Before DJ Ghost would react to your favorite rapper’s music videos
Before his reaction videos would go viral including his rapper reaction which has more
than 2.5 million views, his reaction to snitch fighting at the airport, which has more than
2.2 million views and his Eminem song reaction which has 2 million views at the time of this
recording
Before DJ Ghost would have more than 162k followers on Instagram and more than 1.6 million
subscribers on YouTube and more than 190 million views.
Plus another quarter million subs over on his family’s vlog channel!
Before DJ Ghost would have beef with Michael McCrudden
I didn't even know this was a thing...
I'm just learning about this now but you guys have been letting us know in the comments
that DJ Ghost gonna be getting heated every time we use him as a clip.
I've reached out to DJ Ghost since and he said he'd actually be looking forward to reacting
to this video so I'll I can really do is try my best and hope I get a better review this
time around.
DJ Ghost has become one of the biggest hip-hop reaction channels on YouTube.
With over 1.5 million subscribers, sometimes the man gets more views on his REACTION videos
than artists get on their original music videos.
But he has had a long road to success.
DJ Ghost was at one-point homeless living in his car and would sleep in a Wal Mart parking
lot, unsure of where his next paycheck would come from.
He got into trouble with the law on multiple occasions and was unable to get a regular
job because of his history.
So he needed a way to become his own boss.
That's when a little website called YouTube opened up an opportunity for him to do all
that and more...
What’s going on guys?
It’s your boy Michael McCrudden, walking your through the life and career of DJ Ghost,
prior to fame, here for you on Before They Were Famous.
This video is long overdue...
I've been doing this YouTube thing for a really long time now and I didn't even know all the
attention I was getting at some times.
If you like these videos some other recent drops include a The Rich Life on Pretty Boy
Fredo and the boys of Love Live Serve.
As always we need suggestions from you guys for who to do next.
I also got a trivia question for you guys:
“Who is DJ Ghost’s favorite YouTube vlogger?”
Alright, now let’s get into the video!
DJ Ghost grew up in South Central LA with his mother and 5 sisters.
He was the oldest out of 10 children, but he didn’t have his father around for much
of his life.
Ghost’s dad got locked up when Ghost was around 9 years old in the 4th grade.
The two have talked on the phone since then, but he’s been gone for over 20 years at
this point.
Ghost says that growing up without his dad inspires him to be around for his own kids
today.
But he says that his mom held it down for them growing up:
Although even his mother did haver her own troubles with the law as well.
She got locked up for using counterfeit money at a local Ralphs.
Ghost and his siblings got separated at the time and had to move to Lancaster.
In Lancaster, Ghost went through some traumatic experiences, including getting diddled by
his mom’s best friend at 12 years old.
In that video he explains that this actually happened twice with two different women.
Damn!
This man has gone through a lot.
I mean he was even at when he was only 11 years old.
He attended Horace Man middle school in Los Angeles where he spent most of his time playing
basketball with friends.
But his original dream was not to be a YouTuber.
Ghost wanted to play in the NFL.
Ghost got his first tattoo when he was 13 and it’s of his mom’s name.
His next tattoo was his grandma’s name and by 19 he had 32 tats.
As of 2017, he had 47 tattoos.
After he got his first tattoo, 8th grade, was the first time that Ghost smoked.
But it wasn’t a loving relationship with smoking at first.
When he first saw some of his classmates smoking, Ghost had a negative perception of smoking
and felt hurt
That is, until he finally tried it for himself.
Ever since then, Ghost can’t be spotted without a smoke in his reaction videos!
In the 9th grade, Ghost attended Crenshaw high school, the same school as Ice T and
where they filmed the Tv show Moesha.
Before he was reacting to rappers, DJ Ghost was actually a rapper himself.
Ever since he was young he would stay up all night writing raps and recording songs.
In terms of
his name:
He’s referring to the main character in 50 Cent’s show “Power,” where the main
character is nicknamed Ghost.
So maybe in this case…
50 Cent is the one who owes
the money?
Also, for those of you wondering about his DJ background, well…
Hey, at least he’s honest!
While he was rapping, he was putting his rap music videos up onto YouTube.
He was on the music grind just as much as he is currently on the YouTube grind.
Dropping a video every single day.
He would drop a new remix of a popular song from Monday through Friday.
