Driven by his eclectic music taste, representative of his collective music journey, Angel “APOLLYON” Kennedy’s genre-pushing DJ mixes navigate the various influences that shaped it – taking listeners on a unique experience through the realms of hip-hop, funk, house, and other distinct sounds that align with his ever-evolving music taste.
The son of DJ and producer SON of MAESTRO (FKA The Mighty Maestro), Angel’s background and subsequent exposure to instrumentation at a young age paid dividends in influencing his current DJ pursuits. Picking up saxophone, trumpet and upright bass throughout grade school, his immersion in jazz and classical music – combined with exposure to his father’s music and related influences (hip-hop, funk, soul, etc.) – played a great deal in rounding out the DJ’s collective music lexicon.
Angel’s exposure to music would continue to evolve during his time in college. In 2017, he joined the University of Florida’s top-40 FM radio station, 95.3 FM GHQ, working behind the mic as both on-air personality and later production director. During his 2-year stint, Angel produced and oversaw the creation of audiovisual assets (i.e. PSAs, talk beds, spots) while honing his on-air chops for the station’s 100,000+ listener audience in North Florida.
Leveraging his prior experiences in hip-hop, Angel would later partner with his two college friends, Federico Psevoznik and Elijah Rawls, in creating “The Frequency,” a weekly 2-hour mix show featuring the latest in independent, underground and mainstream hip-hop. In the station’s flexibility as a nonprofit radio station, The Frequency’s unique freedom in song selection allowed the trio to fill the airwaves with a unique, experimental flow of hip-hop music previously foreign to the North Florida audience. This experimentation would later influence Angel’s approach to music curation and desire to mix beyond any one particular genre (or sub-genre) of music.
Following his graduation from UF in late 2019 and the subsequent COVID-19 pandemic, Angel was presented with a unique opportunity to take up DJing and turntablism during the pandemic era. With help from his father, he armed himself with a Numark DJ2GO controller and, later, two Technics 1200 turntables – embarking on a new journey which leveraged his prior background and newfound appreciation for the craft.
With support from fellow friends/DJs “MILA KILLA” and “DJ OTHENTIC,” Angel’s DJ pursuits begin a new chapter in the musician’s journey — driven to merging old school and new to provide an authentic, eclectic auditory experience for listeners old and new.
