H IS TORY
H IS TOR Y
turntablism part 01
CONTENT INTRODUCTION
ORIGINS CULTURE DJ ALBUM
CONTEN T
CONT ENT
HISTORY
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introduction The word turntablist was coined in 1995 by DJ Babu to describe the difference between a DJ who just plays records and one who performs by touching and moving the records, stylus and mixer to manipulate sound. The new term coincided with a resurgence of the art of hiphopstyle DJ-ing in the 1990s. Some turntablist DJs use turntable techniques like beat mixing/ matching, scratching and beat juggling and some turntablists seek to have themselves recognized as traditional musicians capable of interacting and improvising with other performers.
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
Turntablism is the art of manipulating sounds and creating music using direct-drive turntables and a DJ mixer.
“A phonograph in the hands of a ‘hiphop/scratch’ artist who plays a record like an electronic washboard with a phonographic needle as a plectrum, produces sounds which are unique and not reproduced—the record player becomes a musical instrument.” John Oswald
H ISTO RY 8
9
1969
Kool Herc, considered to be the first hip-hop DJ devel-
by playing the break over and over switch-
ops “Cutting Breaks”. Kool Herc adapted his style by
ing from one deck to the other. Hip hop de-
chanting over the instrumental or percussion sections
rived from “hip-hopping” on the turntable.
of the day’s popular songs. Because these breaks were relatively short, he learned to extend them indefinetly by using an audio mixer and two identical records in which he continuously replaced the desired segment. His particular skill, later copied by many others, was to meld the percussion breaks from two identical records
1981
Technics released the original SL-1200 as a hi-fi turntable. Giorgio. Moroder is considered to be the pioneer of prosynthesizer electronic disco music.
Grandmaster Flash’s 1981 single “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” was Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five’s first record to demonstrate hip-hop deejaying skills.
history turntablism
HIS TORY
Early 70’s
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H ISTO RY
Scratch DJ Innovator DJ Qbert gains worldwide attention in the Technics DMC DJ Championships.
The DMC (Disco Music Club) hold its first annual DJ competition.
1991 1987
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HIS TORY
H ISTO RY 12
13
1994
1996
The I.T.F. (International Turntablist Federation) holds its first world championship competition. Showcasing the new era of turntablism, the historic battle at the Rocksteady Reunion between ISP and the X-Men (now called the X-Ecutioners) took place. Qbert gets filmed as a starring role in the movie, “Hang the DJ”, which gets picked up by Miramax and plays in theaters in Europe, Canada, and in the U.S. ISP recorded the classic turntable orchestrated piece, “Invisibl Skratch Piklz Vs. Da Klamz uv Deth”, on vinyl.
Turntable T.V. was born on March 23, 1997 (the day of the Lunar Eclipse) and has now turned into an internationaAl turntablist video magazine featuring the Piklz practicing and hanging out with DJs from all over the world showing off their talents, skills, tips, tricks, and other turntable entertainment.
HIS TORY
1997
DJ Shortkut, DJ Disk, and DJ Qbert form “Tern Tabel Dragunz” and perform at local Hip-Hop events throughout the Bay Area.
SP filmed the educatioAnal and hilarious “Turntable Mechanics Workshop” for Vestax. In this video, skratches were more publicly defined and given names so that turntablists may now share a mutual “skratch language”. Mix Master Mike joins the Beastie Boys in 1998 and brings skratching to the eyes of the mainstream. Qbert receives a lifetime acheivement award from the DMC.
ORIGINS
15 Turntablism originates from Hip-Hop Djing, particu-
But the point that DJs could be true musicians was
larly from “battle” DJ culture. Though Turntablism has a
hammered home.“Chirping” was another scratch devel-
fairly recent history, its roots can be traced to the origina-
oped in the 80’s, still remaining popular with its rapid-fire
tion of Hip-Hop.
cutting sound.
The turntable and Hip-Hop have gone hand-in-hand.