I know something about dropping a new video every day here for this channel and it’s
a lot of work!
But Ghost got caught up with the law and went to jail on four separate occasions:
He fgot locked up as a teenager, later going back for disturbing the peace which only sent
him in for 10 days.
The third time was a few months for a pewpew case, and the fourth time was for something
that he didn’t do, but like he said, he’s not going to snitch.
He said that in high school he was only worried about getting money by any means necessary:
When he came out and was planning on continuing to rap, the cover landscape on YouTube was
different and people weren’t really blowing up from making remix’s anymore.
So it was back to hustling and trying to find ways for him to get by.
While attending high school, he was placed into a mentorship program at UCLA.
There the mentor showed them how to drive for the first time and tried to help keep
him on the right path.
This special dudes name was apparently Herbert.
Shoutout to Herbert.
Ghost cites football as the reason he was able to get his diploma.
He was skipping class, had bad grades and didn’t really care about his formal education.
But because he was on the football team, he had to show up to classes and come to school
on the daily.
Eventually, he did end up graduating from high school.
Ghost never went to college and never had any plans to
But he says that he prides himself on education.
He spends hours researching his passions online and teaches himself how he can make money
from those passions.
Ghost had some regular jobs at first:
He
eventually moved to Bakersfield with the goal of making some money and sending it back to
his family.
But when he first got there, he took a job at Sears just to pay the bills.
In Bakersfield, he met up with some people doing content:
But at the time, he thought YouTube was just for nerds and he didn’t want to show his
whole life by vlogging, so even though he saw some of his friends making money from
the site, he brushed off the idea.
Later on he moved to Vegas at around 25.
He finally had a car and some money from hustling but he wasn’t able to get a regular job
with his record.
He was enjoying life, but he had no savings in his bank account.
He was hustling at the time but didn’t have a stable income so when his business went
south, he wasn’t able to pay his bills.
At this time he was living with his baby mother and their two children.
So Ghost did whatever he could to make money.
He used his relationships with store owners and friends to wash cars, work for a couple
hours at the corner store and do whatever he could to make some quick money.
But he couldn’t make enough to support them at the time.
The family’s lights were cut off and they were eventually evicted from their home.
They stayed in a Motel 6 for a while but Ghost knew that they couldn’t live there forever.
Ghost hit up his baby mamma’s brother and said “we’re staying in a motel 6 right
now and we need to stay with you guys for 3 weeks.
But the brother told Ghost and the family that they couldn’t stay with them.
Ghost knew that he had to keep his family safe, so his kid and his girl went to go live
with her mom.
But Ghost was forced to look into other means.
It was during this time that Ghost was living in his car and was homeless trying to figure
out a way to make things right for his family.
It was actually DJ Akademiks who inspired DJ Ghost to get onto YouTube for real.
Ghost saw that Akademiks was making money just talking about hip-hop and reporting news.
Plus, at the time Akademics didn’t even have a camera, it was all just voiceover,
so Ghost thought, well, if he can do it and make money, then so can I.
So Ghost put his first videos out using picture overlays, but he wasn’t getting very many
views and he gave up for about four months.
This is the first video still on his channel from 2016.
He eventually decided to get a camera and put his face in the videos instead of doing
the videos like Akademiks.
But for some reason, he started wearing face paint in his videos…?
Is that white face?
Then he got himself a green screen and started doing some more commentary videos:
At this point, he was getting some views, with the occasional video that got into the
hundreds of thousands, but it wasn’t very consistent.
But what was consistent, was his posting!
Ghost was posting videos almost every day for the channel and working constantly to
feed his subscribers.
But the summer of 2017, his channel got a huge boost when Ghost reacted to all of the
XXL Freshman Cyphers.
And called them all garbage…
He got his channel up to 12 thousand subs and even Ugly God hit him up and told him
he’s a fan.
And then finally, before long, he got himself into some real rap beef:
From there, Ghost has interacted with many of rap’s biggest names, doing interviews
and his videos have become an important part of any new music video release.
DJ Ghost has a beautiful family and even has a VLOG channel called The Ghost Family.
And now he makes a living off of YouTube.
What a story!
In terms of his favorite YouTuber, he loves Casey Neistat
And that’s the answer to the question from the beginning of the video.
That’s all I got for you in this one.