Tag Archives: USA

Grand Master Flash

Even if you’re into hiphop, Grand Master Flash should not need any introduction. You should know that he is, along with Kool Herc and Africa Bambaataa, considered a pioneer of hiphop. He pioneered the scratch, and introduced the turntables as an instrument. With his record The Message he brought hiphop and DJing from being a New York craze into a worldwide phenomenon. He’s sold millions of records, performed at the Superbowl and Commonwealth Games, and received countless awards and accolades. Anyone credited with all of this would probably be ready to give it up and retire after 35 years, but Flash still has a message he feels he strongly needs to deliver to a new generation of fans.

“I have to make it clear to all the young and up and coming young people that hiphop was created in the year 1971 and it was totally designed by a DJ. And if it wasn’t for a DJ there’d be no hiphop, there’d be no rap records, there’d be no breakdancing, there’s be no graffiti artists, there’d be no MCs, there’d be no nothing!” he begins passionately. “Now that hiphop has become so big, that knowledge is either nonexistent or it has become buried. Since I am one of the creators I have to make it clear to every audience I perform in front of, of where hiphop comes from. It’s very important.” And it’s also the reason why, after 30 years of doing it, he’s still doing it, still going on the road, performing to audiences both large and small.

“I love playing big events like the Superbowl and Commonwealth Games, because it gives the DJ a notoriety they should have. I think that people need to understand that hiphop was designed by a DJ,” he says. “In my shows I jam, which is what I love doing, and I also like talking to young people. Just to see what they know, and what I can tell them about what they should know. Hiphop in it’s beginning was just a DJ. No MC, no breakdancing, no graffiti; just a DJ, his turntables, a microphone, and his trusty records. That was it.”

I ask him if he gets nervous or could be worried by a wardrobe malfunction at such a big event, and he laughs heartily. “I’m a man I don’t think I’ll worry about a wardrobe malfunction too much. But I do get nervous, two minutes before. But when I get up on stage, it’s the only place on earth I feel totally safe, other than when I’m with my children,” he adds. “I feel totally, totally, totally safe once I come from that side stage and all those people waiting, and it’s just me and God.”

Like most fathers, he gushes when he talks about his children. “My kids keep me up to speed with new music. I might be touring for a couple of months, and might miss a few new records that come out, and they keep me up to speed with that. Let me know what’s in, what’s hot!” I was curious to know if he held high hops of his children following in his footsteps. “They’ve gotta be the best at it, because they’ve got a tough act to follow,” he laughs. “They’re going to have to be top notch at it, be deadly serious about it, because you can’t come in on pop, you’ve got to come in as you as an artist.”

As someone who created scratching and introduced the world to sampling, I wanted to know his take on the controversy that always seems to surround it. “The beauty of hiphop is that you take an older record that probably was never a hit, and make it a hit,” he explains. “Now it has become big business, these records sell millions, and the owners of the publishing rights are deadly serious about getting paid, and I think that’s fair. I think that if you take a piece of someone else’s song and implant that in your work to make your song become a hit, you should pay that person. I’m with that.”

The prospect of vinyl being replaced by CDs and other technologies doesn’t seem to phase Flash at all. “I think that in this point in time for the more animated DJ and the more serious minded person who goes and watched DJs, I think from what I understand, it’s not watching the arm on the vinyl. From what I am told, the average fan likes to watch the DJ. They like to watch them turn around dig into his boxes, take it and put it on the platter, set it, cut it, throw it in,” he says. “With a CD DJ, those steps disappear because the CD goes right to the point where you want it. I have much respect for the CD DJs who do their thing, but for the animated DJs, for those who move to the music, go the whole 9 yards, the look of the vinyl is just,” he searches for the words “more appealing, you know?”

