Da Kid Gowie… Puts the “F” in Funny!

The “LeBron Challenge,” helped propel Da Kid Gowie’s budding YouTube following and he hasn’t looked back.

The goal in life is to find one’s purpose. Find what you are good at and stick to it. Da Kid Gowie discovered that impersonating NBA players through parody skits is his thing and man, is he good at it. What started off as a hobby in 2012 has emerged into a career for the Baltimore, Maryland native. It wasn’t easy to garner the fanfare early. Aside from a couple of viral videos, DKG was a relatively unknown influencer early on. That all changed when he smashed the, “LeBron Challenge.” A video of him mimicking LeBron James prepping for a workout in the gym where Gowie not only mastered King James’ look, but immolated his movements to a tee. That was all she wrote. His star power was on the rise from that moment on. Now, the multi-talented influencer focuses not only on the skits and parody’s, but his music as well.

I caught up with Da Kid to discuss his growing brand, the difficulties of creating content with the NBA season on pause and much more!

What’s good with you, man?

Da Kid Gowie: 2020 has definitely been wild. I actually started the year doing a lot of traveling. So, January and February, I was bouncing from city to city. In March, I told myself, I gotta slow down and take a break. That’s when Covid hit and I ended up taking a break that lasted longer than I expected. But the way I have been coping and dealing with everything is… I’ve still been pushing out content. Not as consistent as I should be. You know with sports been down it’s kind of hard to figure out what to make content about and different things like that. Aside from that, I’ve been focusing on my physical health; working out more, trying to get back in shape, eating a little bit better to boost my immune system. So, even though Covid slowed things down as far as work goes, it just opened up an avenue for me to focus on things that really matter like my health.

You really jumped on the map with the “LeBron Challenge.” How did you get started and how long have you been in the game now?

Da Kid Gowie: What I usually tell people is, I really had this vision of being a YouTuber. Once I got to high school, I really started watching a lot of YouTube videos. Some of my favorite people were like, Kevin Edwards Jr., Spoken Reasons, Hot Damn I Rock. I would watch these guys videos and I felt like my personality kind of matched theirs. I just felt like I can do it. That’s always been a thought of mine, but I didn’t actually put it into motion until 2012. I had a few viral videos around that time on World Star and different things like that, but I didn’t really blow up-blow up until the, “LeBron Challenge. Once that came, I kind of saw that as my opportunity to make something happen.

You are now well over 100,000 subscribers; did that happen quickly for you or does it only look like that from the outside looking in and it’s been a laboring process to get where you are?

Da Kid Gowie: It was definitely laboring. Like I said, what a lot of people don’t understand is, they found me during the, “LeBron Challenge,” which was 2017, but I started and had viral videos back in 2012. I put the full blame on myself. You know how some people will be like, “People were sleeping on me,” and things like that. Do I feel like I was slept on all that time? I do feel like I was slept on, but at the same time, my own inconsistency ruined it for me and delayed my process. Had I kept going when I blew up in 2012, I could have already had this following established. Who knows the, “LeBron Challenge,” could have just been something else to add to it that could have just propelled me even further into the sports lane. I’ve always been creating content and the fact is, everything is finally coming into fruition and I kind of know what blessings come with being an online personality. That’s why I’m pushing it so hard and I refuse to be inconsistent again like I once was back in 2012.

How do you decide what content to use and what sports subjects or figures are off limits to you?

Da Kid Gowie: With me, the only things that are off limits are personal lives. I do a lot of basketball and rapper impersonations. Anything to where it’s personal to a player… let’s say a player is going through a nasty divorce with somebody, I will not touch that under any circumstances. That’s not basketball related and has nothing to do with anything. If a player comes out and announces he is gay or something like that, that’s his personal life. What he does is on him. Even when the rumors that, Dwight Howard came out, and people were like, “Do a, Dwight Howard skit,” and I was like, “No, I’m not touching that. That’s not my place to do that.” Those are the only things off limits. I don’t want to get into these basketball players personal lives because the whole thing with me is to give everybody a good laugh at the expense of a basketball player, but make it funny to where the player could be like, “Okay, that is kind of funny,” and he doesn’t feel offended by it. It’s all about networking when you’re in this lane, so the last thing you want to do is burn bridges that you haven’t even built yet. So, that wouldn’t even make sense to me.

As far as social things, I speak on anything. If people have to hear the real, I’d rather risk my platform being that person to talk that talk, instead of being that person to hide in the shadows. Because one of the things that we’re noticing about this, ‘Black Lives Matter’ movement, is that silence is pretty much saying that you’re okay with the way things are going. I never been that way. I’ve always been vocal on social media even before the clout. I’m real big on communication. I feel like a lot of our problems derive from people not talking to each other. Taking the time out to see where their mind is and why they feel the way they feel and think the way they think. The last thing you wanna do when you’re trying to prove a point or get an ally, you don’t want to make them feel like they’re being attacked. It’s like if you get into an argument with somebody. If you go up to somebody and be like, “Yo, I really didn’t like the way that you talked to me. Can we talk about this and squash it verbally?” A person is more geared towards listening to you that way, opposed to, “Yo bro, the way you came at me…” You already coming in with the hostility. I’m not trying to hear that. That’s why I tell people, you gotta ease people in and let them see it for what it is, instead of throwing it at em and telling them this is what they need to do.

