Alum Ghazi Shami: 'The Music Industry's Quiet Giant'

HIP HOP DX -- Shami grew up in San Francisco working in his father’s laundromat. By 4 years old he was climbing behind the washing machines making repairs; making his own pause-tapes with a Gemini mixer and two tape decks by the time he turned 14. He attended San Francisco State University where he majored in Radio and Television and worked for Sun Microsystems, Eloquent Technologies and Audio Highway, where he learned the intricacies of fiber-optic cables and nascent compression technology during the new millennium’s initial tech boom. “Somewhere around 2002,” he says, “I got the opportunity to quit my desk job and take a check. That little bit of money helped me get by and jumpstart my vision. I always valued autonomy because I felt like if I didn’t have autonomy then I wouldn’t have the time and space necessary to evolve my vision of the music industry. Size didn’t matter. What mattered was that I could make a living doing something I loved and didn’t have to answer to anybody.”