DJ Mustard has been working non-stop as one of the most in-demand producers in hip hop. While exhausted from performing until 2am the previous night, he is focused on spending more time with his family, including his two-year old son who worries when his father has been gone for a week. Mustard discusses how becoming a father has made him more responsible and motivated him to work harder so he can provide a better life for his son than what he experienced growing up without his own father around. Though hugely successful now, Mustard has many more music projects planned for 2015 and beyond as he strives to remain on top of the rap game.

1. story Kairi coe images ANOUK MORGAN
It’s three in the afternoon on a chilly Thursday in New york
City, and after performing a 2 a.m. set at Output last night
in Brooklyn, DJ Mustard is exhausted. A lot has changed for
the 24-year-old since we last talked in April. Aside from pro-
ducing just about every song you hear on the radio, his third
video from his debut album, 10 Summers, has been making
rounds on the blogs, and he’s managed to fit more tattoos
on his arms and face. The night before last he walked away
a winner with three of the biggest awards from the 2014
Global Spin ceremony, but as he appears out of the elevator
before me and lays back on one of the plush, quilted ma-
genta couches in the Gansevoort Hotel as the crisp air tries
to make its way into the hotel from the city streets, Mustard
has only one thing on his mind: going home.
“My girl text me this morning and said my son said ‘Mom,
Daddy is lost. We gotta go find him,’ cause I ain’t been
home,” says Mustard. Compared to when he was on the My
Krazy Life tour with YG earlier this year, he’s actually been
able to spend time with his family more often than not. But
if you asked his two-year-old son, Kiylan, not being able
to see his father for a week seems like infinity. His father,
sadly, shares his sentiment.
At the tender age of ten, Dijon McFarlane’s father was
deported back to Jamaica, a subject DJ Mustard rarely
speaks too much on. Fortunately enough, the experience
didn’t make him another fatherless statistic. With the sup-
port of his mother, sister and uncle growing up, he learned
to take on responsibility at a young age, which ultimately
helped him in his early stages of fatherhood.
“It taught me to be a man and show him better than what
I had,” Mustard says, taking a serious tone when explaining
how the birth of his son changed his life. For someone who
leads a life even remotely close to his, you have no choice
but to look at the bigger picture. And at the point in his
career where trap beats are being produced in abundance
and his fans wonder if he’ll be able to stray away from his
similar-sounding tracks, Mustard already has 2015 planned
and is trained to go. The super-producer hinted that he’s
close to releasing a reggae-inspired track with Sean Paul,
and for the past month or so he’s been high off the success
of his surprising “IDFWU” anthem with Big Sean. Mustard
is quick to tell you, however, that he’s not just sitting on his
The man behind your favorite tracks on the radio
has held the #1 spot all year long, and has no plans
of losing his title now or forever.
THE
CATCH-UP
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