When DJ Envy isn’t busy recording his insanely popular daily morning radio show The Breakfast Club, he’s still probably the busiest person you know.
The beloved radio DJ’s career has reached meteoric heights since he began mastering the turntables in the mid 1990s. With iconic stints on New York’s Hot 97, Sirius XM, and, of course, iHeartRadio’s The Breakfast Club, which broadcasts nationally and can be streamed online, Envy’s voice has become one of the most recognizable on the airwaves. Nearly every morning, listeners across America tune in to hear his music choices and interviews (conducted alongside co-hosts Charlamagne tha God and Jess Hilarious) with some of the most dominant names—including Jay Z, 50 Cent, and Tyrese—in hip hop and pop culture.
On top of that, the Queens native, real name RaaShaun Casey, is a devoted family man and father of six—something he discusses in detail with his wife Gia Casey on their podcast The Casey Crew. As if family and his radio career weren’t enough to keep him occupied, Envy still spins records and hosts club nights across the country. While he might not throw money around the way he used to—”I got six kids I’ve got to get to college,” he points out, reasonably—he remains at the top of his game whether he’s at home or on tour. Always seeking out the best experiences, his niche know-how of food, drink, and where to hear the best music is about as broad as The Breakfast Club’s syndication on the airwaves: which is to say far-reaching, diverse, and unexpected.
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As to how he approaches the culture of a new place, Envy says, “Each city is different and being a DJ, you want to know what’s popping in that city. What’s the biggest record? What’s the biggest song? What should I know about that city–which is something you only get by [experiencing it]….I can go to the Bay Area and they have a different sound than New York…I want to know who the big artist is? Who’s the new artist? Who can I bring back to The Breakfast Club and [play] their record first?”
DJ Envy brings a similar sense of exploration and adventure to dining and going out, saying that “food and vibe” are what really makes a city’s night scene stand out. When home in New York, he might be found having a laidback drink at Ray’s on the Lower East Side, where folks from the neighborhood frequently rub elbows or share the pool table with A-list celebrities looking for a low-key good time. As the night goes on, he might move across the East River and into his old stomping grounds of Queens before settling in at Long Island City’s Record Room, a speakeasy he describes as “looking like your mom’s old living room” with DJs spinning real vinyl.
While on tour, Envy loves chain restaurants like Waffle House and In-N-Out, but many of his favorite places are site specific. When in Las Vegas, for example, he hits up luxury gentlemen’s club Spearmint Rhino, where the kitchen and amenities are almost as renowned as the dancers. While some of his go-tos are internationally known, others can only be found on Envy’s recommendations alone. While touting big names like Chicago’s luxe cocktail lounge Hue, or Suite Food Lounge in Atlanta, he’s just as likely to recommend an obscure strip mall restaurant in coastal Virginia where you can get fantastic lobster tail and maybe even run into Allen Iverson or Pusha T.
Envy can also tell you where to get the best chopped cheese (his favorite Queens bodega, the Hollis Food Shop), take-out seafood (Taste of Seafood in Harlem), or late-night pancakes (the Chelsea Diner) in New York City. He has thoughts on the best Chilean sea bass to order on a classy night out in Las Vegas (Tao Asian Bistro) and where to get his favorite Asian-fusion soul food in New Orleans (Morrow’s). As you’d expect from a successful DJ, he has an unrivaled grasp on the nightclub and bar scenes of cities ranging from Vegas to Miami. When it comes to bars, Envy typically seeks out places that play good music and people are dancing.
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He says, “I like to see what the next record is, what record is going to make people, when they’re at a bar drinking, want to dance. I like those types of bars. If your bar is too stiff and everybody is just sitting there watching the game, that’s not for me. If your bar is popping and people are dancing and throwing napkins, that’s the bar we go to.”
One constant across DJ Envy’s favorite spots is that they tend to attract fellow tastemakers. At one of his favorite now-closed, after-hours listening spots in Manhattan (La Vie), he once encountered Rihanna eschewing the VIP section to dance on the sofa with other club-goers. He partied with Nas and 50 Cent from an actual treehouse DJ booth at the venue Treehouse in New Orleans. Even his late-night/early morning diner breakfasts often include celebrity encounters—but so goes the life of one of America’s favorite radio DJs.
“I have too much energy,” he says, though it sounds more like he has the ideal amount.
