Anyone that knows me personally knows that when I’m just hangin’ out, I like to share my thoughts on music, videos, sports, art and other things that inspire me. This usually means breaking out the laptop for some goodies or pulling a record out that I haven’t listened to in a while or just found recently. Typically over a meal or a few beers. To extend this beyond something I do at ’social gatherings’, I’m going to start upping new posts entitled “My Favorite Things” and invite you into the conversation. We’re all friends here, right? K, cool. I’ll post something that I think is interesting, shocking, mind-bending or light-bulb-in-the-brain-inducing and give you the goods on what I know about it or how I feel about it. Hopefully in turn, it will inspire you and pass on some love to artists who have worked hard to make great things! Or artist that maybe just lucked out or were so damn dope it just came naturally. Whatever the case, the content I post in here will be worth checking out, so tell a friend and join in on the fun.
For my first post, I spoke about DJ Roc Raida. I’d like to continue the vibe of that post and share a few DJ battle routines that inspired me as a DJ coming up and still to this day.
The first time I saw a DJ scratch was DJ Jazzy Jeff with The Fresh Prince on some awards show. I THINK it was the American Music Awards or possibly the Grammy Awards. I will be playing this Halloween with the man himself and I will report back! Anyway, he was cutting up “It Takes Two”, which is one of those records that you pretty much have to have two copies of. So many great parts to juggle. I would love to be able to show you that footage, but I’m pretty sure my mother taped an episode of Jeopardy over it and I don’t even have THAT tape, so just know that it was enough to get me inspired to DJ.
Further on, as my best friend and I absorbed just about everything we could get our hands on DJ wise (mixtapes, CDs, VHS, radio, albums), we found out about DJ battles, where DJs actually went head-to-head at a set time limit and judges picked a winner. We tracked down some video tapes and one of the first tapes we found was the ‘96 US DMC Finals. We had no idea what was on it and at that time and these shitty bootleg VHS cost about $40 dollars a piece because they had passed through 8 hands to get to Halifax, but we were so hungry to find out what was on it that we didn’t eat lunch for a week. But thanks to youtube, you can view many of these routines while maintaining a balanced diet. Read the full post to see four of the routines from the tape I’m talkin’ about:
Melo-D:
Melo-D definitely won the prize for cleanest hairstyle, but also cleanest routine. The way he scratches My Melody and turns it into a ‘phrased’ routine was way ahead of it’s time and went on to influence people like Craze and P-Trix a few years later. Videos were the main avenue for new techniques to be spread around the world. A lot of the times, someone would break ground one year, and the next year you would see DJs expand on it.
3rd place, DJ Babu:
This intro was so tough. I love when people re-arrange lyrics to say something different. DJ Static from Denmark had this mastered, he’ll probably get his own post later on. Babu’s routine was well balanced, with a dis, juggling and scratching.
2nd Place, Mista Sinista:
My favorite part of this routine is when he cuts up “Theme From S.W.A.T.” by Rhythm Heritage, a break that many rappers have rapped over (K-Solo, Capone-N-Noreaga/Tragedy, LL Cool J, etc). This is during the juggling period where a most DJs were doing ‘half-speed’ juggles, or ’strobing’ (like the popping breakdance technique) as some called it, where the DJ would pause the record with his hand to create a new rhythm. The way that Sinista makes the beat bounce is so ill. Sinista doesn’t really scratch here and it definitely cost him points. It’s a shame because Sinista has laid down some of my favorite recorded scratches of all time, those on Common’s “Resurrection” album.
1st place, DJ Swamp:
Swamp’s whole style was out of this world. Everything he did was original. This guy came in from Ohio and messed with people. The intro is perfect, with him shouting out his battle wins that year, coming from Cleveland, going to New York and then San Francisco, all using a children’s Halloween record. Then out of the gate, he hits the NWA routine at full speed and has people going CRAZY. Second juggle works, and then he starts running through his scratches, ending with some needle dropping (picking the needle up off the record and dropping it down on another groove…try doing that with shaky battle hands) that sounded really good, a tough feat for needle dropping. Then he walks away smashing everything.
I got to meet Swamp at an ITF (another league for DJ competitions) battle in Toronto in 2000. I saw him on the street and he was on his way to a Marilyn Manson concert the day before the battle. That was amazing to me because I basically hated anything that wasn’t rap at that point and it opened my eyes to more. At the battle, I got to ask him about that children’s record, as I had recently found it. He said it was the same record that he had since he was a kid and he used to play it in his mother’s trailer and it would scare the shit out of him. Later, it worked perfectly for that competition. I was inspired by his creativity and the risks that he took; coming in with unorthodox routines and styles and using unconventional records. Definitely a game-changer for me.
Videos were holy grails back then! In a similar way that skate videos taught new tricks, battle videos kept you up to speed on what was going on and kept you motivated to work hard and get in one. What was your favorite battle tape?
Sidebar: What’s the deal with DMC having the worst logo of all time? Isn’t it a DJ battle not a puking contest? I was going to post this image as the header, but I feared the chunk-blowing image may scare newcomers from reading the post:
