You'll be successful when you kill your plan B. Here's what I mean. Ten years ago I was a resident DJ in the North of England. I always earned good money and I always knew where my next gig was. But that wasn't my plan A. I wanted to be an artist. I wanted to make music, play at festivals, and travel the world. So even though I had a good job, I quit. I sold all my shit and I moved to London where I was a nobody. I told everyone what I was doing so that my own pride wouldn't let me fail. Slept on the studio floor. Worked all day every single day until eventually it started to click. When you have no option but to succeed, that's when you find a way. You'll be successful when you kill your plan B. jameshype.com/thoughts/when-…

If you're a DJ and you want to take it seriously, stop fucking around and listen to this. You need to make music, and I'll explain why. In 2016 I was doing the exact same type of DJing I do now. The same transitions, the same ideas, everything. I was playing small clubs and no one gave a shit. In 2018 I'd made a hit record, and suddenly I was on big stages. I was still doing the exact same type of DJing. Nothing about the way I mixed had changed. But now people thought it was the best thing ever, and I went viral. The platform the music gave me made everyone take me more seriously. The DJing didn't change. The way people saw it did. So if you're serious about this, make music. jameshype.com/thoughts/if-yo…

If you're ever going to be great at something, you have to be ready to look like an idiot. You are putting yourself out there to be ridiculed. You are literally putting yourself out there to publicly fail. And that's scary. But just know this: anyone who uses their days to try and tear down other people is doing that to hide their own fears. We have a limited number of days on this earth. Do you want to get to the end and realize that you wasted yours trying to diminish what others are doing? Or would you rather get to the end and be able to say that you gave something everything you had? jameshype.com/thoughts/be-re…

Fuck all the rules. Fuck all people's assumptions about what you can and can't do. I was a local DJ. I used to play to 20 people, sometimes zero people. And I just kept on making mid, mid-level music until eventually I made something that people actually liked. It literally changed my life. So forget what you think you're capable of. If you just work fucking hard and never take no for an answer, I think you can do it too. jameshype.com/thoughts/forge…

The universe rewards people who go above and beyond. So be a freak. Be a fucking psycho. I couldn't tell you how many nights I stayed in the studio until 5 or 6am, because I felt like I was so close to making something incredible. Most of the time I wasn't. But I was prepared to go above and beyond, and eventually I did. When I was 17 and leaving school, all my friends were going to university and getting proper jobs. And I was like, nah, I want to be a DJ. Everyone would have told me I was an idiot. I carried on going anyway. You've got to be prepared to be different. If you're one of those people, you tend to be the person luck finds. So be different. Be a weirdo. jameshype.com/thoughts/if-yo…

If you're terrified of failure, think about this. Can you remember a time in your life where you had nothing but you were really fucking happy? Because I can. I remember when I was about 19. Me and my best friend used to promote under-18s club events. I used to drive my mum's car around handing out flyers, trying to get people to come. I had absolutely no money. I probably lived on 20 pounds a week. But I was working towards something. It was just me and my mate, and we were doing whatever the fuck we wanted. Whenever I think back to that time, I was having so much fun. I was so happy. So if you've got a memory like that in your head, what the fuck have you got to be afraid of? If I lost everything tomorrow and I had to start all over again, I don't think I wouldn't be happy. jameshype.com/thoughts/what-…

I said I'd make a video about this, so here it is. The only way I've found to actually kill the fear of rejection is this. I've thought about it a lot, because so many people are scared of rejection, me included. And the answer isn't pretending you don't care. It's something else entirely. If you can get yourself to a point where you truly believe the person rejecting you is wrong, and that they're going to be made to look stupid in the future, then you can just laugh about it. The way you get there is to work so hard, and set goals so ambitious, that your trajectory becomes inevitable. Not likely. Inevitable. Even if somebody rejects you today, you know that in two years they're going to look back and think: we missed one there. That's the whole trick. The rejection stops being a verdict on you and starts being a timestamp, a note of exactly when someone got it wrong. jameshype.com/thoughts/make-…

