DJ Stylus – The Vibe Conductor

A bourgie around-the-way girl intellectual friend who retains a taste for the ‘hood and overthinks music as much as I do passed on an essay deconstructing the popularity of Rick Ross’ “B.M.F. (Blowing Money Fast)” among those who should know better. “But it’s just good, ignorant Negroidian fun,” my friend countered. I can relate, as I’m prone to enjoy a brilliant robbery anthem from time to time, even though I’m no fan of actual robberies. Then I came across an amusing B.M.F. YouTube spoof.

The only thing the original and the parody have in common is they underscored how puzzled I am about the song’s huge appeal.

Yes, I know that you know that I’m no Rozay fan. But in order to slow my descent into fogey-dom, I did give Teflon Don a thorough listen after patently ignoring Rawse’s entire ascent to the top of the rap game. And you know what? There are actually some certified joints. B.M.F. just isn’t one of them.

“Super High” is textbook drop-top music that sounds like DJ Quik at the top of his powers with Dr. Dre’s Chronic era session personnel. “No. 1″ is what club bangers used to be before the term was rendered toothless by snap music’s anemic spawn. “Maybach Music 3″ is sweepingly cinematic and “Free Mason” displays some conceptual flair. There is occasional decent rapping to be found in all of these songs.

But B.M.F? A tedious dirge at best. The cheesy orchestral synth patch and 808 combo is little more than a tortured droning, but the trend shows no sign of stopping. The verses bore after one rotation. And frankly, after 20 years of rappers adopting the names of every gangster and despot from Pablo Escobar to The Taliban and even Al Qaeda, I think the super criminal nickname swag can be laid to rest.

And the tempo? Can hip-hop get any slower in the 21st century? We’ll have to start measuring it not in BPM’s (beats per minute) but in SPB’s (syllables per bar). I think B.M.F. may average a good 12 SPB at most. Bamma might as well just be doing spoken word. More importantly, how the fuck do you dance to this shit? Would dougie-ing be appropriate?

Maybe I’m just old and don’t understand modern conspicuous consumption, fantasy rap. The simplest explanation is usually the most likely, even though I still love me some conspicuous consumption, fantasy rap.

Another entry in an ongoing series about the realities, challenges and tactics of spinning records in public for pay.

Inspired by a recent check-in on the folks over at Can You Play That One Song, I’ve finally decided to share a few of the missives that patrons have handed to me that didn’t end up jettisoned back at their foreheads in a wadded up ball.

As far as irksome behaviors go, letter writing is far less problematic then singing at me, yelling out track numbers or waving a cell phone in my face. It still exposes some curious thought patterns that we can begin exploring in this space. There are so many layered assumptions and entitlement issues. Let us begin.

Is this chronological or priority order? I guess they were doing me a favor by giving me some options to choose from and opening with a polite salutation. I could have made their heads explode if I played a mash-up of all of these. I’m sure one exists.

A humble approach and a quality pick? Rare indeed so take heed on how NOT to make me hate you.

I’m clearly not hip enough to know what this is. This person was clearly pleased with themselves.

I have no idea what this even means. I’m going to assume the emoticon represents sarcasm.

This must have had no other purpose than to elicit a chuckle. Well played.

I saved the best for last. I love the exaggerated greeting that attempts to mitigate the retardery of what follows. I don’t know who’s going around telling folks that DJs really care about your birthday but you might want to let that one go, unless you’re cutting checks. And there will never be Drake’s “Fancy” at an underground classics party that I’M playing. Not even if a tiddy pops out of your leopard print.

Stay tuned for more of these to come…

Another entry in an ongoing series about the realities, challenges and tactics of spinning records in public for pay.

Party people of good taste and mature bearing, this is really important.

There are douchebags among us. (I can hear a chorus of “No shit!” echoing through cyberspace)

You know who I’m talking about:

- They can’t hold their liquor.
- They wear sunglasses in the club.
- They can’t dance without violating all western norms of personal space.
- They badger and often insult the DJ with inane requests.
- They think they can command the DJ because it’s their birthday, they’re wearing a maiden douche-crown (aka “bachelorette veil”) or got their tiddies out.
- They have an urban safari mentality regarding hot spots. They’re scared to go to these places until the folk invested in the scene have turned them into something with a buzz then they drive from far away to overrun these places on weekends.
- They won’t dance to anything that’s not on the radio… at least until they’re drunk.

[can you spot the douches?]

What I’m telling you is… we need these people. They are an important part of the social ecosystem.

Well, I need these people. And other DJs like myself need them.

There are some DJs that play in a different league. They can play deep, progressive, creative music without catering to popular trends. Huge crowds of people will come see them, they never have to compromise and they get paid well. These are your Rich Medinas, your Louie Vegas, your DJ Spinnas, etc.

