#246: DJ Megan Ryte

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome Hot 97 personality, Interscope recording artist and official member of the Heavy Hitters, DJ Megan Ryte to the Upper West Side! Megan, who escaped an abusive household as an early teen, went to college at age 16, and followed her passion for music and performance from Virginia to Florida to Texas and California before landing her dream job in New York, discusses for the first time in detail her significant health scares from last year. Megan talks about growing up in a household with no popular music, what led her to study pre-med, what it was like to discover hip-hop in college and how she dove head first into DJing. We get into her love of Eminem's music, going on the road with Amerie and K. Michelle, her big move down south, the creative ways she got on radio programmers' radars, living paycheck to paycheck, almost being cast on Love & Hip-Hop Miami, and what it felt like to have a radio vet tell her she wasn't cut out ...

This week on A Waste of Time with ItsTheReal, we welcome Hot 97 personality, Interscope recording artist and official member of the Heavy Hitters, DJ Megan Ryte to the Upper West Side! Megan, who escaped an abusive household as an early teen, went to college at age 16, and followed her passion for music and performance from Virginia to Florida to Texas and California before landing her dream job in New York, discusses for the first time in detail her significant health scares from last year. Megan talks about growing up in a household with no popular music, what led her to study pre-med, what it was like to discover hip-hop in college and how she dove head first into DJing. We get into her love of Eminem's music, going on the road with Amerie and K. Michelle, her big move down south, the creative ways she got on radio programmers' radars, living paycheck to paycheck, almost being cast on Love & Hip-Hop Miami, and what it felt like to have a radio vet tell her she wasn't cut out to be an on-air talent. Megan gets into her time as a jack-of-all-trades at a station in West Palm Beach, the opportunity that took her to Houston, how she fell in love with chopped and screwed music, finally finding acceptance and comfort in Texas, and when that same radio vet came back calling to have her audition for a spot at NYC's Hot97, the amazing words that Bun B spoke to send her on her way. We discuss Megan's transition to NYC life, how long it took to get used to being in that famed booth, building relationships with artists both young and established around the country, what she's aiming to bring to the clubs with her new music and everything that her Brooklyn brother DJ Enuff brings into her life. All that, plus meeting a new blood brother as adults, how she kept in shape in Miami, being around shootouts in the club, the quickest way to clear the dance floor (besides shootouts), learning to rely on others after a lifetime of handling everything on her own, and much, much more in this epic episode!