New scratches developed rapidly through the early-mid
Kool Herc (a.k.a. Clive Campbell) helped give birth to
90’s, with new scratches coming on a seemingly daily
Hip-Hop in 1973 when he took two turntables and two
basis. Some influential scratches include the “flare,” devel-
copies of identical records to isolate and loop certain
oped by DJ Flare, the “crab” which was fully-realized in
“breakbeats.” This basic foundation of beat-extending gave
1996 by Q-Bert and Disk, and the “tweak” which has been
B-Boys and MC’s their platform, the seed from which Hip-
utilized to great effect by Mixmaster Mike.
Hop would grow. Along with scratching, the second integral component to Turntablism is beat juggling, which was pioneered
ter Flash and Afrika Bambaata would battle at local dances
by Ste ve D and introduced the DJ community at the
and in parks. Battles at his time, though, were mostly
New Music Seminar (NMS)/Superman Battle for World
about who could crank the most wattage and attract the
Supremacy in 1990.
bigger crowd. But also in 1977, Grand Wizard Theodore would forever
DJ Yoshi from Japan also contributed to beat manipula-
change DJ culture when he invented the “scratch.” While
tion with the introduction of “strobing,” which was
cueing a record back and forth through headphones, Grand
further developed by DJ Shortkut of the Invisbl Skratch
Wizard Theodore heard a funky, rhythmic sound, and
Piklz.
DJing would never be the same Hip-Hop DJ’s were already manipulating tones and While scratching was integral to old-skool Hip-Hop
melodies through cutting and scratching. With the ability
culture, it wasn’t until 1983 that the mainstream became
to create original beat compositions on turntables, DJ’s
clued-in. Legendary Jazz musician Herbie Hancock scored
were truly creating original music, being that music is
a hit using legendary Zulu DJ Grandmixer D.S.T. to
defined as the integration of rhythm and melodic/tonal
scratch on the song “Rockit,” and it wasn’t long that kids
manipulation.
from all over the USA (and world) were ruining needles on their parent’s stereos trying to imitate D.S.T..
origins turntablism
ORIGIN S
As early as 1977, Hip-Hop pioneers such as Grandmas-
ORIGINS
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DJ Andy Williams with Afrika Bambaata introducing his album.
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ORIGIN S
DJ Afrika Bambaata in New York.
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TURNTABLISM DJ BATTLE CULTURE CU LTURE
Turntablism arose primarily from DJ “battle culture.” Battling is a mainstay of both Hip-Hop and Jazz cultures (in Jazz the term is “cutting” or “cutting heads”). In both of these cultures battling has helped push the development of each artform, with each opponent reaching to newer and more innovative heights to show mastery of their craft.
With these shortcomings in mind, large-scale battles like DMC have helped bring much-needed exposure to Turntablists and Hip-Hop DJ’s. “I’ll be the first to admit that DMC is one “You win a battle and of the establishments which have probably get a cheap provided DJ’s like myself a forum plastic jacket and some to display our creativity,” concedes slip mats. While the per- Rob Swift. (Rob Swift, On the Go magazine #15.)
son organizing the battle is walkin’ away with 20 G’s in his pocket, plus the video tape sales.”
DMC, for example, helped introduce Rocksteady DJ’s/FM20 (Q-Bert, Mixmaster Mike, Apollo) DJ battles, like Clark to DJ culture. Rocksteady DJs, now Kent’s DJ Battle for World Invisbl Skratch Piklz, pioneered (Rob Swift, Subculture Supremacy, continued to grow crew routines in the 1992 DMC. magazine, Winter 1996.) With those three DJs simultanethroughout the 80’s and early 90’s. The Disco Mix Club ously scratching and manipulating (DMC) for example held its beats, the results were fully-realized first world DJ battle in 1987 and has continued to turntable compositions. Crews are increasingly hold one of largest DJ battles of its kind. DMC battling each other, such as the historic X-Men vs. however has been criticized for cashing-in on HipInvisbl Skratch Piklz battle in 1996. Hop DJ culture without putting much back in to it.
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In the end, while Turntablism exists on its own merits, Turntablists continue to enter DJ battles. Battling gave Turntablists their initial platform, and the two are still close at hand. Like many other musical instrumentalists, turntablists compete to see who can develop the fastest, most innovative and most creative approaches to their instrument.
