At the start of the year, I filmed some video breaking down the details of the rules of the event. I showed those earlier this month in another post, so I’ll skip that this time and get right into a full recap.

It all comes to a (national) close this Saturday at Sound Academy in Toronto. The 10 regional champions will be in town to duke it out for the Canadian 3-Style crown and the rights to represent Canada at the world finals in Paris, France this December. They are: DJ Flipout (Vancouver), DJ Echo (Edmonton), Fordinho (Calgary), DJ Fin-S (Winnipeg), DJ Mensa (Toronto), DJ Drastik (Kingston), DJ M-Kutz (London), DJ A-Rock (Montreal), DJ Payce (Quebec City) and DJ IV (Moncton) will compete along with last year’s champ DJ Cosmo. Exciting line-up. For a whole lot of pictures and other info about the regionals, visit the Red Bull Thre3 Style Facebook page.

It’s going to be a really interesting final. Below are the videos of each regional winner’s set. As you can see, there is no clear winner. In 15 minutes, there is a lot of time to shine, and also a lot of time to screw up a lil’ bit here and there. Who will be the cleanest? Who will be successful in balancing creativity, originality, skills, stage presence and crowd response? Who will be able to win over the out-of-town and tough Toronto crowd? I suppose Mensa has homefield advantage, but after he placed second last year it’s obvious that that doesn’t mean everything. With competition being thick, I’m looking a lot towards originality and skill; I want to see those things that separate the DJs from the rest of the pack. Who’s going to risk losing the crowd with a difficult transition, only to have them have their mind blown as the DJ takes the party to another level? With 11 DJs and 2 hours & 45 minutes of bangers, which DJ will have the most original music? I think everyone has to step their game up a little bit. This is the last chance to dance and I want to see some fireworks! I’ll report back next week.

March 9th will forever be remembered as the day Christopher Wallace died. Whether you heard the news from radio, TV or you’re just a Canibus fan, you probably remember the day it happened, and how the news was delivered to you. I saw the pictures of the riddled SUV on MuchMusic coming home from school and was extremely sad. A huge loss for hip-hop music. Biggie was an amazing balance of skill, street, ladies man and commercial appeal. Quite the feat for a self proclaimed ‘black nasty m-fer’ who cursed a lot and never let his rhymes and skill get too caught up in trying to make some loot. Even in my “I only like weird underground music phase”, I still bumped his tapes (thank the heavens) because he was undeniable. He just did it all. I mean, the man is STYLING on the “One More Chance” Remix verses. And he always came with hardcore street joints that kept his early fanbase in tact. He was a natural. So many rappers try to do the “this one is for the ladies”, “this is my street single”, “this is the West Coast G-Mix”, “this is my club song”…. but Biggie did it before those terms were cliche or a marketing plan whipped up by a mountain climber who plays an electric guitar. I’ll always smile when watching early footage of him, especially the one where he’s rapping on the corner at 17, because the young man is just oozing with potential: so much energy, precision, originality and style. Traits which he kept throughout his much-too-short career.

So for this post, I want to shed some light on a few of my favorite samples and beats that the Notorious one rapped over. B.I.G. always had a knack for picking great beats. It didn’t hurt that he had some incredible producers around him. Easy Mo Bee, Premier, Puffy’s team (and whoever was making the beats that came out under his name), Havoc, RZA, Lord Finesse (to name a few)… all of these names should come up when talking about hip hop’s great beat makers. But it does go beyond that. Just listen to the 17-year-old freestyling in the paragraph above. That’s some park jam type shit. Let’s start there.

—————————————————————————————————————————
Ike & Tina Turner - “Cussin’, Cryin’ and Carryin’ On” via Bozo Meko “Spread Love” 12″
—————————————————————————————————————————
This is the breakbeat that Biggie is rapping over above, and also on his classic “I got 7 Mac 11’s/about 8 38’s/9 9’s/10 mac 10’s/the shits never end” freestyle with 2Pac, Scoob, Kane and them. Others have used it before and since, but I’ll never hear this without thinking about the man. In both instances, it’s a DJ cutting up doubles of the classic party break on Bozo Meko records, “Spread Love (Remix)”, which is rumored across the board as a 45 King production. Mark had them sounding so slowed down and beefy. He threw acapella group Take 6 over top of the break and made a classic. He left the drums open towards the end of the record and (un?)intentionally made hip-hop history. Biggie’s chant became a loop celebrated the world over. That’s pride. (Extra: though there’s some weird self-made video attached to it, you can listen to the record I’m talking about here)

