Clinton Charls Sparks (born September 18, 1975) is an American DJ, record producer, songwriter and singer from Boston, Massachusetts. He initially started his career as a rapper, dancer, producer, and DJ who gained notoriety by making bootleg remixes and mixtapes and parlayed that into hosting radio shows on Boston's Hot 97.7, Baltimore's 92Q, Hartford's Hot 93.7, and Sirius XM's Shade 45 (among others). He was the long-time host of a worldwide syndicated radio show called SmashTime Radio (also referred to as Get Familiar with Clinton Sparks). He is the current host and owner of the national hip hop radio station Get Familiar Radio on Dash Radio, a digital radio platform for which he served as vice president from 2016 to 2019. In 2012, he was nominated for a Grammy for his production work on Lady Gaga's Born This Way. That year, he also won a BMI songwriting award for writing Pitbull's "Shut It Down" and has since won several ASCAP Awards with DJ Snake as part of his Get Familiar Music publishing company. He has written and produced songs for a number of notable acts, including Akon, Ludacris, 2 Chainz, Ty Dolla Sign, Lil Uzi Vert, Big Sean, and numerous others. Sparks has also made music of his own, including the 2005 album, Maybe You Been Brainwashed, and the 2014 EP, ICONoclast. He was featured on the song "Saturday Night," which was featured on the soundtrack for the 2016 stand-up comedy film, Kevin Hart: What Now?. Additionally, Sparks co-founded the mixtape database, MixUnit.com; served as music correspondent for the E! series, The Daily 10 and E! News; and has held executive positions at a variety of companies including Karmaloop, FaZe Clan, Islide, PingTank, IC Realtech, and Dash Radio. In July 2020, Sparks co-founded and became the chief business development officer of the newly formed XSET, an esports and lifestyle gaming organization. He also hosts the Twitch show, Win Big with Clinton Sparks, and authored his first book, How to Win Big in the Music Business, in 2020. Early life and education Sparks was born and raised largely in the Dorchester neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. His parents got divorced when he was around 4 years old, and he lived with his mother for most of his childhood. He began using his mother's stereo as a turntable at age 10 and began manipulating his favorite parts of recordings to create new songs.