DJ EFN

DJ EFN is an American record label executive and DJ, based in Miami, who specializes in hip-hop. Since the early 1990s, operating most often under the banner of Crazy Hood Productions, EFN has worked in the hip-hop industry in a variety of capacities, including as a mixtape producer, album producer and A&R consultant, radio host, marketing and promotions specialist, clothing retailer, artist manager, and film producer. In the fall of 2004, Boston’s t.r.u.e. magazine noted, “Crazy Hood Productions remains a pillar in Miami, as it has been for the better part of ten years.”

Early life and education

Born Eric F. Narciandi in Los Angeles, California in 1975, DJ EFN moved with his family to Kendall, Florida (an unincorporated community in Miami-Dade County) in 1986. He graduated from Miami Sunset Senior High School in 1993, and received and Associate in Arts degree from Miami Dade College in 2002.

Career

Crazy Hood Mixtapes, Crazy Sounds Record Pool, Hood DJs

A fan of the mixtapes emanating from New York City, DJ EFN began producing mixtapes of his own in Miami. “There was no consistent mixtape DJ in Miami, no one who ever really played the music from Miami,” he said in an interview with Julia Beverly of Ozone magazine. “Everybody listened to DJ Clue or Tony Touch. It was good music, but I didn’t want to hear shouts to Brooklyn or the Bronx. I wanted to shout out Miami and help to put on the local cats.”

EFN’s first Crazy Hood mixtape was issued in 1993. During the next two decades he produced 42 volumes of the mixtape, featuring hip-hop artists such as Outkast, Redman, Capone-N-Noreaga, KRS-One, Wu-Tang Clan, Bun B, Ja Rule, Sean Paul, Joe Budden, Lil Jon, Ghostface Killah, Keith Murray, and David Banner.

EFN founded Miami’s Crazy Sounds Record Pool in 1997 (it operated though 2007) and Hood DJs, an international coalition.

In 2002, DJ EFN was named the Best New Mixtape DJ at the 7th Annual Justo Awards. In 2003, he was named Best Mixtape DJ at the First Annual Miami Urban Music Awards.

CHP Marketing and Promotions

The effectiveness of EFN’s street promotion for his Crazy Hood mixtapes eventually attracted the attention of various national brands in search of help with their products in the Miami market. Founded in 1997, CHP Marketing and Promotions has numbered Tommy Boy Records, Slip-n-Slide Records, Loud Records, Epic Records, Coca-Cola, and Eckō Unltd. among its clients over the years. Between 2001 and 2004, Crazy Hood ran Def Jam Recordings’s street teams in south Florida. Today, the firm counts Bad Boy Records, Ciroc Entertainment, Sean John, and YMCMB among their most consistent clients.

In 2002 EFN was named a member of Eckō Unltd.'s hip-hop dream team, a special feature of that year’s edition of EA Sports’ “Madden NFL” game. His teammates included De La Soul, Xzibit, and A Tribe Called Quest.

College Radio, Pirate Radio, Satellite Radio, Digital Radio

During the 1990s, EFN deejayed on local pirate radio stations and at the University of Miami’s WVUM. Between 2009 and 2011, he teamed up with the rapper N.O.R.E. to host a satellite radio show for Sirius XM called “Militainment Crazy Raw Radio,” a title that gave equal weight to N.O.R.E.’s Militainment brand, to Crazy Hood, and to 66 Raw, the channel on Sirius XM which carried the show. In 2015, EFN began hosting a weekly show called "OG Radio" for the Dash Radio digital broadcasting platform.

Crazy Goods

In 1997, with the opening of the Crazy Goods store in West Kendall, EFN ventured into the world of hip-hop clothing and retailing. It thrived until EFN shut it down in 2000, allowing him to concentrate more fully on his musical activities.

Crazy Hood Productions

Under the aegis of Crazy Hood Productions, DJ EFN has long been active as an artist manager and label executive. In the 1990s, Crazy Hood managed and made records for Da Alliance (a/k/a Da All)) and Poetik Symbolz. Today the firm manages and records Da Alliance (of which he is a member), Garcia, Heckler, ¡Mayday!, and Wrekonize, as well as the producers Big Drain, Hazardis Soundz, and Beats-N-Da-Hood.

EFN was executive producer of Who’s Crazy? by Da All, and Anti-Social and Life Unscripted by Garcia. He produced Norealilty by N.O.R.E., and performed A&R chores on Take Me to Your Leader and Believers by ¡Mayday!, The War Within by Wrekonize, Channel 10 by Capone-n-Noreaga, and Student of the Game by N.O.R.E.

In March 2015, EFN issued Another Time. Not a mixtape, but an album of all original music, the DJ has described it as "a passion project." It features production by DJ Premier, Buckwild, Nomadic Trackz, BeatsNdaHood, Hazardis Soundz, Miami Beat Wave, Nonms, The Guild, Big Drain and Matt Harris, and rapping by Bun B, Gunplay, Scarface, Talib Kweli, Redman, King Tee, Mc Eiht, Trick Daddy, Dead Prez, M.O.P., Denzel Curry, Inspectah Deck, Sizzla, Sean Price, Milk Dee, Killer Mike, Umar Bin Hassan, Juvenile and others. Jacob Katel, writing in Miami New Times, praised the album for matching "the best underground talent in America with some of the godfathers of the genre to make an indelible classic." Chosen as one of "The 15 Best Hip-Hop Albums of 2015" by Ambrosia For Heads, EFN's work on Another Time was praised for deftly showing that "the walls and categories used to separate MCs due to age, era, region, and style are self-inflicted."

EFN Visual Mixtapes and Crazy Hood Film Academy

In collaboration with Miami-based Dre Films, EFN established EFN Visual Mixtapes in 2010, when it became clear that the artists with whom he was working needed music videos to promote their recordings. The firm proceeded to produce videos featuring ¡Mayday! Ras Kass, Gunplay, Tech N9ne, and N.O.R.E.

In 2012, doing business as the Crazy Hood Film Academy, EFN and Garcia produced their first feature film. A documentary account of the hip-hop scene in Cuba entitled ”Coming Home,” the film was named Best Documentary at The People’s Film Festival in 2013. Q. Salazar, writing for The Hollywood Shuffle, described it as "a powerful film that displays the influence hip-hop has given a people who are oppressed and suppressed. The film also illustrates how hip-hop has given Cubans an avenue to express their pain, their struggles and their dreams."

"Coming Home (Cuba)" turned out to be the first in a series of documentary films devoted to local hip-hop culture in countries other than the United States. It was followed in 2014 by "Coming Home: Peru" and "Coming Home: Haiti." Writing about the series for atlantablackstar.com, Jasmine Nelson suggested, "Much like Anthony Bourdain, EFN brings people to unlikely places, exposing them to different cultures, but in this case through the eyes of hip-hop rather than food." The series has found a home on Revolt, the TV network founded by Sean Combs.

Crazy Hood Film Academy has also become involved with short theatrical films. In 2014, the firm produced "Avaricious," a film written and directed by Michael Garcia. The next year Crazy Hood produced "Siblings," also directed by Garcia.