The selection of a champion comes from the culmination of battles between turntablists. Battling involves each turntablist performing a routine (A combination of various technical scratches, beat juggles, and other elements, including body tricks) within a limited time period, after which the routine is judged by a panel of experts. The winner is selected based upon score. These organized competitions evolved from actual old school “battles” where DJs challenged each other at parties, and the “judge” was usually the audience, who would indicate their collective will by cheering louder for the DJ they thought performed better. Often, the winner kept the loser’s equipment and/or records.
CULTURE
Nevertheless, with the rise in Turntablism’s prominence, organizations like the International Turntablism Federation (ITF) are seeking to provide a better environment for DJ battles by addressing common complaints and problems found in DJ battles (i.e clueless judges, politics, etc.).
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CU LTURE
Emerged in the mid - 1990s as a way to describe a range of musics centered on figure of the DJ as artis : disco, Hip-Hop, House, Techno, drum ‘ n ‘ bass, and other musical forms. More broadly , it describes the unique musical domain made possible by the culture of recording, a culture in which music and sound circulate as network of recorded entities detached from the specificity of time, place, and authorship, and all available to become the raw material for the DJ’s art. As a set of musical styles, DJ Culture is quintessentially postmodern, emerging in the 1970s with extended disco mix, the studio distortions of dub reggae, and the birth of HipHop. Yet, in the more general sense, its roots lie much deeper in the history of the 20th century modernism. In the early 1920s, Bauhaus sculptor, photographer, and painter Laszlo Moholy - Nagy had already imagined the detournement of the turntable, its transformation form an instrument of musical reproduction into a musical instrument in its own right. In the 1930s, John Cage, Paul Hindemith , and Ernst Toch began to realize Moholy Nagy’s vision. On his earliest gramophone study, Imaginary Landscape, No.1, Cage manipulated variable speed turntable and studio test recordings to produce a ghostly composite of sirens, strummed piano strings, and rumbling percussion. Pierre Schaeffer is surely the godfather of sampling composition.
Working with phonograph disc in the 1940s, Schaeffer’s compositions conssisted entirely of edited bits of found sound. With its rhythmic loops and sharp juxtapositions of train whistles, screeching brakes, and mechanical clatter, Schaeffer’s first musique concrete comprsition Etude aux chemins de fer ( Railroad Sudy ), anticipates HipHop electronic dance music. In the early 1960s, William S.Burroughs became a DJ of the world, using tape manipulation techniques to cut, splice, and layer his own voice and writing. From Schaeffer onwards, DJ Culture has worked with two essential concepts : the cut and the mix. To record is to cut, to seperate the sonic signifer ( the “ sample “) from any original context or meaning so that it might be free to function otherwise. To mix is to reinscribe, to place the floating sample into a new chain of signification. The mix is the postmodern moment, in which the most disparate of sounds can be spliced together and made to flow. It is exemplified by those musics of flow, disco, House, and Techno. But the mix is made posibble by the cut, that modernist moment in which sound is lifted and allowed to become something else, or is fractured so that it trips and strumbles around the beat. Its forms are HipHop ( particularly in its turntablist guise ), dub, drum ‘ n ‘ bass, and contermporary experimentalism by DJs such as Christian Marclay, Philip Jeck, Marina Rosenfeld, and Erik M.
DJ Culture also decribes a new modality of audio history and memory. No longer a figure of linear continuity that, ideally, could be recalled in this titality, musical history becomes a network of moblie segments available ay any moment for inscription and reinscription into new lines, texts, mixes. In short, musical history in no longer an analog scroll but digital and random access.
CULTURE
DJ Culture clearly marks out a fundamentally new culture space. It has altered the very nature of musical production, opened up new channels for the disseminations of music, and activated new modestices and operates on the front lines of culture politics.
DJ CULTURE
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CU LTURE
EVOLUTION TO TURNTABLISM Turntablism involves the use of turntables as instruments. Much like a violinist uses his bow to create various musical effects, the turntablist uses his hands to ‘scratch’ the records. Scratching involves pushing and pulling the records on the turntable to create backwards sections, short stabs, loops and musical bursts. This has its best effect when a mixer is used to cut and fade between the two turntables. Turntablism evolved to have its own terminology and styles, ranging from the ‘baby scratch’, a sharp forward and backwards movement, to the ‘crab scratch’, a complex four finger movement of the fader at the same time as the record is scratched.