Flash has recently created Adrenalin City Records, his record / production label, in order to produce new artists and get new material out there, and plans on doing a few more things once this current tour is finished. “When the tour ends there’s two things I want to do, things I promised myself I would do. One is to get a book deal and write about my life and hiphop, and open up some DJ schools. I want to give back, in my own way, to hiphop, because it’s been good to me. Over the last 30 years it’s been up and down, up and down, but if I were to go back I probably wouldn’t change nothing,” he says.

Flash is also looking forward to getting some time off on his tour of Australia, as he feels he hasn’t had a decent chance to explore our country, either in searching out Aussie hiphop, nor it’s natural beauty. “Every time I come into your beautiful country I fly in and fly out. They get me coming into a town, and they whisk me away to the next town. I think I have some days off on this tour, so hopefully I’ll get time to listen to some Aussie hiphop. Also, I want to see a kangaroo! I want to see your oceans. I’ve only seen it on the TV, and I want to experience it for myself, because it looks like a very beautiful country.”

 

Z-Trip

You can hear the frustration in Zach Sciacca’s (otherwise known as Z-Trip) voice as he talks about copyright laws. Known for the incredible Uneasy Listening Vol 1 mix CD, done in collaboration with DJ P, this master of the mash and blend has become a pin up boy for the fight against the incredibly archaic copyright laws which has seen him get caught up for nearly a year trying to get tracks for a mix CD cleared. This is not about getting samples cleared – this is about getting clearance for mixing two songs together. It’s like being told you can’t play two certain songs together on the radio.

“The whole concept of having to clear something is limiting”, Sciacca explains. “If you want to put out something legitimate, something that you can sell and people can buy, it’s hard. I’m an advocate of people doing it on their own, doing it independently and getting it out, because that’s the most important thing – getting it out there. It’s such a shame that it’s like that,” he pauses. “There’s no way to make an album like the Beastie Boys Paul’s Boutique for instance. That album, financially, could never be made. You couldn’t sample The Beatles – and they did – but people weren’t aware of it then. Now there’s sample clearance house business set up and you have to go that route.”

“Most of the stuff I’ve done until about now has been under the radar,” and this includes Uneasy Listening Vol 1, an amazing mix of 80s rock and electro. “People come to my shows, they tape it and put it on the internet, because people want it. That’s the funny thing, there’s such a demand for it that industry people should be more willing to allow things to be cleared. There’s money to be made if they want to make money from it.” The resistance comes from the record companies and their profiteering. In an article on DownhillBattle.org Sciacca states, “The industry is so old school in thinking, most can’t wrap their head around the concept of a work A and a work B coming together to form work C.” “I think artists are slowly getting into it,” he tells me. “At first they were a bit reluctant, but it’s starting to rise to the surface, become such a mainstream thing, that people are going to want to do that kind of thing. I did get to meet Barry de Vorzon, the guy who did the Warriors theme song,” which is on Uneasy Listening. “I met up with him, played it to him and he really dug it. At some point I would like to sit down and maybe collaborate with him.”

Sciacca has also collaborated with Del Tha Funky Homosapien in the past, and is collaborating with Lyrics Born on his debut album, due out next year. “Going through the route of trying to clear everything just takes forever, and I ran into a lot of stop signs from people who just didn’t get it, didn’t want me to use their stuff, so I had to a different route, and that was to produce an album rather than make one using other people’s music,” Sciacca says of the work he’s doing. “I don’t want to give too much up because I’m saving that for a surprise, but there’s some people I had to really search out to find, and some that were good friends. It’s a good thing though, it was a good process and I’m really happy with the way it’s turned out.”

But Sciacca is first and foremost a DJ. “I’m a DJ and playing to a crowd is my biggest pay off and also my biggest thrill. It’s what I enjoy the most and how I built my career and reputation,” he says proudly. “I don’t really worry too much about record sales or things of that nature yet, I guess I will when I put the record out, but my biggest concern is that more people come to the shows, and maybe buy a T-shirt or something, because that’s money I will see directly, versus going through the channels of me putting something out and the money gets spread out to all the people I’ve sampled, and then the record label, and at the end of the day I might get one or two cents”.

