DJ Lava Talks ‘Chat And Laugh,’ Managing Mackerel And The Music Business

A year into post-lockdown life, DJ Lava’s Chat and Laugh is among the few remnants from the pandemic-era trend of DJs playing sessions on Instagram. DJs like D’Nice and Jamaica’s own Collin Powell discovered fresh audiences when gatherings were put on pause. However, Lava wanted to take a different approach.

“I observe the internet and see every DJ a play music. I didn’t want to do any music, I wanted to do the talk show because I used to host on underground radio. Chat and Laugh it name, and from then it never stop,” DJ Lava told DancehallMag. The idea was novel enough to work during the pandemic, and in no time Chat and Laugh started picking up hundreds of thousands of views.

Like the beginning of so many powerful stories, the show started in tragedy and that’s not just in reference to the pandemic. “My mother passed away in 2020 during the pandemic. That broke me down and ripped me apart, it was really my kids why I forced myself out of that state,” he said. The transformative grief allowed Lava to overcome the apprehension that previously held him back from what is now the most popular program of his career.

But Lava’s sojourn in music didn’t start there, “Mi born inna music. From me a likkle yute mi used to save my money and buy cassette dunga town. Music is my passion.”  Lava was a popping DJ and event promoter long before his viral talkshow and his humble beginnings in Hermitage, August Town. Eventually, Lava would move to the United States, where his DJ career took off, and later his career as a promoter and music producer. “Back then putting on an event, you had to really go hard to promote it and get people to come. Because people know and love me now, it’s not as hard.” 

His growing name soon caught the attention of artists like Vybz Kartel, with whom he established key musical connections. “It’s just loyalty people see and know say you rate the music. You can see I always log on to your platform and sharing your music and show you a lot of respect. So you observe that and before even day one Kartel was my favorite DJ, until now the connection make,” Lava told DancehallMag. These virtues and his consistency with his show, plus his charity in donating to guests in need, helped the DJ to stand out to many others.

In fact one of the world’s biggest female hip-hop artists Nicki Minaj has not only been a long-time watcher of DJ Lava’s Chat and Laugh but also a guest.  He recalled the story in colorful detail, “That night, I will never forget that night. Because when mi deh pon di live now, mi see when she long on. Mi ready fi get excited but I said calm down, it might not be her. I see the people in the comments typing but I act like I don’t see it. Then I press request and mi hear Hey Lava. Mi say oh god, its a wrap. Right there, in the space of two minutes, 96 thousand people on the live. We’re good friends, sometimes she’ll pop in same way and send me drops and all these things. When she released the collab song with all the ladies from JA, she made sure to call me on her program to give my opinion about it.”

With solid relationships like that Lava’s future in the industry is cemented. His business model is also more sustainable and has the potential to last long into his golden years. Aside from his talk show, Lava’s events are world-class, and his merch is some of the top-selling in the fraternity. 

But perhaps his most interesting business pivot in the industry is that of an artist manager.

He’s famous for his role in the career of artist and viral sensation Mackerel. This was much to the chagrin of some critics who believe Mackerel is a gimmicky artist with no real potential. “Music don’t come with a shape or size or color. Music comes with talent and love of music and joy. So if you have a talent for music, you should use it. People can’t come dictate that because you’re a janitor you can’t do music. Nobody can’t say that, because nobody nuh own music. We all love music and we’re born in it, so everybody has the talent if so be the case.” 

Lava has no plans to stop helping and managing people with potential in music or his viral talk show Chat and Laugh. “We just did the third year anniversary for chat and laugh in Miami Florida, it was a success. We nah stop because you have people out there still log on and still watch and a wait fi yuh fi log on. From we stop, we would hurt a lot of people because chat and laugh been a joy to them. You have people in hospital sit down on their phone- or people on their night job sit down with their phones just waiting. So chat and laugh forever same way.”