DJ Tygga Ty gets his dancehall props with Shining Star rhythm

When a major multi-city tour stalled, rising radio DJ Tygga Ty grew concerned as his savings dwindled. Some people would have folded, but he doubled down, and stayed the course. For four months, DJ Tygga Ty (pronounced tiger tie) slept on a friend's couch while he plotted his next career move, waiting for a Houston nightclub’s opening as his future hung in limbo. After completing one stop with Mariah the Scientist, the DJ found himself waiting for Lov3 to open. As the delay dragged on, financial pressure mounted. Walking away crossed his mind. But so did the people counting on him. He had come too far to fail now. “What kept me going is the understanding that I had friends and family who are depending on me to make it happen,” he said. DJ Tygga Ty forged a way forward through relationships built long before the setback. He reached out to people he had grown up with and helped earlier in his career, then doubled down on networking. He eventually secured a residency at Lov3. “It taught me that information is powerful. What you know and who you know can determine your success.” Born in Florida and raised in New York, Tygga Ty now works across Rochester, Houston and Jamaica. His Houston club gigs include Lov3 and Vice, while his connection to Spanish Town’s Powasquad International keeps him grounded in Jamaican sound-system culture. For him, that connection means “family, loyalty, and respect.” Those values took shape around speakers, cables and recording sessions. Growing up in a predominantly Black community with a Latin presence, he helped string up sound systems and watched artistes voice dubplates. The experience taught him to respect the culture—and deliver when it was his turn. His rule remains simple: “You're only as good as your last show, and customer service is your best friend in this field of work.” That attention to the audience also guides his production. Before approaching an artist, he listens to their catalogue and considers where they are in their career. Then he decides where the record needs to land: the party or the sound clash. “If I am in party mode, I look to make music with artistes I can play in that setting,” he explained. DJ Tygga Ty has an impressive catalogue of projects which include a lot of dancehall heavy hitters. Some of his most recent releases are the bouncy Motif Riddim, featuring Mr Vegas’ Put Me to Work, and the banging bass-heavy Apple Bag Riddim, featuring Qraig of Voicemail’s Shake It. His collaborations also include notable heavyweights such as Silk Boss, Singing Sweet, Rytikal and Yaksta. He has started to reap mainstream success as Yaksta’s release, Whine Baby on the Shining Star Riddim peaked at No 1 on reggae iTunes, while a recent Charly Black song, Mi Love passed 4,000 streams in two days with just light social media promotion. Radio gives him another way to connect. He hosts an hour-long Friday programme on Rochester’s The Beat 105.5 FM, available through iHeartRadio, and has appeared on Buffalo’s WBLK and Houston’s 97.9 The Box where his fiery 25-minute mixes are a huge hit with young, urban audiences. A club crowd arrives with expectations. Radio, he says, lets him reach people of different ages and backgrounds in moments he may never see. “Radio also helps me work on my people skills of talking to people I may never meet and make them feel like a star through music and dialogue.” Away from the decks, he is a supportive father who uses technology to stay connected with his children. Still, he feels the cost of time apart. Being productive is how he tries to make that sacrifice count. The stalled tour eventually came full circle, too. Years after that single stop, he reconnected with Mariah the Scientist’s team. “At that time, I did only one stop on Mariah the Scientist before the tour got postponed but years later, I DJed for her in Houston during her tour in 2025, so we were able to reconnect, all's well that ends well,” he said. Now, there is no turning back for DJ Tygga Ty. With the recent release of his promising Shining Star rhythm project, the stars really are the limit.