Sciacca will be hitting Australia for the first time next week, and thanks to Traffic we will get to see him perform in Adelaide alongside the Life Savas. Having downloaded a few of his DJ sets from djztrip.com, expect the unexpected from his performance. “It’s very dance floor based, I’ll be trying to rock the party. I like to be different from any other DJ you’ve heard, I pride myself on that. 98% of what I do is on vinyl, I do a few things off CD, but most of the blends and mashups I do are on vinyl,” he states, and having heard those blend I simply cannot wait to see him do it live.

Not only does he allow his sets to be downloaded for free, Sciacca is an active member of his forums, answering questions and giving his opinion on mixes and music in general. “The website isn’t really a big deal in so much as putting photos and such up”, he explains. “My main concern was to have a community where people could ask me stuff and I could interact with them. Sometimes it’s hard to speak to a fan or to someone who’s at a show when you’re packing up or just about ready to go on, so if I can answer things at my leisure, you know at 4 o’clock in the morning in my underwear, you know?” he laughs.

Ugly Duckling

Ugly Duckling are one of those bands where you hear their music and are instantly happy because of it. They have a funky, fresh vibe that’s infectious and fun. Their first album contained such tunes as Pick-Up Lines and A Little Samba. The former lambastes the stereotypical wannabe ladies’ men, whilst the latter an amusing send-ups of hiphop braggadocio. The second album was Taste the Secret, which celebrated “Meat Shake”, a restaurant where the gimmick is everything has meat in it. Throughout the album the trio explain their woes at working, the fight between “Meat Shake” and “Veggie Hut”, and a whole host of other funny and clever songs, such as ‘Mr Tough Guy’ that pays out the idiot who acts tough at hiphop events, and Potty Mouth, a song with the wonderful line “All you really wanna do is make a fast buck / That’s why rap sucks, it’s too limited / Potty mouths wanna keep hip-hop primitive”.

To my surprise, and perhaps even horror, I discovered that Meat Shake is actually real, and that the boys did work there. Although not a massive corporation as portrayed on the album, Meat Shake is a very small, family-owned establishment Andy Cooper, aka Andy Cat, one of the MCs of the group, explains. “So this has been fun for all of us. I’ve heard that (the Meat Shake) business has picked up considerably in the past year, and they loved the song and the album”. Given the topic of the last album, I had to ask if anyone in the band was a vegetarian. “I’m not even sure if anyone in the group has been a vegetarian for a day!” replies Cooper. “That’s not a judgment against veggie-people, and the point of our album was not to pick sides as much as contrast two different points of view. Actually, the ‘meat shake’ thing was more a metaphor than anything else. We were really talking about western culture and more specifically music culture, and, more importantly, we were trying to be funny.”

And funny it is. Some might say fucking hilarious, but not UD, who try not to swear on their albums. “All of our music is ‘kid tested and mother approved!’” Cooper laughs. “It’s something that is important to us – there are plenty of groups that talk dirty so we liked the idea of being different. Plus, we wanted to be able to play our music for our families and not feel uncomfortable about it. I have to say that this is not revolutionary,” he adds, “in fact, most of us love early De La Soul, Rakim, Biz Markie, Jungle Brothers, Run DMC, and those bands were, for the most part, squeaky clean.”

Not only do they like those bands, but also there are very similar elements to them in their music. Although they had the questionable fortune of forming in late 1993 in Long Beach, home of gangster rap, they took a decidedly different path down the road of hiphop. The origin of Cooper’s stage name is rooted in the gangster mentality, being that everyone, including Andy’s gym teacher, referred to themselves as “dog”, so he chose Andy Cat in order to be different. “We never entertained the idea of going gangster,” Cooper says. “We wouldn’t have gotten anywhere with that because I don’t think anyone would believe that we were thugs. Being different has worked, for the most part, to our advantage so we can’t complain too much. One thing about us that is often overlooked is the fact that we grew up around gangs, violence, drugs and all of that stuff.” Dizzy, the other MC in the group, was even thanked on the first Compton’s Most Wanted album, Straight Checkin’ Em’ record. “Ironically, we are much closer to that culture then a lot of the people who make fun of us for being so un-street,” Cooper says.