—————————————————————————————————————————
The Main Ingredient - “Summer Breeze”
—————————————————————————————————————————
The first song that comes on after the cinematic intro on Ready To Die is “Things Done Changed”, an excellent example of Biggie’s storytelling abilities. This spooky, sped-up loop sets the mood. It gets even spookier when it’s slowed down to it’s original speed on a cover of Seals & Croft’s “Summer Breeze” by the The Main Ingredient (of “Everybody Plays The Fool” fame). Somehow, they turned this mellow tune into a creepy, dark, moody 3 minute adventure. I LOVE this song. By the way, that’s Cuba Gooding SENIOR on lead vocal. (Bonus Beats: the drum fill used in the B.I.G. song comes from the next song on the MI record, “California My Way”)

—————————————————————————————————————————
Al Green - “The Letter”
—————————————————————————————————————————
Another excellent genre-crossing cover, Rev. Green nearly puts The Box Tops’ chart topping hit in reverse. At almost half the speed, the blues are felt that much more. And that groove? Wow. RZA once again snatched up a Willie Mitchell-produced banger for his contribution to Biggie’s 2nd album, Life After Death, for the song “Long Kiss Goodnight”. Some slights to 2Pac are included here and this creepy beat enhances the morbid feeling.

—————————————————————————————————————————
Isaac Hayes - “Walk On By”
—————————————————————————————————————————
Now this is just a straight up soul classic, but it’s the way that it’s flipped that makes it special to me. Easy Mo Bee produced “Warning” (who the f@#$ is this? pagin’ me at 5:46 in the mornin’…) and it’s a glaring example of Mo Bee’s love for the SP1200. Sped waaay up, Ike’s bass is wobbly and 12-bit, grainy, and so ‘rap’. And it’s just got that ‘bounce’. Can’t get there with Ableton Live, kiddies. They added a reverbed-to-infinity snare, popular at the time in rap (see: Mobb Deep), and this thing bumps like Craig Mack’s skin (kinda related?). Anyway, not much needs to be said about the original. The day Isaac Hayes died, my man Cosmo Baker ran all 12 minutes of this joint (2 of them aren’t in this youtube clip) of this at the Shambhala funk jam in the isolated woods of British Columbia on a sunny afternoon. No better way to hear it.

—————————————————————————————————————————
Dave Grusin “Either Way”
—————————————————————————————————————————
This one isn’t necessarily a jam I would bang all the time, but it’s one of those instances where a sample enhances a song. “Everyday Struggle” is a sleeper classic off of Ready To Die. The Blues Brothers (some guy Norman Glover and Lord Digga from Masta Ace’s INC crew) looped up this mellow fusion jazz song and combined it with The Five Stairsteps’ “Don’t Change Your Love” drums (aka the “Hip Hop Hooray” drums) and some other snare to make a life-ain’t-so-hot-but-i’m-alright anthem that many listened to simply because it was after “Juicy” on the album sequence (remember those?). But that doesn’t take away from it; it’s a great song in it’s own right. This beat is really hood. if you listen close, the second half of the 4-bar loop is sped up a few ‘cents’ and is actually slightly out of tune with the first two bars. I love that kind of stuff. Dave Grusin was a frequent Quincy Jones collaborator and also created GRP records with Larry Rosen which released great early 80s jazz/funk albums by Bernard Wright and Tom Browne among others.

—————————————————————————————————————————
Les McCann - “Vallarta”
—————————————————————————————————————————
Now this one is included for the nerds. I mean, if you made it this far into this post, chances are that you fall into that category. This sample shows Primo’s genius, literally taking ‘les’ than a second of music and making it into a can’t-hide-from-it hip-hop classic beat. “Ten Crack Commandments” is written free-form over the drums and sample: no chorus, no real rules of structure, raw rap. This jazz song doesn’t really represent those same views, but is still a good listen.

—————————————————————————————————————————
Barbara Mason - “Another Man”
—————————————————————————————————————————
Lil Kim and Biggie go back and forth over this pre-autotune album cut (basically cover) of the same name on LAD. Released on late 70s/early 80s disco/boogie label West End, this was apparently an NY classic. I actually despised the Biggie song when it came out, but I was uptight and young and a virgin. I like it today. And this Barbara Mason song is the cut!

