Michaël Brun was a teenager when he began DJing in his homeland of Haiti. Set to perform for 30 minutes in front of several hundred high schoolers, he came with everything except his laptop. Getting a loaner laptop from a friendly DJ would set the stage for Brun to evolve into a local hero before he moved stateside to pursue higher education.

While in college, he honed in his skills even more before learning how to produce through popular music creation software Ableton. The next decade would see him grow as one of the most notable contemporary worldwide DJs and producers to come from Haiti. Doesn’t hurt that he has collaborated with popular globetrotting artists like J Balvin, Diplo, Mr Eazi, Tainy and many more.

This year alone, he’s dropped enough music to prove that there literally isn’t a genre he won’t touch including the Oxlade-guested “Clueless,” “Charge It” featuring Jozzy, Masego and Bayka and “Jessica” featuring SAINt JHN, Charly Black and J Perry besides a secret special verse from J Balvin. The latter was featured on his FAMI SUMMER EP that’s become a near-perfect party starter as the summer comes to a close.

Speaking with BET.com, Brun discusses his creative evolution, the importance of New York City, his relationship with J Balvin and how FAMI SUMMER EP sets listeners up for the eventual full-length project.

BET.com: You recently had a noteworthy set during SummerStage in NYC. How much has the city played in your reach stateside?

Michaël Brun:  I think it's been honestly almost essential because when I left Haiti to come and live in the States, I first went to military school in Indiana, and then I was pre-med in North Carolina. And so it was pretty rural areas when I was in school. But I always hoped that I'd have a chance to live in the city because everything I ever knew about America on TV or through music or movies was always through the lens of New York. And I felt like New York was this giant melting pot with all kinds of different people and all kinds of different cultures, and it was a dream of mine. So to get to do my first BAYO show, which was what that SummerStage show was and the very first one that I did in the States that was a ticketed one, was actually in New York in 2017, I believe.

It was like a dream come true. It was something that I felt like as an artist to get to be in a place where you can walk around and just like, you could walk one mile in one direction and you'll literally cross 25 different cultures. Doesn’t matter if you’re talking the Caribbean side of New York and Brooklyn or Chinatown, and then you go to the Greek area. There's so many different types of influences and vibes. So yeah, I think New York has been a really huge influence to me since before I even realized it was.

BET.com: You were born and raised in Haiti but attended college in the States. Can you recall the culture shock musically that you received?

Michaël Brun: It was major. So my dad actually had founded a band in Miami. It was Haitian music mixed with new wave synth music in the nineties, late eighties, early nineties. And so he worked a lot in Miami at studios. And there was Latin influence and there were different influences from different parts of the world too at the time.

And I think as a kid, when I started developing my own tastes and just watching music videos and finding things online, the two genres that were really impactful for me were definitely everything American hip hop, anything that reached MTV, BET, every kind of channel that we could possibly get in Haiti or that was broadcast.

All the music videos from Diddy, I remember the Mo Money Mo Problems video that was massive. That was a really inspirational era. So Biggie, Aaliyah, all those kinds of music videos, all those kinds of visuals and songs where they crossed over and to Haiti in a big way. And then the other genre was house music. So electronic music, some of it was from the states, but a lot of it was actually from Europe. So it was a mix of those two things simultaneously and then Haitian music that we had in Haiti.

BET.com: You’ve worked with J Balvin since “Positivo” several years ago. How much has your relationship with him evolved as his career skyrocketed to unprecedented levels?

Michaël Brun: It’s been really cool to see some of the stuff that we did early on before he had things like the Super Bowl look alongside working with Beyonce, Jay Z and all these major iconic huge artists. Before all of that happened, I got to meet him just through a mutual friend and we worked on the “Positivo” track which was a World Cup song. That was the biggest thing I had ever done at the time. I feel like that really shows his character and he is always open-minded and really wanted to just create great music and think about what’s going to be impactful for the culture. From that point on, I worked on three songs from his Colores album which won the Latin Grammy and had three nominations. A couple of songs on that project were multi-platinum as well.

I worked with him last year on the “Sigue” song with Ed Sheeran which became Ed Sheeran’s first Latin number one in the US. Then we have “Jessica” this year from my project and so much more on the way. We just became really good friends and I think it’s been really special to have somebody I can really look up to in their career and look at the things that they’ve accomplished. He’s had so many things where he’s broken records and been one of Latin artists to collaborate with Jordan brand. It’s really inspiring to me. I think as somebody from a country that oftentimes doesn’t get a lot of representation, I think in the same way in how he related to Columbia really spoke to me which allowed us to connect on that. I appreciate his friendship and mentorship so much.

I think that it's definitely influenced how I view the scale at which I want to do things. I really want to have a global impact, and I want people to learn about the beauty of Haiti, learn about the incredible talent of Haiti, the history, the impact historically that Haiti's had on the entire Western Hemisphere.

BET.com: You just dropped the FAMI Summer EP. That project sounds like you had tons of fun creating it. Where does this set the stage for a full-length featured project?

Michaël Brun: The EP is truly my love letter to my Caribbean heritage. I’m half Haitian and half Guyanese. So my mother is Guyanese alongside a mixture of Chinese and my father is Haitian. That’s a mixture of Chinese, Indian and English language from my mom’s side. Then my dad is West African, French; all kinds of different languages like French Creole. So I had a lot of different influences on my palate. I think in the food, music and things that I think just make me who I am.

It’s a really amazing experience to get to put that into music form with this project and also to get to collaborate with so many incredible artists from around the world. On the EP, there’s at least 10 features on this project and I think that each one really inspired me in a different way.

I think if you like this project and I hope you do, the rest of the album that I will be releasing and all the other things I’m working on are extensions of that. This is the seed. I wanted people to just listen to something that concisely gives you the whole picture so that as I release new things, you’ll eventually get it. I see the vision and I see the bridges being built.

BET.com: Is there a genre you won’t touch?

Michaël Brun: That’s a tough one off the top of my head to be honest. No, because I think that there’s a lot of really amazing history and influence in each genre that I’ve heard so far. Even something like Polka, I feel like there’s something there when the progressions of the rhythm that I think has a complimentary genre elsewhere worldwide. I love music and love working on things with people. I love the community and I love to learn. I think that working on new things constantly is teaching me and that’s how I grow as an artist. I think that’s how I can connect with more people.

Listen to “Clueless” featuring Oxlade HERE

Listen to and watch “Charge It” featuring Bayka, Jozzy, and Masego HERE