E183: How I Became The Worlds Best DJ With Only One Arm: Black Coffee

The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett

FlightStory

Society & Culture, Business, Education

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 3 October 2022

⏱️ 68 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Black Coffee is one of the biggest DJs in the world, and one of the largest musical artists to ever come out of Africa full stop. Charging up to $300,000 a set, he’s one of the most coveted and in-demand DJs in the game today.

But what people may not know about him is that he’s climbed to the top of the DJ world while being able to spin with only one arm, losing his ability to use the other in a tragic childhood accident. From the greatest adversity comes the greatest achievement, though, and Black Coffee took it as more inspiration to drive towards his dreams - relentlessly, unrelentingly, fearlessly.

Black Coffee’s story is truly inspiring. He is just one of many we’re bringing to you this Black History Month, during which we’re making a special effort to bring you essential conversations with people of colour who are thought and industry leaders in their fields.

Topics:

Early years
Are you good with emotion
What role did music play in your household
The most pivotal day of your life
Did the accident make you work harder
Where you were going to be in 2 years
Why you over anyone else
Trouble with record labels telling you how to sound
How many show have you done this year
Therapy
The difference between you (Nathi) & black coffee
What is your happiness
The last guest question

Black Coffee:

https://www.instagram.com/realblackcoffee/

https://twitter.com/realblackcoffee

Watch the episodes on Youtube: https://g2ul0.app.link/3kxINCANKsb

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	We just had this sound and it was a car.
0:02.4	Just rammed through the crowd and I just blacked out.
0:06.6	Let's sing noise for black coffee.
0:08.6	It's a boy.
0:09.8	It's a boy.
0:10.8	It's a boy.
0:14.8	I hardly had a child who was always working
0:18.4	and I used to hate it growing up because I just felt like,
0:21.8	when am I going to become a child?
0:24.0	You know, and play like other kids.
0:27.0	The 10th of February, tell me about that day.
0:30.6	Man, I was a scary thing for me when I went to the hospital.
0:34.4	I knew I knew what to do.
0:36.2	I would literally close my eyes.
0:38.2	I would know whether it's here or here or here.
0:42.4	So it was paralyzed at that point.
0:44.0	Yeah, I stayed for three months and that depressed me even more.
0:49.4	Music helped me so much.
0:51.2	It brought me peace.
0:52.6	This is why I share it.
0:54.2	It's my way of healing people the same way it killed me.
0:59.8	My childhood where I come from, those things scare me.
	...

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