—————————————————————————————————————————
David Porter - “The Masquerade Is Over”
—————————————————————————————————————————
Pretty much the illest. Nashiem Myrick of Puffy’s production squad “The Hitmen” looped up the right channel (made it mono) of the piano loop in the breakdown of this song, leaving some creepy female ghostly vocals bleeding through slightly, creating the perfect ode for B.I.G. to air out his aggression on 2Pac. Another one of Biggie’s free-form, rap-til-i-want-to classics. This song still scares me. That loop is just… ugh Incredible! So simple! Crafted using those old school techniques. Never be afraid to experiment with music. You gotta love it.

—————————————————————————————————————————

At the risk of being totally obvious (Mtume “Juicy”, Debarge “Stay With Me”, KC & Sunshine Band “I Get Lifted”, Isley Brothers “Between The Sheets”) and longer than this novel already is, I’ve left out many more of samples that Biggie rapped over. I’m sure you can add to the list. What are some of your favorites that I didn’t name?

As you can see from these songs above, one of hip-hop’s finest street rappers was rapping over some ‘easier listening’ music at times. It’s all about what you do with it! Biggie’s musical choices, though definitely related to production trends at the time the music was made, resounded that his voice could fit anything and take on roles over all different sorts of music. This enhanced his storytelling and made him stand out. It also opened me up to music I would have never discovered. Thank you to everyone involved in the making of this music.

And in closing I’d like to say: some people grow tired of the “greatest of all time” talk and the easily assignable posthumous praise, but when you balance the scales, there ain’t too much competition. Thank you for reading! RIP B.I.G.!

As a youth growing up in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, in the 80s/90s, I was pretty isolated from hip-hop music. The mainstream had taken to a sprinkling of tracks here and there, but rap in general wasn’t as easy to find out there as it is now a days (read: THE INTERNET). Surely in larger cities it was easier to track down, but the resources were pretty low for a kid who didn’t get out of town much. In Junior high (mid-nineties) a friend and I discovered college radio in the form of a man named DJ Critical and his Tuesday night radio show “The Bassment” on CKDU 97.5 FM. Here, we began hearing all these b-sides and remixes we had been reading about in The Source and other music magazines, along with a bunch of new stuff we had never even heard about (Wu-Tang side projects, early Kool Keith side projects, Latyrx, Shadow, Q-Bert, many vinyl-only releases). Needless to say, we became loyal listeners and got turned onto a lot of new music that way. It definitely shaped my ear and kept me fed as a music fanatic. I’ll always tell people that’s where i first expanded my ears to different types of music.

Critical later went on to become Jesus Murphy and host “The Treatment Program”, which veered away from mostly hip-hop music and definitely had me listening to certain things I would have never listened to otherwise. Around this time I met him through DJ battles and we would trade scratch information and practice. As Critical’s rap and production career under the moniker Buck 65 started to build more steam, I started to fill in for shows he couldn’t make and eventually took the program over for a year or two before again passing it off to Jesse Dangerously (who changed the name to “The Pavement”) before I moved to Montreal. They were some big shoes to fill and I never felt like I could meet up to the legendary status that the show had garnered, but I did my best. Buck now hosts “Radio 2 Drive” on Canada’s national radio station, CBC.

My main man DJ Moves just posted a bunch of cassette rips from 93-94, a bit earlier than when i was tuning in, but definitely classic times for the program. I remember hearing one of my mentors DJ Gordski playing old episodes in his apartment, and I’m sure some of those are the ones ripped here. DJ Moves was the DJ for Hip Club Groove (and later Len), and they are featured live in the studio here. He will be ripping more episodes, so make sure you check his blog in the coming weeks to see what he comes up with. Tune in, check out these links and get a taste of what it was like discovering hip-hop sans internet.

As a Canadian musician, I’d like to point you in the direction of an interview I did with, oddly enough, Canadian Musician magazine, who asked me to do a one-time column about how to get started as a DJ. The article pretty much speaks for itself, and even if you’re a seasoned veteran of the DJ circuit you may be able to pick something up from it.

