Monday - June 26, 2006 by Janeé Bolden

During TJ Chapman's 20-plus-year career in the entertainment industry he's helped the careers of Lil' Jon, David Banner, the Ying Yang Twins, T-Pain and many others. Best known as the CEO and founder of TJ's DJ's, Chapman is now partnering with OZONE Magazine's Julia Beverly, using his next quarterly Tastemakers Conference as the setting for the biggest awards show Southern hip-hop has ever seen - making TJ a Player to Watch in 2006.

When TJ Chapman left Michigan in 1989 to pursue a degree in business at Florida A&M, he also brought along his turntables and records. TJ earned a scholarship to attend the highly competitive program, but the budding entrepreneur soon discovered it wasn't for him.

"They program you to be the perfect corporate employee. They never encouraged entrepreneurship back in the day. I never understood why they weren't trying to teach people how to empower themselves and their own people," TJ told SOHH.

TJ never finished the program, but he continued deejaying for parties and major events in Tallahassee, eventually earning a spot as the road DJ for Beatmaster Clay D. The gig led to Chapman becoming a road manager, then going into management. His work in management would lead to a string of other roles in the industry including operating and owning a promotions business, a booking agency, a recording studio, a record label, a clothing store and a record store.

"I'm like a middle man for so many things and so many people. So many people come to me for things they need help with. I connect them to the people who can make things happen," TJ explained to SOHH.

TJ "Make it Happen" Chapman passed T-Pain's single to the person at Jive who would later sign him, gave David Banner the beat that would become "Play" and is widely credited for breaking the Ying Yang Twins hit "Wait." He has received gold and platinum plaques for his work and appeared in videos for Rick Ross, Dem Franchize Boyz, T-Pain, Ali & Gipp, Ying Yang Twins, David Banner, Mr. Magic and Jacki-O, but today Chapman's primary business is running TJ's DJ's.

Among TJ's DJ's most fruitful operations are a quarterly DJ and Tastemaker's Conference which Chapman started back in 2001, and a thriving record and cd pool that has helped break the careers of many current hip-hop artists.

"Back in '94 I was doing promotions and had to deal with record pools. There were none in Central/North Florida. The closest was in Atlanta and next closest was in Tampa, eight hours away, so a friend of mine showed me how to do it," TJ told SOHH.

"A record pool or cd pool is an organization of DJ's who pay to be members. All the labels give us the newest music promotionally, months before the release. Our job is to give the music to the DJ's in the record pool - that creates a trial ground for a lot of the records."

Traditionally labels have used feedback from record pools charts to help project the potential success of a single. Often if a record didn't perform well with record pools before being promoted with a video, the label would select a new single.

"We are the go between for the label and the DJ to make sure a record gets heard. I deal with probably close to 10,000 DJ's worldwide. We have 22,000 registered members on our website, of those 7,000-8,000 are DJ's. The site gets over 20 million hits per month," TJ told SOHH.

The impressive numbers boil down to one key factor, according to Chapman - relationships.

"Relationships are the key to the business," TJ explained. "With the right network you can do anything, without it you have a long road ahead of you."

TJ's Play-o-graphy

Projects

TJ's DJ's Tastemakers Only Music/DJ Conference and 1^st Annual Ozone Awards

Tjsdjs.com

www.ugotwax.com

Rich Boy - Rap artist on Interscope

Watchlist

Julia Beverly

OZONE Magazine

Bigga Rankin- (Cool Runnings) DJ

Blood Raw

Tony Neal - Founder of Core DJ's.

Quote of the Year

"It's all about the relationships"