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Dallas hip-hop radio station K104 hires Poizon Ivy, the Dallas Mavericks' DJ

The first female DJ for the Dallas Mavericks will now be spinning music on Saturday and Sunday nights for KKDA-FM (104.5).

DJ Poizon Ivy is the Dallas Mavericks' first female DJ.
DJ Poizon Ivy is the Dallas Mavericks' first female DJ.(Danny Bollinger / Dallas Mavericks)

DJ Poizon Ivy, born Ivy Awino, is hosting the "Weekend Block Party" segment on K104. She scored the gig after interning at the Dallas hip-hop radio station in 2007 for now-deceased DJ Nate Quick.

Working her way up has become a trend for Awino, who works in a mostly-male industry. From age 12 to 18, the Kenyan-born Awino was a ballgirl for the Mavericks. She then moved to Milwaukee and rose through the ranks of the city's DJ scene.

"You have to pay your dues," she says.

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She was in the running to be the DJ for the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks as "the only girl and the youngest one there," she says. The job didn't land, though she met WNBA player Skylar Diggins, who later helped her score a DJ gig for the Dallas Wings, the WNBA team that plays at the University of Texas at Arlington.

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Awino now juggles the K104 job with her gig as the Wings' and Mavericks' DJ. She's also mom to a 4-year-old. (And she doesn't sleep much, she says.)

"When I was young my mom would tell me, 'you can't be a jack of all trades and master at none.' I would tell her I was going to be a master jack of all trades," Awino says. "I'm a rebel at heart, but I've come to find out there are bits of truth in some of those sayings."

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She hopes her job as a DJ motivates people. During Mavs games, for instance, she says, "I am a wild thinker."

"The fact that I can walk into the American Airlines Center every day and play for a huge crowd, I'm like, 'What can I not do?'"

By LEE ESCOBEDO/Special Contributor

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Correction: An earlier version of this story stated Ivy Awino is Nigerian born. She is from Kenya.