"Making music is about having an impact," exclaims DJ Carnage.
It's easy to feel the impact on every track the Los Angeles-based artist produces or remixes. With a versatile mindset and deft approach, he siphons electro, hip hop, pop, and trap into an intoxicating brew unlike anything out there. It's dirty, defiant, and diverse.
Carnage embraced music at a very young age. Before moving to the suburbs of Maryland, he grew up in Nicaragua and Guatemala. It gave him an international consciousness and perspective at a young age that would pervade his art. In order to get through long car rides with his mom, he'd make mix CDs of everything from Kanye West to Michael Jackson, and they'd listen to them together. It was with mom's encouragement that he began actually building his own tracks.
He recalls, "It's funny because one day my mom was like, 'Why don't you make your own beats?' I'd never thought of it before, so she bought me Fruity Loops. From there, I just got hooked."
He carved out a sizable local following in Maryland, slinging independent mixtapes and solidifying an online presence. Niles from The Cataracs actually stumbled upon his MySpace page and immediately became a fan. Their correspondence turned into a creative partnership and led to Carnage's signing with Indie Pop.
