Quick Facts
Biography
Vladimir Lyubovny (Russian: Владимир Любовный; born June 28, 1973), better known as DJ Vlad, is a disc-jockey and executive vice president at Loud.com, part of the SRC/Universal family. Vlad has produced and directed films. He is also CEO of VladTV.com - a video website that many refer to as "The TMZ of Hip-Hop."
A computer science graduate of UC Berkeley, Vlad began his career as a computer programmer. He eventually started his own dot-com staffing company, GigaStaff.
In 2000, Vlad closed down GigaStaff and turned his attention to music. He moved to New York and helped create Rap Phenomenon along with DJ Dirty Harry. The Rap Phenomenon mixtapes won awards from Rolling Stone, MTV and XXL magazine.
Vlad then turned his attention towards film. He directed on the American Gangster TV Series, as well as the documentary film Ghostride the Whip. DJ Vlad also produced and hosted Russell Simmons' and Stan Lathan's Hip-Hop on Demand - a nationally syndicated, on-demand Hip-Hop lifestyle channel on Comcast.
In 2008, DJ Vlad started VladTV.com, a hip hop video news site becoming the No. 10 news channel on YouTube.
Shortly after launching the channel, DJ Vlad was allegedly assaulted by rapper Rick Ross' entourage after VladTV covered a story on the rapper's former career as a corrections officer. Vlad filed a $4 million lawsuit. On April 15, 2010, a New York Federal Jury awarded DJ Vlad $300,000 in his civil suit, finding Ross liable for his crew breaking Vlad's eye socket and ribcage at the Ozone Awards in Houston, Texas, in 2008.
In April 2009, the Star & Buc Wild show joined the VladTV family to do a daily feature.
In May 2010, DJ Vlad appeared on Adult Swim's cartoon The Boondocks.