Their sound is often called retro, or old school, but that tag is unfair as it’s almost as if people are saying they don’t like to look forward or progress. “Certain people love to label bands and the “old school” label has stuck with us because we have a traditional sound. That perception is out there and it has been harmful to us. For example, we didn’t make a single reference to old school on our latest album and, in my mind, we put together one of the most creative records in years, yet often, Taste the Secret was categorized as a throw-back thing.” Maybe it was the fact that it was a theme album, or maybe that the tunes were simple yet deep, but either way the album certainly sounds different to the new school rap that poisons our airwaves. “But we’re not ashamed of our roots,” he continues. “On the contrary, we’re extremely proud of hip-hop heritage and we will continue to draw from that well, but we, more than most groups, combine new ideas with traditional rap values, and if that’s a terrible thing then I’d rather be terrible.”

Following a theme album is often a hard thing to do, with the expectation to follow it with something equally quirky. Ugly Duckling has given us Taste the Secret, a mini album that “closes the book on meat shake, although we may make mention of it on future albums,” Cooper explains. “But, honestly, making a concept record was extremely difficult and I for one am looking forward to making a normal album next time. It’s hard enough for us to get anything done as it is!” he laughs.

UD’s hiphop heritage shines through from the album to the live shows. “Our show is all turntables,” Cooper begins. “It costs more money to put of our stuff on wax but we feel that it is well worth the trouble. Turntables are to hiphop what drums, bass and guitar are to rock. Hiphop began with the DJ and we would feel funny doing anything else. In fact, we just got an offer to do a live, radio set in Australia but we were told that we couldn’t use our DJ and would have to rap over a CD… we politely declined,” he says with a wry smile. I ask about the possibility of CDDJs… “It’s very convenient isn’t it? Kind of reminds me of the guitar-style keyboards smooth-jazz guys play with a strap over their shoulders. It just isn’t right. The possibility of the needle skipping is part of the thrill!”

Another thrill is seeing these guys live. They give it their all, and they have a similar presence to the Beastie Boys. Last time they hit Adelaide they played a rather short show, and left us wanting more. But it was on a Tuesday night… “We’ve really tried to step it up for this tour!” Cooper exclaims. “The show is much more theme-oriented and crowd participatory as well so, hopefully, people will be pleased. We will do everything we can to entertain you good people… we’ll come to your houses and force meatshakes down your throat if we have to!” he laughs

Qbert

Throughout history, certain individuals have found callings, and through that calling have redefined the world we live in. Edison, Mozart, Einstein, Da Vinci, Picasso, Warhol; genius that took what we knew and changed it, made it new and also made it acceptable, usable, common. Richard Quitevis is one of those people. Quitevis weapon of choice is the turntables. Under the moniker Qbert, Quitevis has won more awards and is held in higher esteem than any other DJ. For him, turntablism is an obsession, but it’s an obsession that he wants to share with the world.

“It was just the weirdest sound”, Quitevis says of how he got into DJing, “and growing up in San Francisco there was a lot of hiphop and breakers around. And scratching is like the weirdest sound, I really fell in love with it, and now it’s my musical choice.” Some would even call it an obsession. In his old studio named ‘the Octagon’ in San Francisco, DJ magazine reported there were 16 Vestax units as the focus of the room, and that ‘every moment, unguarded or otherwise, finds QBert squeezing, fondling, stroking or otherwise manipulating a slab of vinyl’. “It’s a lifelong commitment,” Quitevis says. “Like a kung fu artist perfecting his skills, or a Jazz musician honing his skills,” and whilst I can’t see him, I can imagine him fondling a turntable as he speaks from his new set up, the ‘Temple Warplex’ in Hawaii.

