Antwoine Williams Jr. didn’t choose DJing as much as DJing chose him.
His first time performing came at his own birthday party back in high school, when he took the stage with an old computer borrowed from his uncle Jacoby, also a DJ, after the scheduled act failed to show. It turned out he was a natural.
“Everybody enjoyed themselves and then started booking me at their events,” said the 22-year-old Mississippi Valley State graduate known on stage as DJ Black & Wild. “I just love music, and I like entertaining people. It runs in the family.”
Williams is a Renaissance man of sorts. While earning recruiting attention as a linebacker for Greenwood High alongside fellow standouts Marquiss Spencer and Booker T. Chambers, he was also DJing school events at both GHS and Amanda Elzy High. Not only did he go on to play running back at Mississippi Delta Community College and MVSU, but he also started a clothing company and held a variety of jobs that included taking photos for the Commonwealth.
Now he is on the road working for UPS in between his DJ gigs. At Saturday’s Juneteenth celebration at Whittington Park, he put on a lively concert for hundreds in attendance. His clothing brand, Modesté, which he founded along with friends Jamarius Everett, Zsa-Trellis Moore, MuKyron McBride and Jarred Murphy, also enjoyed a successful afternoon, with more than 200 shirts sold.
“Every event I can possibly be a part of, I try to because our community needs help,” Williams said.
The son of Antwoine Williams Sr., a former Greenwood Leflore Consolidated School Board member and current president of football operations at MVSU, Williams Jr. says his work ethic was forged on the Greenwood High football field affectionately known as the “Dog Pound.”
“Football taught me to never give up,” he said. “I’m glad I played football for Greenwood High and Clinton Gatewood. They wouldn’t let us stop. We were sweating hard. Football taught me to keep going no matter what situation you’re in.”
A member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Williams Jr. is involved with a group called Stay Woke University, which organizes events for historically Black schools including MVSU, Grambling State University and others. His signature tag line at his shows reminds listeners, “I told you to stay woke.”
“The world’s crazy right now, so you have to be woke to survive,” he said. “Everybody needs to be working and helping. It’s just about the grind.”
Williams said the solutions for the city’s problems start with the youth. His 1-year-old daughter, Aaliyah —named after the late R&B singer — provides constant motivation for him to keep grinding toward a better Greenwood.
“I think it starts with the youth. I’m huge on that,” he said. “I also help out with my dad’s baseball and football teams through his Greenwood Bullpups organization. Anyway I can be involved, I try to be.”
- Contact Riley Overend at 581-7237 or roverend@gwcommonwealth.com. Follow @OverendOut on Twitter.
