So this week I have a lot of Favorite Things. Truth be told, I could always start writing one if I sat down at the computer on any given day. I like a lot of stuff. But then you’d probably never get any mixtapes or remixes or new videos. My brain basically functions by linking little connections of little details of everything music related together in order to remember them easily by making two or more things one; making space for another sample or pattern or MOP quote. Or B.I.G. quote. Let’s get to the topic here…

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.

Read the rest of this page »

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.

Link #1

Link #2

Link #3

Link #4

Back from the Olympics! I had a great week out in the madness that Vancouver turned into. The Hockey House was obviously Canadian crunk and I was fortunate enough to play for many of our medal winners at the Canadian Speed Skating Team party. USA’s Shani Davis was also there and he requested Gucci Mane. Just sayin’. A proud year for Canadian athletes. Congratulations.

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.

Read the rest of this page »

You thought the Vancouver 2010 madness was gonna go down without Skratch Bastid getting a piece of it? Nope. I’ll be playing four nights in a row (from February 21st to February 24th) at the Molson Canadian Hockey House at Concorde Place smack dab in the middle of the action where Team Canada will hopefully be taking the Olympic Gold medal this month and bringing back the glory days. Ill be playing my best DJ sets for a pumped up crowd after/during the following games.

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

Yup, you might’ve heard through the grapevine that the 2nd outing of Skratch Bastid Presents: Scratch, Skratch, Scratch! was a total smash. It went down last friday at the cusp of the Olympics opening ceremony and people came out in huge numbers to enjoy their evening with us. Thanks to Gman and Fortune Sound Club for hosting the event and also a special thanks to David Lang, Red Bull photographer-in-residence, for some awesome shots of the night you can peep below along with some footage of the show courtesy of Go Getters Entertainment. Stay tuned for more coming up soon!