Kool Herc
CULTURE
“ I said let me put a couple of these records together, that got breaks in them. Place went berserk.�
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DJ KOOL HERC FATHER OF HIPHOP Kool Herc emigrated to the Bronx in 1967 when
He would dig in crates and look everywhere to find
he was 12 years old. While attending Alfred E. Smith
the perfect break beat for his parties. He didn’t care
High School he spent a lot of time in the weight room.
what type of music, because he only needed a small sec-
That fact coupled with his height spurned the other kids
tion of a song for his purposes.
to call him Hercules.
His first professional DJ job was at the Twilight Zone in 1973. He wanted to get into another place called the
DJ
His first deejay gig was as his sister’s birthday party.
Hevalo, but wasn’t allowed…yet.
It was the start of an industry. 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. The address of Herc’s family
His fame grew. In addition to his break beats, Herc
and the location of the recreation room where he would
also became known as the man with the loudest system
throw many of his first parties as the DJ. Herc became
around. When he decided to hold a party in one of the
aware that although he new which records would keep
parks, it was a crazy event. And a loud one. At this
the crowd moving, he was more interested in the break
timeAfrika Bambaataa and other competing DJ’s began
section of the song. At this point in a song, the vocals
trying to take Herc’s crown. Jazzy Jay of the Zulu
would stop and the beat would just ride for short period.
Nation recalls one momentous meeting between Herc
His desire to capture this moment for a longer period of
and Bam.
time would be a very important one for hip hop. Herc was late setting up and Bam continued to play Herc would purchase two copies of the same record
longer than he should have. Once Herc was set up
and play them on separate turntables next to each other.
he got on the microphone and said “Bambaataa, could
He would play the break beat on one record then throw
you please turn your system down?” Bam’s crew was
it over to the other turntable and play the same part.
pumped and told Bam not to do it.
Doing this over and over, he could rock any house in NY. (Not to mention it being an early form of looping that would be made easier through electronic sampling.)
25 So Herc said louder, “Yo, Bambaataa, turn your system down-down-down.” Bam’s crew started cursing Herc until Herc put the full weight of his system up and said, “Bambaataa-baataa -baataa, TURN YOUR SYSTEM DOWN!” And you couldn’t even hear Bam’s set at all. The Zulu crew tried to turn up the juice but it was no use. Everybody just looked at them like, “You should’ve listened to Kool Herc.” Finally his fame peaked and at last, in 1975, he began working at the Hevalo in the Bronx. He helped coin the phrase b-boy (break boy) and was recently quoted as saying he was “the oldest living b-boy.”
DJ Kool Herc in club at New York.
DJ
As competing DJ’s looked to cut in on the action, Herc would soak the labels off his records so no one could steal his beats.
DJ
“ I have a collector gene in my blood.”
DJ Shadow
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DJ shadow vinyl resurrectionist
Josh “Shadow” Davis had already been experimenting with making beats and breaks on a four-track recorder while he was in high school in the Nor-Cal college town of Davis, but it was during university that he co-founded his own Solesides label as an outlet for his original tracks. Hooking up with Davis’ few b-boys (including eventual Solesides artists Blackalicious and Lyrics Born) through the college radio station,
Shadow began releasing the Hip-Hop Reconstruction mix tapes in 1991, eventually catching the attention of The Source magazine and Dave Funkenklein. Shadow was featured in the magazine’s “Unsigned Hype” column in 1991, and Klein signed him to a production deal with Hollywood BASIC records. Concurrently, Shadow provided beats and scratches for Bay Area rapper Paris and was featured on his second album. In 1993, Shadow pressed his 17-minute beat-head symphony “Entropy.” His tracks spread widely through the DJ-strong hip-hop underground, eventually reaching James Lavelle of Mo’ Wax.
DJ
DJ Shadow (born Josh Davis) is widely credited as a key figure in developing the experimental instrumental hip-hop style associated with the London-based Mo’ Wax label. Inspired by hip-hop’s early years, he then grew to absorb the heyday of crews like Eric B. & Rakim, Ultramagnetic MCs, and Public Enemy; groups which prominently featured DJs in their ranks.
