DJ Kazzeo has been in the music game for 25 years, and can’t stop and won’t stop.

When you’ve been a radio DJ in one spot, for as long as DJ Kazzeo has, some of your most memorable career moments happen in public. Like his hour-long interview with DMC of Run-DMC. Or taking live calls the night Tupac Shakur died. Or broadcasting the day after the 9/11 attacks.

This Wednesday, Sept. 19, DJ Kazzeo celebrates his 25th year on the air at Salinas’ 90.9FM KHDC, otherwise known as Radio Bilingue.

Through his show, Wednesday Wreck, which he hosts with a crew of musically minded compadres, he’s been pumping real hip-hop over the airwaves from Chualar to Salinas to Santa Cruz (as well as online at wednesdaywreck.com) since September 1993. Kazzeo’s show is almost entirely in English (though at the moment he is giving shine to Spanish-language rapper Jota Effectus), and has been religiously focused on the most authentic portions of the music and culture, sometimes referred to as “underground” or “real” hip-hop.

“[In my 25 years], radio, moreso commercial radio, has changed by becoming a follower instead of a leader,” he writes by email. “When I started in radio in 1991, the goal was to… take time and discover unheard of music and expose it. Commercial radio now just plays whatever musical acts are causing a stir on TMZ. That’s why community radio and college radio are so vital.”

His creed is to represent real hip-hop, calling the mainstream version the “most easily digestible form,” one that “doesn’t evoke any sort of thought,” whereas underground hip-hop is “the most hungry, artistically driven form of the music.”

He played big-league artists like Notorious B.I.G., 50 Cent, Cypress Hill and Lauryn Hill at the start of their careers. He was the first to play L.A.’s Jurassic 5 in this market. He’s done interviews with some of the best the music has to offer: foundational music producer Pete Rock, the fun-loving Tha Alkaholiks, Del tha Funky Homosapien (Ice Cube’s cousin), pioneering female rapper MC Lyte, Masta Ace (who has influenced Eminem), Big Pun and Guru of Gangstarr (RIP to both). Hieroglyphics’ “You Never Knew” was in his Top 5 of 1998.

He’s taken sides in the generational divide between that last “golden age” of hip-hop and its popular new form that’s rocking the mainstream via mumbled and autotune-inflected artists like Migos, Lil Uzi Vert, Rich the Kid and Future.

“Mumble rap and autotune are definitely cancers in music,” Kazzeo says.

That mainstream has ridden the wave of online distribution, digital devices and social media. And Kazzeo says the best new artists can come through those channels too, from anywhere, including new talents he’s impressed with like Black Stax from Seattle, Jazzmyn Red from Boston, M-Reck from Chicago, and MC Brainpower from Amsterdam.

Kazzeo grew up in Santa Cruz and started DJing at the end of 1984. He and his generation of local DJs and radio personalities grew up on music delivered to them by local legend Bubba G. Scotch, credited with practically breaking the whole genre of hip-hop on the Central Coast, starting in 1981 at KUSP, KUBO and Kazzeo’s home of KHDC.

He’s seen the Monterey Bay hip-hop scene rise, fall and maintain over the years, and he shouts out the Speak Easy shows in Salinas and local artist La Sofa Queen (you can read about both in the July 26, 2018, Weekly cover story on local hip-hop aritsts) as carriers of the torch of this culture he loves.

“One of the essences of hip-hop has always been about tolerance and diversity,” he says. “There is no other genre of music that is accepting of so many different races than hip-hop. And that is why it’s been so special to me from day one.”

For faithful immersion into the culture, he recommends two films: 1983’s Wild Style, considered the first hip-hop movie; and 2001’s Scratch, a documentary about the rich musical world of hip-hop DJing and turntablism.

He himself keeps up with new artists through an online network of hundreds of DJs from around the country, and artists sending him their music which compels him to listen to about three hours of new stuff every day. Although hip-hop constitutes his greatest devotion, his musical tastes are broad.

He’s also into classic rock, old-school R&B, funk, ’80s, new wave, disco and more. He has a Thursday night show on KHDC that is devoted to classic and current freestyle (Cover Girls, Expose, Angelina, and the like).

He’s 46 years old now. Asked if he ever sees a time in which he’s not deeply involved in hip-hop, he replies, “Never. From age 10, I’ve been driven by Hip Hop. I’m not a religious person at all but if you asked me what my religion was, I’d say Hip Hop.”

For his 25th anniversary broadcast, he expects it to be a combination of regular new music mixes from DJ Jason D, artist shout-outs and congrats, an emcee cipher (in which rappers recite their best rhymes) live on the air, then they’ll probably go out for drinks afterward.

“I think the occasion is deserving of a round or two,” Kazzeo says.

KAZZEO’S 25TH ANNIVERSARY WEDNESDAY WRECK show is 6pm Wednesday, Sept. 19, on 90.9FM KHDC (Radio Bilingue) in Salinas. Free. talkinallthatkazz@gmail.com, wednesdaywreck.com