Today we’d like to introduce you to Clayton Bell.
Hi Clayton, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My story really starts on the East Side of Buffalo, New York, where I was born and raised. I’ve always loved music and art, and I’ve always been creative. I’ve also always had an entrepreneurial mindset. Whether I was creating something just because I enjoyed it or trying to figure out how I could turn an idea into something bigger, that’s always been part of who I am.
Music was one of my earliest creative outlets. Before I became a DJ, I actually had a stint producing music. After attending Coppin State University in Baltimore, I eventually transferred back home to Buffalo State, and around that time house parties were a big part of my college experience. I knew a lot of people, we were always throwing parties, and back then getting an actual DJ wasn’t as easy or affordable as it is today.
So I came up with my own solution. I was producing with a program called ACID at the time, and during the week leading up to a party, I would literally build the entire soundtrack in advance. I’d take all the newest music and put the songs together like a DJ would—transitions, edits, drops, everything—and then burn everything onto about four CDs, each a little over an hour long. Those four CDs would become the music for the entire party.
I did that for months until eventually I got tired of doing all that work. Somebody basically told me, “You know, you could just learn how to DJ.” So I started researching everything I could and eventually found my first DJ software and bought my first controller, a Numark Total Control that I think cost me about $99.
That was late 2006, and that’s really where my journey as a DJ began.
After graduating from Buffalo State with my degree in Media Production and Marketing and eventually making my way back to the DMV, there was actually a period where I dealt with what I would call imposter syndrome when it came to DJing. I knew I could DJ, but the DJs I knew and looked up to were amazing to me. I would watch them work and think, I’m not on that level yet. So honestly, I didn’t even tell a lot of people that I DJed. I focused more on being a college graduate, building my professional career, and figuring out what was next for me.
A major turning point came when I connected with DJ Tiz, who today is a good friend, a big brother and a mentor to me. He really took me under his wing and showed me the ropes of DJing in D.C. Through him, I was exposed to rooms, people and experiences that I probably wouldn’t have had access to otherwise. I even had opportunities to be around and learn from hip-hop legends like Biz Markie. Being in those rooms allowed me to see DJing at another level—not just playing music, but learning how to work a room, carry yourself professionally and handle everything that can happen behind the booth.
DJs will understand this: every room is different. You can walk into a venue and encounter equipment you’ve never used, a completely different setup, a technical issue or something unexpected, and you still have a job to do. A lot of what Tiz taught me gave me the knowledge and confidence to walk into those situations and figure it out instead of feeling like I didn’t belong there. To this day, I still reach out to him with questions.
I also know I still have plenty to learn, and I think that mindset has helped me continue to grow. The difference now is that I don’t interpret having more to learn as meaning that I’m not good enough to be in the room.
Along the way, I’ve built a career in marketing, digital strategy, branding and content, and eventually I realized I could take everything I had learned professionally about building brands and apply it to something I had already been building organically for years—myself.
Today, I balance my full-time career in marketing with DJing, podcasting, entrepreneurship and other creative projects. On the DJ side specifically, things are entering a really exciting chapter. The bookings are growing, I’m building relationships with venues and organizations throughout the DMV, and I’m stepping into opportunities that are allowing me to grow DJ SoYourDolo beyond simply being someone who DJs events and into a real brand and business.
Almost 20 years later, the equipment has changed, the technology has changed and I’ve definitely changed, but that same creative curiosity is still at the center of everything I do. And it’s funny to think that this whole journey started because a college kid from the East Side of Buffalo got tired of spending an entire week making four CDs for a house party and finally decided, I might as well learn how to DJ.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
No, it definitely hasn’t been a smooth road, and let me be clear—I’m nowhere near where I ultimately want to be. I still consider myself a student of the game, and I think that’s one of the things that keeps me going.
DJing is genuinely something I love to do. I actually correct my friends and family about this all the time. They’ll ask what I’m doing this weekend, and I’ll say, “I have to DJ.” Then they’ll ask, “What time do you get off work?” And I’m like, “What do you mean? I’m not working that day. I told you I’m DJing.” (laughs) I’ve never really looked at DJing as a job, and I hope I never do. It’s something I truly enjoy.
Even now, I’ll tell DJ friends, “Listen, I don’t need any money. If you’ve got 30 minutes and the opportunity is there, let me open up.” Give me 30 minutes of burn in a room I haven’t played before. Give me a different crowd, a different environment, something that challenges me. I’m never going to feel like I’m too big to learn or practice my craft.
But there absolutely have been struggles. One of the biggest ones was internal. For a period of time, I was DJing with a chip on my shoulder because I was paying way too much attention to what other DJs were getting and what I wasn’t getting.
I would see other DJs getting certain clubs, events, opportunities or recognition, and once I reached a point where I felt confident that I could work a room and stand on my own, I started wondering, Why am I not getting those opportunities? Why isn’t my name being mentioned?
There were also relationships and connections I thought were going to lead to opportunities that simply never materialized. People would say, “We’re going to work together,” and then it wouldn’t happen. Especially during my earlier years DJing in the DMV, I thought certain doors were going to open much faster than they actually did. For a while, I allowed that to frustrate me.
Eventually, I realized I was spending so much time looking at what I didn’t have that I wasn’t appreciating or maximizing what I did have.
No, I didn’t have every nightclub in D.C. or Baltimore calling me. But I had places that trusted me enough to let me DJ. I had people who would reach out and book me. I had my own events that I could create. I had relationships I was building. I had opportunities—even if they didn’t look exactly like somebody else’s opportunities.