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DJ
Shadow’s first full-length, “Endtroducing…”, was released on the label in late 1996 to immense critical acclaim in Britain and America. “Preemptive Strike,” a compilation of early singles, followed in early 1998. Later that year, Shadow produced tracks for the debut album by U.N.K.L.E., a longtime Mo’ Wax production team that gained superstar guests including Thom Yorke (of Radiohead), Richard Ashcroft (of the Verve), Mike D (of the Beastie Boys), and others. His next project came in 1999, with the transformation of Solesides into a new label, Quannum Projects. Nearly six years after his debut production album, the proper follow-up, “The Private Press,” was released in June 2002. The following year Shadow released a mix album, “Diminishing Returns,” and in 2004 he released a live album and DVD, “Live! In Tune and on Time.” In 2006 he released another long awaited full-length album “The Outsider,” which featured rising Bay Area Hyphy rappers including Keak Da Sneak and E-40. “The Outsider” also featured a single with Q-Tip (of A Tribe Called Quest), which led to Shadow’s first appearance on The Late Show with David Letterman.
Between 2007 and 2009 Shadow released three volumes of “The 4-Track Era Collection,” a series of his earliest recordings. The 4-Track Era project was exclusively available through his web store, ShopDjShadow.com. In the midst of all of these solo projects, DJ Shadow collaborated with fellow hip-hop DJ Cut Chemist. Together they created a series of mixes that fused soul, funk, and rock, in the framework of a cohesive concept involving using only 45 rpm records (7 inches). These mixes include Brainfreeze, Product Placement, and The Hard Sell, which would be debuted at the Hollywood Bowl. Shadow’s website relaunched in August 2009, enabling him to sell digital downloads direct to his fans through his own autonomous storefront. 2009 also saw the announcement of Shadow’s involvement with DJ Hero, an Activision video game which features Shadow as a playable character within the game. Shadow also contributed several mixes to the game.
29 2012 saw a shift in Shadow’s live persona…at the request of trendsetting LA club night Low End Theory, he returned to playing traditional, contemporary DJ sets, often eschewing his own music for that of peers. The hard-hitting sets Shadow played coexisted with the rise of trap, juke, and the fledgling beat scene, catching the ear of large-scale EDM icons such as Diplo and Bassnectar, with whom Shadow performed. An incident at a Miami superclub, in which Shadow refused to temper his set to suit management, was captured on video and went viral, prompting a debate about the autonomy of DJs and the music they play. This only seemed to heighten demand for Shadow as 2013 reportedly saw him play over 100 shows. Also in 2013, Shadow lent a hand to video game franchise Grand Theft Auto V, compiling and arranging elements of the soundtrack. Notable was his return to production, crafting a remix for Machinedrum, (whom Shadow performed with at Fabric in London and Amsterdam) and ‘70s Dutch progressive band Supersister, who Shadow had previously sampled. In 2014, Shadow toured Australia and performed at SXSW for Vice. According to his Twitter account, Shadow plans to spend time in the studio and continue to perform his contemporary DJ sets. He has indicated that a new, “very different” type of tour is planned for the Fall of 2014.
DJ
Pitchfork Music Festival: DJ Shadow, Fleet Foxes
2010 and 2011 saw a tour throughout Europe and North America entitled “Live From The Shadowsphere.” Hailed for its visual innovations, the tour was cited by Beatport as one of the top 10 DJ shows of all time, and was capped off by two memorable performances at the Coachella Festival. In 2011, DJ Shadow released “The Less You Know, The Better,” purportedly his last full-length album to prominently feature samples. 2012 included “Total Breakdown, Hidden Transmissions From The MPC Era (1992-1996),” an archival project; and “Reconstructed: The Best of DJ Shadow,” a greatest hits album.
DJ
“ If I take the most climactics part of these records and string’em together, on time, back to back to back ...”
Grandmaster Flash
There are lots of stories about the birth of jazz and the beginning of rock n’ roll, but hip-hop has founding fathers: one of them is DJ Grandmaster Flash. In the early 70’s Joseph Saddler was living in the South Bronx and studying electrical engineering. However, Saddler, a native of the Bronx, had a much The rock n’ roll hall of deeper passion for music; he fame also recognized had been experimenting with Flash with an honor no his father’s vinyl since he was one else in hip hop has an toddler. His knowledge of audio equipment led him to received: Grandmaster an idea that would revoluFlash and the Furious Five tionize the way he Played became the first hip hop music: the turntable would group ever inducted into become his instrument.
the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2007. Flash is the first DJ to ever receive that honor.
The career of DJ Grandmaster Flash began in the Bronx with neighborhood block parties that essentially were the start of what would become a global phenominon — the dawn of a musical genre. He was the first DJ to physically lay his hands on the vinyl and manipulate it in a backward, forward or counterclockwise motion, when most DJs simply handled the record by the edges, put down the tone arm, and let it play. Those DJs let the tone arm guide their music, but Flash marked up the body of the vinyl with crayon, fluorescent pen, and grease pencil—and those markings became his compass. He invented the Quick Mix Theory, which included techniques such as the double-back, back-door, back-spin, and phasing. This allowed a DJ to make music by touching the record and gauging its revolutions to make his own beat and his own music. Flash’s template grew to include cuttin’, which, in turn, spawned scratching, transforming, the Clock Theory and the like. He laid the groundwork for everything a DJ can do with a record today, other than just letting it play. What we call a DJ today is a role that Flash invented.
DJ
grandmaster flash scientist of the mix
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DJ
By the end of the 70s, Flash had started another trend that became a hallmark around the world: emcees followed flash to the various parts and parties to rap/emcee over his beats. Before long, he started his own group, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Their reputation grew up around the way the group traded off and blended their lyrics with Flash’s unrivaled skills as a DJ and his acrobatic performances—spinning and cutting vinyl with his fingers, toes, elbows, and any object at hand. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five went Platinum with their single, “The Message.” Meanwhile, the single “The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel” introduced DJing to a larger listening audience than it had ever known before; it became the first DJ composition to be recorded by a DJ. The group’s fame continued to grow with “Superappin,” “Freedom,” “Larry’s Dance Theme,” and “You Know What Time It Is.” Punk and new wave fans were introduced to Flash through Blondie, who immortalized him in her hit, “Rapture.” By the time the 90s rolled around, Flash was hand picked by Chris Rock to spend five years as the music director for his groundbreaking HBO series, The Chris Rock Show. More recently, Flash has played for audiences as large as the Super Bowl and as elite as Queen Elizabeth II of Great Britain. On top of his induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Flash has been the recipient of many awards, including VH1 Hip Hop Honors; The Icon Award from BET in honor of his contribution to hip hop as a DJ; The Lifetime Achievement Award from the RIAA; and Bill Gates’ Vanguard Award. Although Flash has been in the business for many years, he shows no sign of slowing down: this coming year promise, a new album, and he will began his descent from the analog vinyl world of DJing to enter the digital world of DJing. His DJ application of choice is “Traktor Scratch” by Native Instruments.
Grandmaster Flash’s memoirs, The Adventures of Grandmaster Flash – My Life My Beats was released in bookstores worldwide. The book is penned by David Ritz, author of both Marvin Gaye’s and Ray Charles’ biographies. In this extraordinary book, Grandmaster Flash sets down his musical history, sharing for the first time his personal and difficult life story—along with no small amount of wisdom and experience.
The Smithsonian Museum of American History in honor of Black History Month has opened its exhibit RECOGNIZE! Hip Hop and Contemporary Portraiture that Grandmaster Flash along with other hip hop artist such as LL Cool J, Erykah Badu and Common will be featured. In closing, grandmaster flash continues to tour the world, in festivals, clubs and venues. He now has his eyes and ears on this new craze-dance music,. which he now adds to his legendary repertoire.
DJ
DJ Grandmaster Flash performance at nightclub, New York.