Do you remember the moment you felt like you had arrived or that moment where a certain celebrity retweeted one of your videos?

Da Kid Gowie: Ah man, there’s a lot honestly. I think a big one for me was probably when, Usain Bolt followed me on IG. That was very random. Ohhh… I know one, that was a big one. But I think the one that really blew my mind is on Facebook. Michael Vick had posted two or three of my videos and posted them on his Facebook page. And that was huge. The funny thing about that, I could literally look on my wall and there is a big Michael Vick poster there. When I saw that I was like, “Bro, this is real.” It was his page. Had the blue check.” He shared it and I had a Vick poster on my wall. That was the one that kind of made me become a man-fan. I had to fan out for a lil bit.

Seeing you on IG Live and having the young man tell you how you are an inspiration to him, I thought that was a very special moment because it’s always good to know we are inspiring someone.

Da Kid Gowie: That’s exactly how I was whenever I came across the people that I looked up to in the YouTube world. I was that kid. Even when I see them today as an adult. I ran into, Hot Damn I Rock in the club about 3-years ago, and I was like, “Yo bro, you’re one of my biggest inspirations and you’re the reason I’m doing what I’m doing right now. You gave me that confidence.” He’s from Baltimore as well. I always try to give people their flowers if they influenced me in any way, shape or form. Same thing with my brother, Famous Los. He inspired me to do the reaction videos to basketball content. And I let him know off the rip, “Bro, you’re a big inspiration to me too.” I’m all about giving people their flowers. Some people will be like, you d-riding and this, that and the third. No, I’m just letting them know what it is. I’m not going to sit here and act like they didn’t influence me when they did.

My man, Crank Lucas is a guy that uses his comedy on YouTube to promote his music and beats. You’re kind of in the same boat, do you ever think there will be a time where you’re going to have to choose between your music and comedy or do you want to stay diverse?

Da Kid Gowie: That’s a good question. A part of me feels like I would have to stay diverse. And the reason why, I think that would be for my own sanity. One thing that I preach the most is your mental health. No matter what you do, if you’re not happy in it, you’re going to derail, you’re going to burn yourself out. So, the balance between comedy and music, kind of relieves me from the other when I need a break. So, right now during this down time, I’ve been recording music. But when I’m able to do comedy again at the consistency that I was doing it before, music will be kind of placed on the back burner. So, being able to alternate those two things kind of keeps me sane. I think from that perspective, I will have to be able to juggle both, until I don’t feel like making music anymore (laughing) and then I’ll just stick to comedy.

You open yourself up for the world on YouTube, do you read both positive and negative comments and in your own way use both as fuel, or do you tend to filter out the negative and stay on the positive vibes as much as possible?

Da Kid Gowie: I think nowadays what I do… aside from, I have a series called, “Come and Get These Jokes,” where I would take hate comments and roast people who would leave hate in my comments. The thing is people will come and drop a negative comment and think it’s over. They’ll do that to get a clap back from you. But what I’m gonna do is screenshot your profile picture, I’m going to post your comment in the video to why I’m flaming you up, and you’re going to be the put of every single joke and everybody’s going to laugh at you. That’s kind of the energy I bring. But if it’s a private account to where I can’t go to your profile and see what you look like, I’ll just block you and leave it at that. I’m a person that stands on his word, so if you say something like that, show face. Let me know that you’re actually saying it and you’re not some 13-year old kid that created a spam page just to troll people. That’s always been my movement. If you can’t get these jokes, I’m just going to block you; one of the two.

I appreciate the time, my man. Shout out to my man, Jay [Holz] for the connect. Keep doing your thing because we need laughs more than ever right now. what can we expect from you in the near future?

Da Kid Gowie: You can expect a lot of NBA content coming soon. I’m not sure exactly what it’s going to be, but there will definitely be a lot of NBA parody’s, song parody’s where I’m impersonating basketball players and talking my talk as if I was them. There will be some LeBron skits because I know everybody misses them, so I’m going to have to bring LeBron back. And “Freestyle Friday’s,” the typical roast videos… a little bit of everything. But once this is all over, I’m going to tap back into my NBA bag and give people what they want. I appreciate you for reaching out and wanting to interview me. It’s always a great feeling for someone to want to hear my perception on certain things and how I came up, so I appreciate you and continue doing what you doing.

Be sure to subscribe the Da Kid Gowie’s YouTube page https://www.youtube.com/user/Gowieezy

And follow him on Instagram at dakidgowie, Twitter @DaKidGowie and Facebook Da Kid Gowie

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