I’m not one of those DJs and most of your favorite local music obsessives that rock your bodies on a regular basis are not either. We are blue collar and we are in the trenches. We have pro skills but varying paydays. We’ve paid dues for years, even decades. We do this for the love of music and sharing it with others. We do not have the luxury of always having a full room of like-minded folk who trust us 100% to be the artists that we are.

So why do we need douchebags? Because they spend money. They spend lots of money. This is what club owners care about. This helps us get paid, or at least get more gigs and stay off the ho stroll.

[these bammas are probably also douchebags. two related concepts.]

And frankly, with the exception of a core group of you whom I love dearly (you know who you are), a lot of you with progressive tastes are fickle. You don’t buy drinks. You don’t buy music. You’re always texting someone to get on a list. If we haven’t hung out and kicked it or at least spoken, then I don’t hear from you until I have a major gig, you know you’re going straight to voicemail with that “so what’s up with guestlist?” madness. I will not call you back. Now you don’t have to ask why. Some of you do this while I’m in the middle of dj’ing. You are not helping the cause.

But for the rest of you, the people that inspire me to rock with finesse and who are steadfast in your support of real DJs, I need you to increase your douchebag tolerance. I KNOW this is a lot to ask, but it should be easier when you consider the mathematical and psychological aspects.

Douchebags are followers. Some desperately want to NOT be douchebags, at least subconsciously. These precious few can be saved! Some of them just don’t know any better. They’re compelled to follow the social cues of cool folk, but this only works when the MATH is right. If the douchebags greatly outnumber non-douches, they run amok. They’ll step on your feet and spill beer everywhere while doing the limbo in the middle of the club. They’ll come up behind the ladies and grind on their behinds without introducing themselves first. But in my scientific observations, it only takes 1/4 to 1/3 of a room’s population to be composed of cool folk in order for the energy to shift in our favor.

When there’s a nucleus of people on the dancefloor who dance well and express excitement and knowledge about the music being played, others naturally gravitate to them. The socially afflicted want to be part of the “in” crowd. They want to have as much fun as the cool people are having. This is what we call the “Party People In a Can” science. Use this to your advantage. It would help me out a lot, otherwise I’m stuck playing shit songs to drunk assholes until 3 a.m.

I’d like to get paid AND enjoy playing music. I’d like to have more opportunities to play good music for you in nice spaces. Until I can break through the popularity barrier, we must tolerate douchebags for this to happen.

Hard drive failure.

Laptop failure.

Theft.

Ever happened to you right before a gig?

Just a few short years ago it wasn’t uncommon to lose record boxes on flights. That’s a soul killing ordeal. Remember those check-in battles to carry your vinyl as a carry-on? Remember when you’d lose that battle and damn near have a heart attack waiting for your flight case to emerge at baggage claim? Now that most of us are partially or all digital, the convenience of our current tools sometimes makes us forget that tragedy can still strike.

I’ve read that A-Trak tours with two laptops. That isn’t practical for me, but I do have my music drive mirrored on an external that I bring to every gig.

But what if my laptop AND external drive fail? What if your main AND backup laptop get swiped?

Actually, before you proceed, you MUST read A-Trak’s account of one of the most confounding EPIC FAILS that any DJ could suffer, including a stack of dead Lacie drives. I hope no one is still under that illusion that Mac users are immune to this sort of suffering.

I don’t tour as much as many of my peers, but if I did, I’d look into online backup services. Imagine being on the other side of the world and your whole gig bag gets stolen. You can download a full clone of your hard drive onto a new machine and be up and running again quickly.

DJ Tech Tools has a nice roundup of these services with a helpful summary of all their features.

The comments in that article are even more informative. There are many different approaches to emergency proofing your data.

Of course, we all have multiple backups at home, right? RIGHT?!? They’re just no good to you on the road in an emergency.

What disaster avoidance schemes do you all have? There’s no way that any of us should have our asses hanging in the wind due to computer failure. We just have to prepare in advance and not be lazy.

I played back-to-back classic hip-hop parties this past weekend. I teamed up with two of my favorite DJ colleagues in DC, we had a blast and smashed on both nights but the crowds couldn’t have been more different. One crowd was full of serious heads who got more excited the deeper we went in the mix. The other crowd was more diverse, significantly younger, and only really moved by the same hits that everyone knows. One party-goer described my set from that night as “hybrid house jazzy hip hop.” Pete Rock in particular got a thumbs down and I double-checked the track list for house music but couldn’t find any.

I was reminded that when it comes to hip-hop these days, most people have no idea what the fuck they’re talking about.

Not exactly breaking news, I know.

