By Simone Mar

Born and raised in the Richmond District, Victor Alexander Tapia, known more commonly in the DJ world as “The Goshfather” has played throughout the Bay Area and is now taking his music to an international audience at the FIFA World Cup.

Last month, he played World Cup events at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara and Lumen Field in Seattle.

Tapia’s preferred genre of music, Disco House, gives funk disco rhythms and songs a modern twist. His musical career, however, did not begin with DJing.

“This is my fourth career in music already,” Tapia said.

His first career began at the age of 12, when Tapia started learning opera. He attended Ruth Asawa School of the Arts in the Vocal Department for his high school years and went on to study at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. Then, at 20 years old, he moved to Los Angeles where he continued his opera training at The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Tapia experienced the freeness of the music in Los Angeles night clubs and started the transition into DJing, which began his “second musical career” from 2011 to 2015, when he became a part of a DJ duo.

“The unlearning of classical music took me … up until pretty recently,” Tapia said. “There’s still echoes of …classical music Goshfather in me.”

The duo was successful, but ended up separating at a DJ set in Chile where they were opening for Paris Hilton at a gala for the Make a Wish Foundation.

From there, Tapia went solo. From 2015 to 2020, he used his headset, which was previously used for video games, and minimal equipment to produce his own music. He said that although he had some successes, ultimately it was not his time.

Then, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Tapia moved back to San Francisco. On Sept. 9, 2020, the infamous day where the sky turned orange from the numerous wildfires, Tapia found out that his hard drive which held all of his music had died and couldn’t be fixed. This led to the end of his third musical career.

However, willing to give it another shot after a three-year hiatus, Tapia decided he would put out one song every week for the 52 weeks of 2023. While there were people that did not believe Tapia would go through with it, he proved his dedication to his craft with a new mindset and same old gaming headset.

“I didn’t quit, so clearly there was something inside of me that was like…this is it,” Tapia said.

He also credits the success of this fourth attempt to learning how to give back to the DJ community.

“The thing that was missing the first three times was that I didn’t give back,” Tapia said.

He is now mentoring DJs and aspiring DJs alike, giving them advice on marketing themselves and their music, even helping with making reels to post on social media that get their mixes attention.

“You’ve got to put your music out,” Tapia said. “You’ve got to take chances. If I can be the reason people do that then that’s the biggest prize possible.”

Currently, Tapia is giving back to his community. He has had songs that have gone viral, played at many venues throughout and outside of the Bay Area and is an Insomniac Radio host. He just played the Day Trip Music Festival in Long Beach in late June, and he is slated to DJ more FIFA World Cup events in the coming weeks.

All of these opportunities Tapia credits with devoting himself for so many years as a musician – and his emergence as “The Goshfather,” a name which dates all the way back to his time at UCLA.

Tapia’s roommate at the time was going through the process of converting to Judaism. In turn, he didn’t want people saying “God” in a non-religious context around him, so he and his friends started saying “gosh.” This became a running joke between their friends. They said it so often that one night Tapia had a dream where the credits of the movie “The Godfather” were playing in a movie theater, but the title with the iconic puppet string logo didn’t read “The Godfather” – it read “The Goshfather.” When Tapia woke up, he knew he needed to use this name and wrote it down so he would remember. He thought he would use it in a song, but eventually, he started using it for his DJ name, and he has stuck with it ever since.

Tapia said that, unlike his name, “The World Cup was never in my dreams.”

Now, Tapia can add the FIFA World Cup to the long list of his successes. Though, he says his biggest show is still to come – Tapia will be playing at Midway Terrace on July 25 with Party Pupils.

Through the trials and triumphs of the many musical careers of Tapia, he said he has held on because of one thing.

“When you play your song for the first time in front of a crowd …and you see their reaction … there’s nothing in the world like that,” Tapia said. “I’m spending my career chasing that feeling.”

The Goshfather next plays in San Francisco at the Midway Terrace on July 15. For more information, find @goshfather on Instagram.