The biggest mistake I see is waiting until you feel ready. Take it from someone who's been doing this a long time. You never feel ready. If that's what you're waiting for, you're never going to do anything. You only learn by actually doing. When I first started out producing, I used to make a remix every week and put it on SoundCloud for the world to hear. Most of them were shit. Looking back, I wasn't ready. But nobody remembers the bad ones. A couple ended up being quite good. People remember those. Those ones opened doors. Stop waiting to feel ready. jameshype.com/thoughts/stop-…

I remember when I first started releasing music. I had this app on my phone and I would check it every day. See how the streams were doing. See what playlists I was on. But it's out of your hands. You have a good day and you're like yeah. You have a bad day, and most days are bad, and you're just going to be down. There's nothing you can do about it. Yeah you can make a song, but it's not going to come out for months and months and months. And you're putting your happiness in the hands of essentially an algorithm. Don't do it. jameshype.com/thoughts/dont-…

Spend money where it matters. Early in my career I was making about £600 a gig. And I still spent about £750 on a proper photographer when cheaper options were right there. People thought I was mad. I wasn't. I was investing in how I looked to the people who book you and the people who decide whether to listen. Brand photos elevate those decisions. When someone is scrolling a lineup or a profile, that image is doing work before a single track plays. You have to spend money to make money. Even when it hurts. Don't fear the spend that makes you look like the artist you want to become. jameshype.com/thoughts/spend…

It doesn't matter how small you are right now. One person believes in you. That could even be your mum. For me it was the guy who hired me to DJ in his bar when everyone else said no. I was 18 and I had no clue what I was doing. But he backed me anyway. When you've got that one person's belief, you have to take it and run with it. You've got to prove them right. Think about it. Every time they interview the people who knew someone before they were famous, they all say the same thing: yeah, I knew they were going to make it. Make it your mission to prove that the one person who believed in you was right. So work your ass off. Not for the people who doubted you. For the one who didn't. jameshype.com/thoughts/one-p…

No one wants to hear this, but your life is a mirror of the decisions you've made over the past ten years. That's not a dig. It's the good news. Because if the last ten years came from decisions, so do the next ten, and the next ten start today. So if you want something to change in the future, you've got to start making that change now. Then you watch it slowly come into action. Slowly. That word matters. You don't get to become the person you want to be overnight. You just make tiny little changes every day. Making the right decision. Doing the hard thing. Putting in the work, putting in the practice. None of it feels like much on the day. That's exactly why most people quit. The daily version of it looks too small to matter. But stack it for ten years and you won't believe what happens. jameshype.com/thoughts/your-…

If you've been blessed with a passion, it is your duty to share it. People are going to talk shit. That is the only thing that's guaranteed. I still get it every day. Over two billion Spotify streams and the comments still come. Don't let your fear of what people think stop you from doing the thing. We're all dead one day. So why would you ever let the opinion of a sad stranger stop you from what you could achieve? Stop being afraid. jameshype.com/thoughts/stop-…

Your plan is fucked if it involves waiting for the right person to discover you. Nobody can make your career for you. Managers, labels, a team. They amplify what you're already building. They only show up once you're already consistently doing something great. Move like you already have a manager and a team. That's the only way. jameshype.com/thoughts/stop-…