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DJ
“ I had a vision. I said we just got to make this move.�
Afrika Bambaataa
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afrika bambaataa zulu king of the bronx
Bambaataa became a popular DJ on the nascent South Bronx rap scene, where his encyclopedic knowledge of funk grooves earned him the nickname “Master of Records.” He formed two rap crews: the Jazzy 5 (with MCs Ice, Mr. Freeze, Master D.E.E., and AJ Les) and Soulsonic Force (Mr. Biggs [Ellis Williams], Pow Wow [Robert Darrell Allen], and Emcee G.L.O.B.E. [John B. Miller]). Each made its debut 12-inch single in 1980: Jazzy 5’s “Jazzy Sensation” and Soulsonic Force’s “Zulu Nation Throwdown,” both classic proto-hip-hop party anthems, with round-robin rapping backed by live bands playing slinky funk vamps.
In 1982 Bambaataa and Soulsonic Force dropped the live band to go high-tech. Producer Arthur Baker (who had worked on “Jazzy Sensation”) and synthesizer player John Robie provided electronic “beat-box” rhythm and an eerie keyboard hook modeled on “TransEurope Express” by Kraftwerk, whose robotic trance music had long been popular with inner-city youth. The result was “Planet Rock,” a pop hit (#48, 1982) that went gold and spawned an entire school of “electro-boogie” rap and dance music.
DJ
Afrika Bambaataa was an important rap-music pioneer who, much like Grandmaster Flash, became a forgotten elder statesman as rap evolved. Bambaataa, who took his name (which means “affectionate leader”) from a movie about Zulu warriors, quit the notorious Black Spades street gang in the mid-’70s and formed Zulu Nation, a music-oriented “youth organization.” Among the members who became minor rap luminaries were DJs Red Alert, Jazzy Jay, and Whiz Kid, as well as Afrika Islam, who went on to work with Ice-T.
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DJ
While Bambaataa continued to exert some influence on rap music, “Planet Rock” turned out to be his only hit. Bambaataa’s groundbreaking tracks that failed to chart include 1982’s “Looking for the Perfect Beat” (sampled in Duice’s 1993 rap-dance hit “Dazzey Duks” [#12]); 1983’s “Renegades of Funk” (on which G.L.O.B.E. pioneered the rapid-fire “poppin’” style of rap later popularized by Big Daddy Kane and Das EFX); 1984’s “World Destruction” by Time Zone, a rap-rock fusion unit featuring Bambaataa, ex–Sex Pistol John Lydon, and bassist/producer Bill Laswell; and 1984’s “Unity,” which Bambaataa recorded with rap forebear James Brown.
The Light featured guests George Clinton, Sly and Robbie, Boy George, and UB40. Decade of Darkness collected dance-oriented tracks produced for an Italian label. Bambaataa formed his own label to release the Time Zone compilation. The rise of “turntablism” as its own subgenre and the ratification of “electronica” as an industry-certified trend in the late ‘90s brought Bambaataa renewed recognition well beyond the hip-hop community. Each year brings a new batch of remixes on multiple dance and import labels, and updates of his signature hit. Lost Generation sports “Planet Rock ‘96,” and the millennium would not have been complete without the release of “Planet Rock 2000.”
Even Bambaataa’s and Soulsonic Force’s appearance in the 1984 rap movie Beat Street brought problems: Emcee G.L.O.B.E. and Pow Wow were arrested for their roles in a 1979 Manhattan bank holdup, when a policeman watching the movie recognized Pow Wow from the bank surveillance video. G.L.O.B.E. and Pow Wow were later put on probation and received community service sentences for convictions on conspiracy to commit bank robbery.Bambaataa has remained active if not commercially successful. DJ Afrika Bambaataa at Wax Poetic.
