CHICAGO — A Chicago Bulls television broadcast with Adam Amin and Stacy King is a soundtrack of slams, a mixtape of movie references, and a playlist of personality.  

“This is a performance-based job, it’s theatrical when broadcasting games,” Amin said. “You are trying to tell a story, using your voice as an instrument.”  

There’s a reason Amin approaches his job with a musical cadence. He learned to play the violin at age seven, the guitar at 12, and performed in theater and choir at Addison Trail High School.  

“I trained to be an opera singer for six months and quickly learned that was not in the cards for me,” Amin said.  

But eventually, a turntable would turn the tables for Amin. His brothers Mustapha and Abdullah introduced him to DJing, which became his new musical muse. A teenage Adam turned his new hobby into a part-time job, performing at weddings and even at school.  

“At Addison Trail during Homecoming week they said, ‘Why don’t you take four periods off to DJ in the cafeteria?’ and they would pay me to do it, so I said, ‘you’re going to pay me to do it, I don’t go to class, and I get to hang out with my friends?’ Done.”  

But as Amin’s sportscasting career took off, his DJ days were left in the past—or so he thought.  

In May, the 36-year-old dusted off his DJ skills for his first gig in a dozen years, a Monday night at Prism nightclub.  

“Not exactly a primetime slot but it was good for me to see if this was something I did want to do and get back out there,” Amin said. 

More gigs followed as Amin enjoyed melding musical genres, creating new noise using old favorites. With encouragement from friends, he curated a 24-track mixtape titled “A Midsummer Chicago Session”, posting the final product to SoundCloud and YouTube. 

Life as a three-sport play-by-play man will continue, but Amin doesn’t want the music inside of him to fade away.    

“I don’t know what this is, but to have people you care about and say it’s cool to see you do what you’re passionate about that’s not just your job, I had friends say I’m going to look for something I like to do,” Amin said. “A lot of us do things we really care about, but life gets in way, not in bad way by any means.”  

His goal next summer is to play a festival, and he knows exactly who he wants to bring on stage. 

“[Stacy King] texted me and said you’re good at this, why don’t you keep doing it. He was super encouraging. If one of those big shows gets out and I get a chance to play one of those I’ll make sure Stacy is up there with us.”