as partners so fans could get things from the source. We had a vision and stuck to it. That's something I learned from Nipsey, who I always credit. Stick to your core vision even when it's tough and takes a long time. It's a marathon. TMC.
Last question, who or what should mixtapekings.com spotlight next in this series?
DJ Clue! He's the one who inspired me most. I remember getting his CDs on Def Jam and Rocafella in high school, flying to New York to hit Canal Street for the latest CDs, pulling songs off his mixtapes and trying to edit his voice out so I could use them on mine because he was the only one who had them. I actually saw him last year, he DJed an event we did with eBay at Flatiron to launch our collectible baseball vinyl series with the MLBPA. To me, that's the Mixtape King.
DJ Clue was the mixtape DJ who set Skee on this path in the first place, and the two crossed paths again just last year at Skee's own eBay x MLBPA launch. That full-circle detail alone makes DJ Clue's spot in this series a matter of when, not if.
Skee with RANE, on why he never built a career on the club standard.
From a 4 a.m. radio slot in Minneapolis to being the first to play Kendrick, Gaga, and Post Malone, the whole path was doing what the standard wasn't.
DJ Skee (Scott Keeney) is the founder and CEO of The Realest, a next-gen authentication platform for sports and entertainment memorabilia. He rose to fame as the first DJ to play Kendrick Lamar, Lady Gaga, and Post Malone on the radio, co-founded Dash Radio, and has released over 100 mixtapes across a two-decade career.
More Collector Spotlight is coming. If you know a DJ, collector, or curator whose perspective deserves a platform, let us know.
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