Once I stopped measuring my journey against everybody else’s and started putting that energy into the opportunities that were actually in front of me, things began to change immensely.
That’s probably been one of the biggest lessons for me throughout this entire journey: focus on what’s in your hands, build from there, and let your path be your path. I still have goals. I still see rooms I want to be in and things I want to accomplish. The difference now is that I’m not allowing somebody else’s success to make me overlook my own progress.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
At the core of everything I do, I consider myself a creative. DJing is a major part of that, but professionally I work in marketing, and throughout my life I’ve always found different ways to create, build and turn ideas into something tangible.
I can actually trace that back to when I was a kid. Around 1994, I went to the library and found a book about origami. Kids at school were always making paper airplanes, so I taught myself how to make a better airplane, along with a paper cup and a crane. Once I learned how to make them, my entrepreneurial side immediately kicked in. I started making them at home, bringing them to school in a plastic bag and selling them—10 cents for the cup, 15 cents for the airplane and 25 cents for the crane because that one was harder to make. (laughs) The airplane was especially popular because if you threw it correctly, it would actually come back to you.
Looking back, that probably explains me better than almost anything. I learned something because I was curious, figured out how to put my own spin on it, created something and then immediately thought, Okay, what can I do with this?
That pattern has followed me throughout my life. I’ve produced music, had opportunities in radio, built a career in marketing and digital strategy, DJed in rooms I never imagined I would be in, podcasted, designed brands and created different businesses and concepts. Not every idea became some huge success, but I’m proud of all of them because every one taught me something and became part of my story.
One project I’m particularly proud of is Karaoke AF, a karaoke-based card game that I created from the ground up. I developed the concept and rules, created the brand and built the relationships around it. I eventually launched a crowdfunding campaign and raised more than $5,000 to actually get the game produced. Seeing something that originally existed only in my head become a physical product that people could hold and play was a special experience for me.
DJing has given me that same feeling in a different way. It has put me in some incredible rooms, introduced me to people I probably would have never met otherwise, created opportunities and, yes, helped pay for some pretty great things in my life. (laughs) But the part I love most is still the creativity of it.
I think that creativity is also what sets me apart as a DJ. People sometimes reduce DJing to whether someone can transition smoothly from one song to another, but there’s so much more to it than that. Give three DJs the exact same ten songs and you’ll hear three completely different sets. DJ A isn’t going to play those records like DJ B, DJ B isn’t going to play them like DJ C, and none of them are going to play them exactly like me.
The songs may be the same. The creativity is what makes the experience different.
When I’m DJing, I’m not always thinking about a song simply as a way to get to the next song. I’m thinking about the soundtrack to the moment we’re currently in. What does this room need right now? What are people feeling? Where can I take them next? Sometimes the perfect record isn’t the newest or biggest song—it’s the one that makes somebody stop, look at their friend and say, “YO! I forgot about this!”
That’s the feeling I chase.
So if I had to say what I specialize in, I would say creating experiences. Marketing, DJing, entrepreneurship, designing a game—they may look like completely different things on paper, but to me they all come from the same place. I like taking an idea, understanding people, putting my creative perspective on it and turning it into something they can experience.
And I’m still willing to learn. I think curiosity has probably been one of my greatest strengths throughout my life. I’m still the kid who will find the equivalent of an origami book, teach himself something new and then immediately start thinking about what he can create with it.
If we knew you growing up, how would we have described you?
Growing up, I was kind of an only child without actually being an only child. I have an older sister who is 13 years older than me, and I have two younger brothers who are much younger than me and weren’t born yet during most of my childhood. So while I absolutely grew up knowing I had a sister and a family around me, by the time I was nine or ten, my sister was already entering a completely different stage of life—college, friends, eventually moving out—so I spent a lot of time entertaining myself.
And honestly, I was completely okay with that.
I had friends in the neighborhood, played outside, went to parties as I got older and did all the normal things kids do, but I never needed a crowd around me to enjoy myself. I could spend hours by myself learning something, creating something or figuring out how something worked.
My friends in the neighborhood actually had a nickname for me: “Look What I Can Do.” (laughs)
That was me. I was always coming outside having learned some random new thing and wanting everybody to see it.
I remember seeing these things called double sticks—they were almost like juggling or jester sticks—at Toys “R” Us. My pops bought them for me, and of course I went home and taught myself how to use them. My father owned a bar at the time, and I would sometimes be outside his establishment doing tricks with them. People would see me and actually give me money. Looking back now, between that and selling origami at school, apparently I was figuring out multiple streams of income pretty early. (laughs)
But that curiosity was a huge part of my personality. If I saw something interesting, I wanted to know how to do it. Music was always a major interest, but more broadly I just loved learning things and figuring things out for myself.
That independence eventually became part of my identity too. A friend gave me the nickname “Dolo” in high school, and it stuck. Years later, it’s funny because the name fits me probably even better than we realized at the time.
I love my friends. I love my family. I enjoy being around people. But I’ve never had a problem operating by myself. I can walk into a room alone, travel alone, create alone, build something alone or simply enjoy my own company. I think learning how to entertain myself and trust my own curiosity at such a young age gave me a level of independence that has helped me tremendously as an adult.
And when I really think about it, “Look What I Can Do” probably never went away. The things I’m showing people just got a little bigger.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://instagram.com/SoYourDolo
