When asked to reflect on his career in the music industry, Damion “Damizza” Young pauses for a moment to consider. “I never made it,” he says, “but I’ve been chasing it my whole life.”
Scroll through music Instagram on any given day, when Young is reacting to the latest news via his @Damizza handle (240,000 followers and counting), and you might think differently.
Following a significant hiatus from the industry, Young reemerged on Instagram in 2023, sharing valuable insights with his followers who continue to devour his hard-won wisdom. Whether he’s discussing Drake’s latest lawsuits, the use of artificial intelligence, Jermaine Dupri’s legal battle with Sony Music or the Ed Sheeran and Macklemore controversy, Young dives into relevant and current topics affecting the music industry, sparking dialogue and creating a community that taps into his expertise.
From an outsider’s perspective, Young did make it. A program director at Santa Barbara’s KHTY FM by 17, the ambitious radio prodigy had a clear vision of what he wanted to accomplish at an early age —bringing more hip-hop to the airwaves. But that didn’t align with the station’s format. So he pivoted to Nineties alternative rock, playing artists like Nirvana, Fiona Apple, Smashing Pumpkins, and Garbage and, in the process, helped develop the alternative radio format.
“One of the first 8x10s I ever got signed was from Fiona Apple and it just read, ‘To Damion, you prick,’” he says with a chuckle. “I was young and always bugging them for interviews and stuff.”
Young didn’t exactly have the option to fail. His parents, just teenagers at the time of his birth, left him on his grandmother Claudia’s doorstep when he was a year old, and took off. But his grandmother wasn’t home that cold, rainy day in 1975, so he wound up with pneumonia and nearly died.
“My parents weren’t ready to have kids,” he says. “I was a sad sack, as my grandma said, when she got me. The first thing she did was rush me to the hospital. From then on, I was grandma’s child.”
The lessons she instilled in Young became his North Star.
“My grandma gave me some great advice,” Young recalls. “She said, ‘Surround yourself with people smarter than you and you’ll be all right.’ But the thing I learned from grandma above everything else is how important family, loyalty, duty, sticking by your word and respect is.”
Those principles inadvertently led Young to top positions at Los Angeles’ Power 106 and New York’s Hot 97, and producing music for artists like Mariah Carey, Nate Dogg, Lil Wayne, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, and Ludacris. He also pushed Jay-Z to find an international audience, had a hand in reigniting Janet Jackson’s career, and gave Dr. Dre advice on how to break Eminem.
After being Claudia’s full-time caretaker for years until her death in 2024 at age 96, Young relocated back to Santa Barbara and cultivated his social media audience by sharing insights into the music business.
A hot topic of late? His former employer, Hot 97, which appears to be imploding after multiple radio personalities were let go, leading to current staffers criticizing the station’s management on air. Inflammatory remarks from hosts like “this is the worst place I’ve ever worked in my life” and “they are not paying their employees” quickly made the rounds on social media — amplified by the likes of Ebro and Rosenberg, also alums of the station.
“Anytime your morning show is talking about management on the air, they already lost the plot,” says Young. “But, I am glad so many people are talking about radio again. That speaks to its relevance.”
Of his own success on Instagram and beyond, Young seems genuinely surprised to have made a dent in the music business at all.
“I consider myself the Forrest Gump of hip-hop,” he says. “Some days Forrest witnessed history, some days he played a part. His mother got sick, he moved home and when she passed, he rebuilt. He was kind to everyone and wanted to help.
“Grandma’s door was always open,” he continues. “If you needed a place to stay, a meal or just some of granny’s wisdom, anybody could come over. Everybody knew granny — everybody at the radio station and all the artists. One of my favorite memories is when Mariah was in L.A. and there were threats of a bomb, so we went to Santa Barbara. We were at my granny’s and I smelled something burning in the kitchen, which was totally unheard of.
“My little brother and I were in the living room, and we’re like, ‘What’s burning?’ We walk in and Granny and Mariah are above the trash can scraping off the tops of the rolls. And I go, ‘Grandma, you burned something?’ She goes, ‘We got to girl-talking. Get out of my kitchen!’”
In addition to his grandmother, Young had several significant mentors come into his life, including Nate Dogg and DJ Quik. The former, who died in 2011, hired him to co-produce his second (and what would become his last) solo album, Music & Me, in 2001. The title track is crafted entirely by Young and became synonymous with the West Coast King of Hooks.
“Nate was one of my best friends,” he says. “We did a lot of work together and no matter where I was—whether it’s a radio station or the recording studio—I’m gonna get a call from Nate in the morning like, ‘Where are you?’ I’d be like, ‘I’m at the studio today with so and so.’ And he’d say, ‘You got any beats? I’m stopping by.’”
Bone Thug’s Krayzie Bone and Layzie Bone were the first people to text Young when his grandmother died, a testament to his impact on the artist he’s worked with and the respect he’s garnered.
“This universe has been so good to me to put me in these situations, where I get to witness amazing things and be a part of it,” he says. “It’s been such a dream come true.”