However, turntablism for Quitevis is not like some guarded secret that only a few can know and learn. Quite the opposite in fact, as through his company Thud Rumble, he is bringing ‘the scratch’ to the world. Ranked in the top 50 most influential media companies of the decade by A Magazine, and one of the top 25 Most Creative Companies in the Bay Area by San Francisco Magazine, Quitevis and partner Ritche “Yogafrog” Desuasido are making a name for themselves outside of DJing, whilst keeping Djing the major focus. “Thud Rumble is a company that caters to the scratch DJ niche market,” Quitevis explains. “We make sound effect records, slip mats, instructional DIY videos, we design mixers.”

“I’m very into minimalising everything. We’ve invented the scratch records with all the best breaks and sounds, so a few records with these sounds is all we really need these days,” he say. “I also have a new turntable coming out in July, the QFO. Basically it’s made for portability.” The design is a high-torque circular turntable with an integrated 2-channel mixer, featuring an ASTS (Anti-Skipping Tonearm System) tone arm and pitch control. This was the next evolution in portability from the infamous ‘Kut Mobile’. “The Kut Mobile is a big turntable set up I plug into my car, but I’m still stuck in the car, and it was a question of how can I now take this out of the car,” he laughs. “I live in Hawaii and I like to go to the beach a lot,” Quitevis says of the idea behind the design. “I was like ‘how can I be like the guitarist who plays at the beach all the time, or the bongo player. A violinist can go to the mountains to play. Why do us DJs have to be stuck in a house, scratching while staring at a wall?’ The idea was why don’t we attach a fader to the turntable and make it portable.”

Quitevis also has had a hand in developing a scratch notation device, allowing scratches to be recorded on paper much like musical notes can be. “A-Track (Audio Research + the Allies) and John Carluccio (director of ‘Battle Sounds’) perfected the system. I wanted to do the musical notation as it’s kinda like what we all see. It’s like a universal scratch pattern. When you move the record forward, the on the page line goes up, when you move the record down the line goes down… I dunno if that makes any sense right now”, he laughs, “but if I want to see what a specific scratch looks like, I will definitely write it out. But most of the stuff is in my head.”

With advances in technology like the Pioneer CDDJs and Final Scratch making inroads on the DJ scene, with Allies’ member DJ Craze using Final Scratch in his performances, and Quitevis wanting to make things more portable, I had to know if he’s ever used these new tools. “I’ve messed around with them, yeah,” he muses, “but I’m definitely an analogue type of guy. I like the rawness, the feel and ‘real time’ of vinyl. A good comparison would be between someone playing a piano as apposed to someone playing an electronic keyboard.”

Quitevis rarely tours, but is making his way down to Australia at the end of June. “It’s very important to live your life, period,” he says of not touring as much as other DJs. “There’s got to be a balance. It’s kind of obvious. I know guys who tour their whole life and it’s like ‘what the hell are they doing, you’re going to kill yourself out there!” It’s like a prison to be touring your whole life.” Adelaide is a scheduled stop on this tour, and we are very lucky to have this great talent, no genius, finally hit our shores. “Whilst you’re waiting, check out www.djqbert.com and www.turntabletv.com,” Quitevis mentions cheekily.

DJ Jazzy Jeff

DJ Jazzy Jeff, known to his mother as Jeffrey Townes, is a legend in hiphop. He, along with partner in crime Will Smith aka the Fresh Prince, are counted amongst hiphop’s first “superstars”. Their tunes Girls Ain’t Nothing But Trouble and Parent’s Just Don’t Understand are absolute classics. Many people may think of Townes as the lesser of the duo, because he is not in the spotlight as much as Smith, but he hasn’t been sitting back on his fat mountain of bling bling from selling over 10 million records doing nothing. He is the founder and head of A TOUCH OF JAZZ, nurturing the careers of a roster of young producers, writers and artists, including the wonderful Jill Scott, and houses them all in a studio complex in the downtown area of Philadelphia.