The moment I stopped trying to make a number one, I made my first number one. This was 2021. We'd been locked down because of COVID and I was spending every single day in the studio, just releasing the music I'd been making. I had a few tracks I was convinced would do really well. Every time I finished one I'd be like, yeah, this one's got all the ingredients. One had a really well-known sample. One had a really obvious feeling drop. To me they sounded like the kind of thing that was working at the time. In my head I'd already decided this could be my first Beatport number one. Then the tracks would come out and they'd do well. I got one that was number five, one that was number four, which is amazing, but every time I'd built up this expectation of what the record was supposed to do. Then one night me and my girlfriend were in the studio and we made this track. It didn't follow any of the rules I'd made up. We weren't trying to make a hit. We weren't thinking about what sample we could use so people would recognise it. We weren't thinking about what was supposed to work. We just made something that sounded like us, and I fucking loved it. Honestly my expectation was nothing. It came out and I remember thinking, wow, it's in the top ten. Wow, it's actually doing something. I just wasn't expecting it at all. A few days later I woke up, checked Beatport, and it was number one. My first ever Beatport number one. The weirdest part was this was not the record that was supposed to go Beatport number one. Looking back I think that's exactly why it did. If you're desperate for something to succeed and you start making your decisions based on what you think other people want, you look at what's already working and you start following a formula. That's when you use the sample everyone recognises, or you try to make a version of something that's already been successful. You don't win by following the crowd. By the time you can see the formula that you think works, everyone else can see it too, so you're just doing the same thing as everyone else. That record was different because we weren't trying to make what was working. We were just making something that was true and sounded like us. The real lesson I took from it: you should care massively about the work, but you shouldn't let your expectation of the result change your work. Sometimes the thing that goes furthest is the thing you made without trying to make it go anywhere. jameshype.com/thoughts/the-m…

If you want your songs to actually come out, don't sample a Billboard number one. Two years ago I started a track with Volkoder. May 2024. We pretty much finished it within a week. Then we waited. Getting the sample approved by Mary J. Blige took from May 2024 until now. About two and a half years. We're finally releasing it on Friday. Don't sample a Billboard number one if you want the song out any time soon. Finish the idea. Then wait for clearance while you make the next one. jameshype.com/thoughts/dont-…

Every aspiring DJ I talk to is in the studio learning how to mix. Or they are trying to write the perfect song. That is not the job. The job is selling your brand. That is the bit almost nobody wants to practice. Look at the headliners. A lot of them are not there because they are the best DJs in the room. They are not there because they made the best records. They are there because they can sell. You can be world class on the decks and still play empty rooms if nobody knows who you are. The mix is the easy part. Making people care is the work. Learn how to sell. jameshype.com/thoughts/learn…

I went quiet on Thoughts. I told myself I was waiting for inspiration. That's the opposite of how I make music. You start first. The idea shows up once you're already moving. If I wait for the perfect thought, I post nothing. Then I start thinking I've got nothing to say. The rule is the same as the studio. Don't wait for the inspiration. Just fucking start. jameshype.com/thoughts/dont-…

People thought I was weird. Boring. Delusional. When my mates asked me out I'd say no. Spare hours went into the room, not the TV, not the scroll. Just locked in. No one understood why I was working so hard. They weren't seeing any results. That's the stretch nobody claps for. Everyone's going to think you're weird. They're going to think you're boring. And they're going to think you're delusional. When your mates ask you to go out, you're going to say no. When you have a spare few hours, you're not going to watch TV. You're not going to doom scroll. You're just going to be locked in. No one's going to understand why you are working so hard. Because they won't be seeing any results. Five years from now you won't be the weird one. You'll be the guy that all your friends say they always knew you were going to make it. And you'll be the one who's made your parents proud. That stretch is the part people don't get. The work happens in the hours nobody claps for. You look boring from the outside because the results aren't public yet. Trust me. I've been there. jameshype.com/thoughts/five-…

I got the Tomorrowland main stage with no hits. 2022. Never played there. No huge records. They still booked me. Everyone thinks that stage is for the biggest song in the world. I didn't have one. For two years I did something almost nobody else would. Twice a week. Here's why. Two hour live streams. I didn't miss a single one. Thousands of hours playing music, talking to people, trying new things, building a community. Eventually it wasn't a live stream anymore. It was a global group of people who genuinely just wanted to hang out and listen to me DJ. And Tomorrowland noticed. They don't only book the biggest artist. They do that too. But they're actually paying attention to who's building something real, who's creating momentum, who's making people care. A lot of DJs think the only route in is a viral record or millions of followers. That's not how it works. If you're consistently giving people a reason to come back, the industry eventually starts coming back to you. Stop asking how do I get booked, and start asking how do I build something they can't ignore. jameshype.com/thoughts/how-i…