DJ Shawna is the Bucks' official DJ, opened for Lizzo, and still plays at the small bar where she started

Jordyn Noennig | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Show Caption Hide Caption DJing for the Bucks keeps DJ Shawna in the game that she loves Shawna Nicols, DJ Shawna, is the Bucks official in-game DJ. After her basketball career ended this is how she stayed connected to the game.

Shawna Nicols spends every Bucks home game inside Fiserv Forum surrounded by the arena's rowdiest fans — in section 112 — where the Bucks official fan section cheers on the team.

Nicols is a Bucks fan herself, but during a typical game, she won't jump up and cheer any time Giannis Antetokounmpo slams a dunk over an opponent.

Instead, she'll look down at her DJ board and quickly figure out what to play to keep fans excited.

During a recent game she played the beats of "Woah" by Lil Baby, "Behind Barz" by Drake, and "Follow God" by Kanye West as Bucks players and rival Chicago Bulls battled on the court.

She'll get the crowd moving by playing "Everybody clap your hands" from the "Cha-Cha Slide" by Mr C The Slide Man. Bucks insiders might enjoy when Nicols plays a splash sound after a shot by Brook Lopez, whose nickname is Splash Mountain.

As the Bucks' official in-game DJ, "DJ Shawna" Nicols brings together her two passions: basketball, which occupied much of her early life, and DJing, which came to her later, and somewhat by accident.

"It was very surreal when my worlds started to collide," Nicols said. "It was the most amazing symbiotic relationship that just jelled and made sense. ... You can’t write that any better than it happened."

It started about 14 years ago at Walker's Pint, a Milwaukee bar where Nicols would spend Saturday nights while the late Roderick "DJ Rock Dee" Schaeffer played in the DJ booth.

“I was going out with my peers at the time and I was in bars and clubs with my friends," she said, noting that she doesn't drink. "I realized people get really uncomfortable if you don't have a drink in your hand, so I started hanging around the DJ, who I didn't even know his name."

One Saturday, Schaeffer asked Nicols if she was a DJ.

"No," she responded.

"Do you want to be?" Nicols recalls him asking.

"Literally, I shrugged, and I was like 'Um, sure,'" she said.

"Well call me when you get two turntables and a mixer," Schaeffer told her.

She called him the very next day.

For the next two years Schaeffer taught Nicols how to DJ. He nicknamed her DJ Shawna and would let her play during his Walker's Pint sets.

"He became one of my best friends and mentor," Nicols said.

Schaeffer helped Nicols until he died in 2008 at age 40, leaving behind a wife and six children.

"He definitely saw something in me, that I think I am still learning to see in myself and have confidence in," she said. "Every opportunity that comes my way, I would give anything to call Rock Dee and share it with him."

A stellar career

Nicols was a standout basketball player in high school. She was on three state championship teams at Pius XI Catholic school, and was named 2000 Gatorade Wisconsin Player of the Year.

She was recruited by the University of Wisconsin-Madison, played two seasons, and then had to stop because a string of concussions threatened her long-term health.

Nicols never lost her passion for the game, though, and doctors ultimately cleared her to return to the court. She played at Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee and then Bellarmine University in Kentucky while earning her master's degree in communication.

In 2011, she moved to Europe and played professional basketball in the Dutch Basketball League with Celeritas-Donar, based in northern Netherlands.

In each of her basketball stops, she'd hop on a DJ stand any time she was given a chance. And when she moved back to Milwaukee permanently, she decided to take DJing more seriously.

"I was terrible, like awful, but for some reason there was something in me that always knew I could do it," Nicols said.

She recalled how other DJs would make fun of her, and bar owners would tell her they couldn't use her image on posters because she wasn't sexy enough.

"It’s a very male dominated industry, and there weren’t a lot of people that I trusted and felt safe around," she said.

Still, she would book four to six sets a week at bars and clubs around Milwaukee and continued to practice.

"I remember it took me probably like six years to figure out something very basic, it's called beat matching, and I remember the day I figured it out," she said.

"I literally said out loud 'Rock Dee, thank you.'"

Growing her DJ career

In 2016 Nicols hired a manager and her career began to take off.

The Bucks booked her for seven games in the 2016-'17 season to play in the concourse of the BMO Harris Bradley Center.

She was the official DJ for the Marquette University women's basketball team that same season and got to play during the Big East Tournament because Marquette was hosting it.

She had an idea while playing the tournament at Marquette's Al McGuire Center. "If I'm here for the Big East Tournament, there have to be DJs that do this for other tournaments," Nicols said.

So she cold-called the NCAA and asked if they needed a DJ. Three weeks before the women's Final Four they called her and said if she could get to Dallas and find a place to stay, she could play. She went, and has been contracted to play at the Final Four every year since.

UW took notice and hired Nicols to be the Badgers' official DJ in 2018-'19 for all home football and men's basketball games. She returned again this year for the football season.