He is famous for getting his start as a bathroom DJ. “Basically that’s the guy that really gets to play no records or does nothing pertaining to DJing until the main DJ has to go to the bathroom”, he laughs. “Then he gets to put a record on, and make sure that the record the main DJ put on doesn’t finish. I was just hoping those guys would stay in the toilet a lot. I used to give them a lot of drinks, lots of water to keep their bladder active.” His skill quickly developed and got him noticed at parties, and it was at one such party he teamed with Smith. “The guy who was my usual MC didn’t show up, and Will came in, and we knew each other from previous parties, and he just grabbed a mic and things went from there.”

DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince were well known for using samples of cartoons and old TV shows, such as I Dream of Genie. “We got in trouble for a couple of the samples that we used,” he laughs. “That was early hiphop days when nobody really understood the sampling laws and what we had to do. But it got to a point where after we got into trouble you start to become wise, and you start to compensate whoever you use”. Yet some people in the rap game weren’t appreciative of the sounds the duo employed, or the less aggressive take on rap they used, calling them ‘soft’ and equally dismissive names. “It was when hiphop started to become multi-dimensional, and just because Will and I chose not to do Gangsta records, or really curse in our records, and talk about shooting and killing anybody, we got criticised, because at the time that [Gangsta] was what was most popular. Now you look at hiphop and it’s grown in so many ways… it didn’t really bother me because people didn’t understand how big hiphop really was.”

For someone who is a “superstar”, Townes is quite unpretentious about his work. “I never look at that,” he says of the accolades and so on from his early days. “I think because I’m so active in what I’m doing now I don’t think I’ve ever look at the contribution or the credit we’ve got in the past, and I think it keeps me grounded.” Even being on a high rating TV show doesn’t seem to have overblown his ego. “The exposure was incredible. I’m more recognised by what I’ve done on the TV show than what I’ve done in music,” he says. “But it doesn’t matter what you’re recognised for, I try to bring people into what I do, just use that exposure as positive energy”.

Exposure is what his record label A Touch of Jazz is all about. “My issues right now have more to do with not about what is in hiphop, but what’s not in hiphop. I don’t understand how you can get radio stations that play the same 25 records over and over again, and there’s a hundred thousand records out! I think it’s more important, to me, to give everybody a chance, because that only benefits the music and culture of hiphop, instead of narrowing it down to what someone deems important,” he says of the current state of hiphop. “That’s the main reason I set up A Touch of Jazz. Just to have a little more musical freedom and creativity to do what I want to do, and to put records out for music lovers. The beauty of a lot of the stuff I do is there is no great expectation to sell millions and millions of copies of records; we put records out for people who love good music. If you love it and support us we’re very grateful, and if you don’t then hopefully one day we can make something you’ll love and start to support us. That’s the main reason why I do it. It’s not so much we have to do what’s popular, or what people deem is popular, or top 40, you’re making music because you love it.”

Townes love of music can be easily heard in his voice when he talks about it, whether it’s talking about the latest releases on his label, or his upcoming tour. “The fact that two turntables and a mixer and some records has taken me completely around the globe – especially now – I am so grateful for that. It’s a joy for me just to spread the love of music. We’re all linked together through music, and for me to be able to come and play music for people who love it and enjoy it… you know I probably enjoy it more than the people I’m playing for!” he laughs, “and I’m so grateful for that.”

Soon Adelaide gets a chance to witness Jazzy Jeff in action. “I play very high impact, high energy. In a period of about an hour and a half I may play about 200 records”, he says nonchalantly. “I like to take people on a journey through music, not just hiphop. I play hiphop, I play classics, I play breakbeat, I play house, I’ll play pretty much anything! It’s more about the excitement of the night, and the more energy I get from the crowd, the more I give back. Just tell people to watch out because you’re gonna have a great time!”