The number one question people ask me about my career is “How did you get started as a DJ?”. What made me want to start? It isn’t the easiest question to answer. I can’t really pinpoint a specific time where I decided that this is what I wanted to do. It certainly wasn’t what I aspired to be in my journal in first grade. It was born out of my music obsession, and more specifically my interest in hip-hop music.

There is no program or formula to becoming a DJ. The term is about as general as the term ’singer’ and there are many roles that can fit in it’s scope. Just think of how many different musical styles there are out there and how different each vibe can be from one sound to the next. What I will offer you here will give you some points to help you understand what goes into DJing, and, if you’re a musical selector of any skill level, give you something to think about for your next gig….

Read the rest of the article over at the digital version of CM (Page 30/31), download the high-res .png file right here, or read on for a transcript of the article.

So, You Wanna Be a DJ?

The number one question people ask me about my career is “How did you get started as a DJ?”. What made me want to start? It isn’t the easiest question to answer. I can’t really pinpoint a specific time where I decided that this is what I wanted to do. It certainly wasn’t what I aspired to be in my journal in first grade. It was born out of my music obsession, and more specifically my interest in hip-hop music.

There is no program or formula to becoming a DJ. The term is about as general as the term ’singer’ and there are many roles that can fit in it’s scope. Just think of how many different musical styles there are out there and how different each vibe can be from one sound to the next. What I will offer you here will give you some points to help you understand what goes into DJing, and, if you’re a musical selector of any skill level, give you something to think about for your next gig.

Pretty much every GREAT DJ I know is a music nerd. It may seem obvious, but it should be put out there: KNOW the music that you play. Inside out. Whatever the songs are you would like to play, you want to be in full control of how they are presented. Identify the genre which the songs are in and furthermore what songs sound alike. This well help you choose songs that flow well together. Think of transitioning from Kenny G to Spoonie Gee. Not happening. Lil’ Wayne into Gucci Mane? More likely.

Part of being a good DJ is playing the right song at the right time in the right place. Think of how perfectly certain songs fit in your favorite movie scenes. A DJ does this, but his audience is live in front of him and the music IS the picture. What soundtrack can you provide that properly fits the mood? How can you take that mood to the next level? Develop a great musical library and be ready to rock that jam when the shoe fits.

One thing that can never be underestimated is understanding music theory. Playing an instrument and reading sheet music can go very far in helping you mix music. After all, most of the people that make the music that you are playing speak that musical language and as a DJ you’re relaying the message. For starters, learn how to count beats properly. When DJs mix, they are putting two parts of different tracks over each other, creating a new sound. Make sure you count the beats of a song to know when the exciting part is going to start so you can control people’s reactions and not catch them off guard. If someone hears their favorite part of the song in the wrong place, the effect will be lost. Imagine playing the sections of Bohemian Rhapsody out of order.

So, HOW do you do all of this? The world of DJ Equipment is an absolute jungle! It all depends on what you’re trying to accomplish. You can start with as little as an ipod and a quick thumb, or you can go as big as Daft Punk’s pyramid. Presentation is key. I come from a vinyl and scratching background, so I like classic Technics 1200 turntables and a solid scratch mixer.   I would need another column to give you a list of equipment options. Visit a music store or website and see what kind of equipment (and price range) suits your needs, set it up, and practice. And practice. And practice.

It seems that these days DJ culture is everywhere. If everyone is doing it, how do you stand out from the pack? It’s simple. Be unique. Be yourself. And do a good job. If people want YOU, they’ll ask for you. If they can’t discern you from the rest of the pack, you’ll get lost in the shuffle. Find a way to express yourself that leaves an impression while playing music that fits your gig. You’ll fit into that culture that is everywhere. With tools like the internet, the world is at your fingertips and your audience isn’t necessarily in the room with you. Strut your stuff and get out there.

So that’s it! You’re a DJ now. Not exactly. But this should help you understand what goes into it and why some people succeed and others get tomato-ed. I’ve been Djing for 12 years and I still learn new things all the time. It’s exciting and always changing. Get on up, get into it and get involved. Spread the music you love and, above all, enjoy yourself. One day people will be asking you how all of this started.

February 21: Men’s- CAN vs. USA
February 22: Women’s- SF2
February 23: Men’s- QP2
February 24- Men’s QF1/QF2/QF3/QF4

We also asked Ace what song he would like to see a group like us re-create, and so we did just that. Check it out!