“ I grew up wanting to go beyond the barriers of Detroit� DJ
Jeff Mills
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jeff mills
DJ
Detroit wizard Jeff Mills is considered the most brilliant DJ and producer of techno in the World. He is the most reconized representative figure of the Detroit Techno, where he began his career as a DJ on the WDRQ radio in 1984. He has created with “Mad Mike Banks” the collective “Underground Resistance”, which became a reference in the electro sphere. In 1992, Jeff Mills created his own label in Chicago :with “Axis”, he could keep his artistic independence and produce his own timeless electronic music compositions, inspired of science fiction. Jeff Mills’ artistic career goes much further than techno music. For over a decade, he’s been transcending disciplines with a large number of collaborations in contemporary art. Interested in cinema and attracted by images, Jeff Mills started working, in 2000, on the fusion of image and sound. In 2000, he created and presented at the Centre Pompidou a new sound track for the film “Metropolis” by Fritz Lang. A year after, he created “Mono”, an installation inspired by the movie “2001, a Space Odyssey”, by Stanley Kubrick. In 2004, Jeff Mills produced the DVD “Exhibitionist” which presents DJ sets filmed from various angles (from front, top and side).
At that same period, he acquired a new tool, the DVJ-X which allowed him to manipulate image and sound together paving the way into the Art World. In 2005, Jeff Mills made, for MK2, a new sound track for the silent movie “Three Ages” by Buster Keaton, and created a serie of 6 video art works presented in Paris at the Galerie Georges-Philippe et Nathalie Vallois and at the « rendez-vous vidéo » of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen.
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In 2007, he was invited by the movie director Claire Denis to create the sound environment of the exhibition « Diaspora » at the musée du quai Branly in Paris.. That same year, Jeff Mills received the title of « Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres» from the French ministry of Culture. In 2008, Jeff Mills was commissioned to create a comtemporary installation for 100 Year Anniversary of the Futurist Manifesto at the Pompidou Center. At the Sonar Festival in Barcelona, Jeff Mills and « Mad Mike Banks » were together again for an historical performance called « X-102, Rediscovers the Rings of Saturn », mixing video and music.
DJ
Jeff Mills continued this work period with a production on Josephine Baker, presented during the FIAC 2005 in the Grand Palais. On July 2nd 2005, Jeff Mills played together with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Montpellier, for the 20th anniversary of the Pont du Gard’s inclusion in the world heritage list by UNESCO. Together with the orchestra, Jeff Mills performed his own compositions, orchestrated by Thomas Roussel for this occasion.
ALBUM
ADVANTURE ON THE WHEELS OF STEEL Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five
Adventures on the Wheels of Steel is a 3CD compilation album by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Grandmaster Melle Mel. It was released in 1999 on the Castle Music label and is a boxed set containing three CDs in slimline jewel cases together with a fold out insert. This set contains a mixture of tracks by the various incarnations of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five including their debut Super Rappin’ No 1 and Grandmaster Melle Mel. Several errors are present with regards to the correct artist. Two previously unreleased tracks are included. The foldout booklet repeats the essay by Lewis Dene (Blues & Soul Magazine) from October 1997 that originally appeared on the album The Greatest Mixes.
ALBUM
give the dj a break Dynamix Two
Miami's David Noller and Scott Weiser, aka Dynamix II, are among a very few of the first wave of American electro and bass music artists to have successfully translated their old-school credentials into new-school relevance. The producers behind classic roof-raisers "Bass Generator," "Ignition," and "Just Give the DJ a Break," Noller and Weiser carved out a signature niche in early electro with a kitchen-sink-style megamix approach, amplifying electro's energy level, deepening the low-end, and playing up its robotic themes with ample vocoded vocals and squirty electronics. The group formed in 1985 after Noller, a local DJ who had recently started making tracks, met Weiser and the two began building a studio together. Noller was signed to Bass Station records at the time, and Dynamix appeared through a handful of other Miami labels before the pair set up their eponymous imprint in 1988. Although mostly of only local interest beginning in the late '80s, when electro died out in favor of rap, the group got a big boost nearly a decade later, when U.K.-based label Rephlex — owned by Richard James, aka Aphex Twin — reissued Electro Megamix: 1985-Present, an all-in-one-place collection of their biggest tunes from over the years, and originally released on the Joey Boy label in 1997.
A stream of new material has appeared since then, including "We Are Your Future" and "The Plastic Men," both through Joey Boy. A collaboration with British producer Ian Loveday, aka Eon, also appeared through Wax Trax/TVT in 1999. Additionally, Dynamix II have remixed fellow Florida group Rabbit in the Moon and Expansion Union. Most of their LPs and singles from throughout the years remained in print.
By Zyingt