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It’s after midnight, and Adam Amin has just pulled off a wild day-night doubleheader.
A few hours after he called play-by-play for Saturday’s Cubs-Phillies game on Fox, Amin DJ’ed a set at 115 Bourbon Street, a club in south-suburban Chicago.
Following his set, Amin told Front Office Sports that he’s been DJ’ing since he was 13, when his brother bought him turntables, a mixer, and a “mixmaster throwdown” CD from the radio station B96 for his birthday.
“I spent 10 years of my life doing this professionally,” Amin said. “I did every homecoming weekend in high school. They gave me four periods off [class] and paid me to play music in the cafeteria for my friends. I worked as a wedding DJ and a mobile DJ at corporate events. One of my brothers did this professionally, so that’s how I learned music when I was younger. I made a good amount of money—I helped pay for my first year of college by DJ’ing.”
Dressed in a red and black flannel shirt with rolled-up sleeves, Amin came on at 11:00 pm and played remixes of popular songs through his Pioneer XDJ-XZ machine. He opened with a mix of Hustlin by Rick Ross, and other songs in the set included The Way I Are by Timbaland, I Had Some Help by Post Malone and Morgan Wallen, No Hands by Waka Flocka Flame, and Titanium by David Guetta.
He’s active, both dancing and working the machine throughout the set, as opposed to some of the DJs you see working off a MacBook on autopilot.
Amin said that he doesn’t “plan” his set in advance, per se, but that he “curates” it based on his general understanding of the venue as well as observations on how the crowds are reacting.
“On my laptop, I have something like 2,000 songs, and I’ll pick somewhere between 50-70 songs that I think will work in the room,” Amin said.
115 Bourbon Street is a sprawling facility that pops up from out of nowhere in Merrionette Park, about 10 miles south of downtown Chicago. The parking lot is overflowing. The club has several large rooms, including one this evening where it’s a hair-band tribute night with a live band. Nothingggggg but a good time (by Poison) rings out as you wind your way around the bar.
The club room where Amin played has an even distribution of men and women, most of them between 21-40, with a diverse mix of race and ethnicity. Contrary to their generational reputation, the Gen-Z’ers are buying drinks. By the end of the set, there are a few hundred people on the dance floor, and they’re reacting to his high spots.
“Tonight was what’s called a ‘commercial’ room—people want to hear versions of songs they know. I think I have a good sense of what the people here want to hear,” Amin said. “If they’re having a good time, you keep going with that type of style. If they want to change it up, you try to look at their faces and reactions. Are they staying on the dance floor, or are they leaving to get a drink? Are you giving them a little bit of a breather, to cool things down so they’re not exhausted after 30 minutes? A lot of it is read-and-react.”
Amin, 38, calls Bulls games for CHSN and works nationally on Fox NFL and MLB telecasts. It is generally agreed upon by sports media observers that he is excellent at his craft and on the short list of announcers under 40 who will be among the next generation of championship-level event callers. He works with an agent on his broadcasting deals, but for DJ work, he makes the bookings himself.
“This is just making connections with people that you’re friends with, or are in the industry—or adjacent to it. I kind of got back into it with some help from some friends,” Amin said.
Amin gave up DJ’ing around 2011 when he joined ESPN in order to focus on his broadcasting career (he left ESPN for Fox in 2020). He got back into it about two years ago, at a time when he said he was feeling “a little stagnant creatively.”
Amin DJ’s at 115 Bourbon regularly and tends to play clubs and lounges in downtown Chicago. His dream venues include the primary space at “true house music clubs” in the city, like Radius and PRYSM, which he’s played in a smaller room.
“That’s where the big electronic artists play,” Amin said. “I’m not delusional and thinking like this is going to be like a main source of income. But I’d love to do it to the point where you can open for one of the big electronic artists.”