When I was younger and wore hip-hop like a shield of identity, I’d be quick to check you on hip-hop dogma, then I’d strike a b-boy pose. Now that I’m getting older, I’ve started to feel like something was wrong with me. Like I’m the fuddy-duddy who refuses to change with the times. Talking to folks, reading these websites and being in the DJ booth trenches with my comrades are making me realize it’s not me.

This isn’t about people showing up to The Main Ingredient and requesting Gucci Mane with a straight face. The folks in that alternate dimension who think the world revolves around “swag”, tattoos and Patron are a separate discussion and might as well be on another planet. I’m talking about the folks who ride for hip-hop as hard as I used to, except their zeal is fueled by ignorance.

Hip-hop raised me and molded me but on my journey as a DJ and creative soul, I’m always adding new sounds, styles and genres to my portfolio of experience. Ultimately I’m a music person. I always seek to paint from an ever widening palette whether I’m spinning records or making them. I no longer identify myself as hip-hop, pretty much because no matter what I do, it’ll always BE hip-hop. It’s a lens that shapes my perception outside of my conscious awareness. It’s my internal rhythm. It’s not something that I have to proclaim or debate. It’s something I’ve lived so long that it’s like breathing, yet it’s still one dimension among many that I can access when expressing myself musically.

You don’t have to have the same experience in order to love hip-hop. You don’t have to spend 20 years and tens of thousands of dollars collecting records. You don’t have make a pilgrimage to the Bronx or perfect a six-step. I understand being zealous about hip-hop. The difference between my experience and what I’m seeing today is the lack of humility about what you DON’T know.

For instance. I love jazz. I started learning about it in high school. I’ve been to a lot of shows and collected a lot of music. I’ve even performed with jazz musicians. But I’d never critique an expert jazz musician without knowing what I was talking about backwards and forwards. So out of all the assholes that regularly give us grief in the DJ booth, why are the most rabid ones almost always on some hip-hop related bullshit?

These days people have a surface grasp of hip-hop combined with a warped sense of entitlement. And there’s a significant thirst for validation involved too. I don’t know if it’s really about the music or the times we live in. The latter is influential, because there seems to be a correlation between talking loud and saying nothing about hip-hop and the ease with which people feel comfortable spouting off on the internet. But I focus on the music because that’s where I’m most engaged.

What is it about hip-hop makes those with the least to say speak loudest? Why are you too lazy to care about anything beyond the same 20 records that we’ve caning to death for 20 years? Maybe it’s because no one listens to albums anymore. I thought I no longer cared but it still gets to me sometimes.

[photos: Vix, Mezzanine SF]

A little over a week ago I checked out Wanda Sykes filming her new HBO special at Warner Theatre. Other than nearly laughing myself into urinary incontinence, I was struck by the strong parallels between the crafts of dj’ing and standup.

My observations:

Timing

This is the defining skill of every good comic. The difference between a huge laugh and the sound of crickets can be measured in micro-beats. And so it is with the DJ. Drop a record a hair’s breadth off of the “one” and your dancefloor hiccups (at best) or you lose all of your momentum and everyone stops to stare at you (at worst). Nail the right transition on beat and everyone goes apeshit.

Narrative, flow and pacing

A comic’s jokes are like characters in a story. Sometimes those jokes are mini tales of their own that are woven together into a grand narrative by linking together common strands. A real DJ always tells a story on the decks. You should be able to follow a narrative that includes setting, plot twists and climaxes. Individual songs become building blocks in a discernible audio journey with all the characteristics of a well written novel.

The role of the opener

A night at a show or on the dancefloor follows an energy arc with a beginning, middle and end. A comic or DJ opening for a headliner is tasked with getting the room warmed up and prepped for peak time energy. Go too hard and the crowd will run out of steam prematurely. Don’t come with it and the crowd sees you as the enemy delaying them from enjoying the headliner. Strike the right balance and everyone wins, especially the opener who earns new fans and more gigs.

The tightrope walk

It’s sooo easy to go from killing to being killed. The crowd loves you until they hate you, although comics have more leeway to dispatch hecklers. The flipside is that it all comes together when the dj/comic builds a relationship with the audience. There’s a tipping point in the evening where trust is established. Once that point is reached, the comic or the dj can really go in, which builds more good vibes in the crowd, and a feedback loop of positive energy is created.

You’re all alone

It’s just you on stage with a microphone, just as the dj commands the decks alone. Some dj booths are set further away from the dancefloor so you’re less accessible but still, all eyes are on you. It’s a position that’s simultaneously powerful and precarious. When you as one individual can command a whole room, club, hall or arena’s emotions, it’s a unique rush that you can’t stop chasing once you’ve experienced it.

Stay tuned for other installments in this series such as:

DJ’ing is like video editing.
DJ’ing is like distance running.
DJ’ing is like sex.
DJ’ing is like being RNC chairman Michael Steele (bad nights can be really bad.)

