Naesketchie is a music mogul in his own right. The Bronx, New York native comes from humble beginnings, promoting and throwing events and parties in Uptown and Bronx New York utilizing his sister’s apartment.
By charging a small cover at the door, Naesketchie was soon able to find another stream of income that would cancel out the event expenses.
He is Dominican and Turkish, with a mother and father who moved from The Dominican Republic to give him and his sister a better life. This was a motivation in itself to achieve success by any means necessary.
Fast forward to 2020, his own hustler, go-getter mentality would trickle down into the entrepreneur and music manager he is today. Through his decade and a half long life span in the nightlife scene, he was always a socialite — networking and fostering meaningful relationships.
Now he’s blessed to be able to manage his niece, R&B artist Angelica Vila, who is signed to Roc Nation and just released her first studio album deception SZN one.
AllHipHop caught up with Naesketchie for his first interview ever.
AllHipHop: How did you get that name?
Naesketchie: That name came from graffiti. I used to be called Blink because every time I’d fight, I’d blink my eye. One day I was doing graffiti on a nyc wall and because my name was so long, I lasted so long to write it up.
The cops had pulled up, you already know what happened after that. I decided to change my name, I said “I’m going to shorten my name to Nae.” Sketchie came off of graffiti, like graph. Sketchy with a ‘y’ is a weird person you can’t trust, sketchie with the ‘ie’ is somebody that sketches. People get that confused most of the time.
AllHipHop: Being from the Bronx, how did you first get into nightlife?
Naesketchie: When my sister got divorced from her husband, we started doing parties at her crib charging $2 or $3 dollars to get in. We got maxed out with people so we started renting out halls. We started doing lounges, and started getting recognized by local lounges. They let us put an event in their venue. I started booking big celebrities DJs like Precise, DJ Prostyle, I Boogs, Dannys, and many more at the time. I started getting my name recognized through shoutouts on the radio, I kept going and going. Angelica Vila is my niece. It was a random day at the crib, I’m like “I always wanted an artist, you should start singing and doing YouTube videos.
We started doing videos, putting them up online. Getting her music out there, because I’m already cool with DJs at my events and the nightlife. They’re playing her records, she’ll do a lot of covers. I get a lot of people to repost. She was doing the 15 second videos on Instagram when it first started, then Instagram started putting the minutes up. 15 seconds of her singing what she’s thinking of, then 30 seconds and kept going and kept going. A lot of artists seen her voice as beautiful.
One time, Pretty Lou (one of the biggest hosts in NYC, from Hot 97) had posted her, one of our cover videos. Fat Joe seen it, we had a meeting. He decided to sign her, then did a collaboration with Roc Nation. Now she’s signed to Roc Nation and Joe, I still manage her day to day.
AllHipHop: What was your reaction to Fat Joe’s cosign of her?
Naesketchie: We’re in a studio session with Pretty Lou, Joe pulled up. He told her “yo give me something, sing to me.” She started singing to him. Joe’s wife was like: “you gotta sign her!” It took us a couple of months, but we signed with him and had a great deal. From there, been pushing and pushing and pushing.
AllHipHop: What’s the premise of Sketchie Entertainment?
Naesketchie: Sketchie Entertainment is a nightlife management company. It’s overruled everything for me. I got my record label the same name as my entertainment label for the fact that I want to stick to Sketchie Entertainment all around. Sketchie is special to me, it grew with me. Defining my hard work and leadership, to start a brand new name just because it is a different type of income makes no sense to me. I feel Like I will leave every hard work I did before down.
AllHipHop: How did nightlife help you in this entertainment space?
Naesketchie: It helped me a lot, not just being a promoter. Me being out there in the world, going hard with the culture. I was getting awards, I was getting recognized. I’m a promoter, I already booked these DJs right? If I’m a regular person and I tell the DJ to play the record, he’s going to think about it and charge me. Not me, they’re going to support. They support what I do because I’m already booking them, we have that relationship for a reason.
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AllHipHop: You’ve been trying to do your clothing line for years.
Naesketchie: I’ve been busy with Angelica and Sketchie Entertainment nightlife, so I’ve been pushing it back. Now all my friends are saying ”do it, do it, do it!” I needed a special name that’s going to sound amazing. I started Googling animals. I saw a frog like “oh s##t.” Frog in Spanish is maco. How can I mix it around and make it sound high-end? I added an ‘s’, nah I didn’t like it. I put a ‘z’, it sounds amazing.
I stuck with that name, but needed the logo to give it life. I decided to add blue for water, red for fire, and yellow for sun. The name was created by me. For me, Mazco stands for life, beautiful. Something that when you put it on, it makes you feel good. The name is very important to a brand. We’re doing great, a lot of ski masks, face masks, and hats. I’ma going to start doing printed shirts, and jackets since the winter’s coming. It’s been moving, thank God.
AllHipHop: Growing up throwing parties, how has COVID affected your life and career?
Naesketchie: Nightlife is shut down right now so it affected it a lot. There’s really no parties, everything’s stopped. I’m basically spending out of savings, which is cool. It’s not my greatest time ever but I’m pushing through it. I’m not letting nothing put me at that level of stress, then I can’t do it. I’m pushing my masks with Mazco, that’s doing good. But the nightlife business is shut down, I’m not doing any events.
AllHipHop: What else are you working on?
Naesketchie: Working on Angelica, the nightlife, and Mazco original. Maybe getting into stocks one of these days, but not yet. [laughs]
AllHipHop: What advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs who want to start their own business?
Naesketchie: The most important part is you have to believe. Believe in your brand. If you don’t believe in your brand, you might as well not even do it. The first mistake is when you doubt your brand. Oh, should I do this? No, you do it and figure it out. If the one piece doesn’t work, go to the second piece. Try it out with the best pieces for you. It’s going to cost an investment, but the investment of longevity is going to be amazing.