"I feel very lucky at Camp Randall to push play for 'Jump Around' and 80,000 people shake the stadium. That blows my mind," she said about the Badgers' post-third-quarter tradition. "And to get 80,000 people to sing "(Build Me Up) Buttercup"? At a football game? I get choked up. I literally get choked up."

With the explosion of interest in the Bucks, she gained a more prominent role at Fiserv Forum last season, playing in the Kohl's Court or Panorama Club during most home games and in the plaza outside during playoffs.

Maybe the biggest moment of her DJ career so far was last summer when she played at Summerfest before Lizzo in front of more than 10,000 people at the Harley-Davidson Roadhouse stage.

“That to me was one of the coolest opportunities as a sole DJ, where it's a DJ Shawna show if you will," she said.

When she returned to the Bucks for the 2019-'20 season, she was promoted to official DJ and producer, meaning she plays on the court before every game, and plays all of the sound effects during the game from a DJ booth in the official fan section.

"It was a no-brainer," said Johnny Watson, Bucks executive producer of arena and event presentation, about her promotion. "She’s been the best I’ve worked with, to be honest. I’m not just saying that."

That is quite a compliment coming from Watson, who was an in-game experience producer at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and at the 2019 FIBA world basketball championship in China.

"We're on the same page about everything ... she gets it," he said. "When you have someone in this position you have to be prepared for game flow, the speed of it all, because it happens fast. So it's understanding the game, understanding the flow, understanding sometimes not when to play music, like I want fans to hear the sound of the sneakers on the court and themselves clapping."

Nicols takes her role seriously.

"People are choosing to go to Fiserv Forum on a game day," she said. "No matter who that is I have an opportunity to add value to that, and it could be their first and only time at Fiserv or they could be season ticket holders."

DJing where she started

Wherever Nicols plays, her goal is to make people happy.

"She reads the crowd really well," said Walker's Pint owner Elizabeth "Bet-z" Boenning. "The crowd that comes in really likes the variety of what she played and she's really helped build up the crowd on Saturdays."

Even though Nicols is a much more popular DJ than when she first started at Walker's Pint 14 years ago, she still plays there almost every weekend.

"As soon as she started getting big I was like 'Uh oh, there she goes,'" Boenning said. "I knew things were going to be changing, but for her to still play at Walker's Pint is pretty amazing. It shows she really respects her roots. ... I don’t know that the customers always understand how cool it is to have such a high caliber DJ."

Nicols prides herself on the variety in her sets. At Summerfest, opening for Lizzo, she played the 1993 show choir bop "Joyful, Joyful" from "Sister Act 2." Minutes later she had the crowd jumping to 2005 chart-topping hip-hop song "1, 2 Step" by Ciara.

Her next move outside of being an in-game and nightlife DJ is to produce her own music. Her first song is in the works.

"One of my favorite things is seeing how far I can go," she said. "I've questioned myself and it's nice to see that I'm resilient and I refused to quit."

DareToBe

Not only is Nicols an increasingly popular open format DJ, but she is also a published author.

In 2017 she wrote "The Adventures of Bob and Downtown Milwaukee" in honor of her stepfather Joe Weirick, who passed away from pancreatic cancer.

Better Angels: Walking Bob the dog was the inspiration for Shawna Nicols to write a book about Milwaukee Shawna Nicols, inspired by walking her dog Bob, has written a children's book titled "The Adventures of Bob and Downtown Milwaukee."

"This became a project that I got lost in in a good way," she said.

In the story Bob visits many places that Weirick, a long time real estate executive, helped bring to Milwaukee.

Weirick was also passionate about helping the homeless, so the proceeds of the book go to Key to Change, a program that assists the city’s chronically homeless.

Nicols also has a clothing and podcasting brand, DareToBe.

The signature logo of the clothing brand is a person holding a heart. She sells shirts, sweatshirts, hats and wristbands through DareToBe. The logo is also on her DJ equipment.

"DareToBe was made to inspire you to be something for yourself," Nicols said.

Every week on her Instagram, @DJShawna, she posts a Monday Motivation clip encouraging others to better their lives through tips for things like finding passion or celebrating success.

She also has a regular podcast where she talks with people who inspire her.

"I wanted something that was bigger than me as a DJ, realizing that I probably won't do it for the rest of my life," Nicols said.

But until she retires as a DJ, she gets to play for one of the best teams in the National Basketball Association.

"I can't reiterate enough how I appreciate the opportunity. It's not something I take for granted," she said.

To learn more about DJ Shawna, visit www.djshawna.com.

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Jordyn Noennig covers pop culture and entertainment in Milwaukee. Follow her on Instagram @JordynTaylor_n. Find her on Twitter @JordynTNoennig. Call her at 262-446-6601 or email Jordyn.Noennig@jrn.com.