Not just a perfectly crafted and executed song, but a real sentiment for all of us born in the ’70s. Even as we watched him deteriorate before our eyes – physically and spiritually – we just figured one day he’d turn into a swirl of dust and vanish like in the vid for “Remember The Time.”

I don’t yet have the words but my virtual and real worlds are populated with those who speak for me.

Michael Jackson And The Five Stages of Grief – Thembi

My Hero Ain’t Molest Them Bitch Ass Kids: Phonte’s teary-eyed tribute to The King – Phonte Coleman

For Michael – Bassey Ikpi

In Memoriam Part 2: Michael Jackson – Long Live The King – Scorpeze of Windimoto

MJ R.I.P. – Hua Hsu, The Atlantic

Gone Too Soon – nOva, SoulBounce.com

I Can’t Help It – Harlem, SoulBounce.com

We Love You, Michael, Always. – Ill Mami, SoulBounce.com

All I could do yesterday when I finally broke away from the Twitter wake was head to the designated gathering spot for times when things of black import go down (U Street) and try to process with friends.

Shortly after, the real obsession began. I greeted the sun this morning without sleep, having spent the entire night whipping my Michael Jackson discography into shape. I did the same for James Brown, for Dilla. As we are essentially musical evangelists, it’s a DJ’s sacred duty in times like these to canonize our musical heroes output and feed it back to the faithful in a way that maximizes the boost to the spirit.

We’re going to be ministering to the flock for a long time on this one. Please do it with verve, creativity and an avoidance of cliche. So many of our icons are plagued by personal demons, the way to balance it out is to expose as much of the beauty as possible. And since Michael’s catalog is so deep, there’s epic beauty beyond the obvious hits.

I’ll have to return to this, it’s just too much to absorb now. Download these, then holla at me and the homie Jahsonic at Marvin on Monday.

6/25/09 – Soul Controllers & LSP remember the King of Pop on Decipher
(89.3 FM WPFW, Washington DC)

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Mos Def is about to bust us all upside our collective nuggets with this new record. Quiet Dog is already banoodles. Now there’s this joint:

As soon as the first stanktastic bar kicked in, I bugged, and not just because Dante was rhyming like Ali hitting the speed bag in his prime. This bamma pulled a Ghostface and straight rhymed over a whole existing song! One of my favorite songs by a group I first got hip to on my trip to Brazil last year. Vinyl heads on the internets were already on the case, digging up the original Banda Black Rio joint for comparison.

I would have known about this if I actually went to Mos Def shows because he’s been rocking this joint live for like the past five months. At this point, I wouldn’t be mad if he did a whole album rhyming over funky, contrapuntal jazz fusion classics. Some Return to Forever maybe? Weather Report? Head Hunters! Let’s go!

But before I get carried away, let’s take a moment to trace the origins of a tune that Mos also discovered (and kirked out over) on a trip to Brazil.

“Casa Forte” was originally written and recorded by Edú Lobo for his North American debut Sergio Mendes Presents Edú Lobo. Lobo was already pushing the development of Musica Popular Brasileira after building on the work of Jobim and Gilberto but despite his important contributions to bossa nova, his acoustic rendering of “Casa Forte” takes a back seat to the many cover versions of what is now a standard.

A few of my favorites:

Sergio Mendes gives it a pretty straight interpretation, but with the trademark vocal style of Brasil ‘66. (listen / buy)

Legendary vocalist Flora Purim’s take is less pretty and a bit psychedelic. She gives the tune a wild edge. (listen / buy)

Ellis Regina lends a slightly mournful feel to her version and her rhythm section sounds like they’d also been playing some bop over the course of the recording session. (listen / buy)

Madlib teamed up with original Azymuth drummer Ivan “Mamão” Conti for the Jackson Conti project. Their rendition of “Casa Forte” puts the samba percussion up front and features what sounds like a melodica running through a wah pedal carrying the main melody of the tune. Probably Madlib’s idea. While he was high. Loving the keyboard work on this. (listen / buy)

And finally, DMV beat scientist Nick Tha 1da snuck in a version of “Casa Forte” on his Bossa Bang! mixtape last year. Since it’s a seamless combination of vinyl finds and re-worked productions, I’ve had the damnedest time ID’ing the origin*. Maybe I’ll ask him next time I see him. I ain’t too proud to train-spot. Click the cover above to download the whole project.

Update:
*Nick came through! Crate-diggers never reveal their secrets, but I guess he was feeling generous that day. Dig up a copy of this record and you’ll find another unique Casa Forte to add to your collection.

The title quote comes from a pretty ill interview with Roctakon over at the Turntable Lab blog. Reading it got me reflecting on the choices I’ve made in my DJ career, the state of the art of dj’ing and the environments and markets in which we practice this craft.

But first, some back story.

I remember Roctakon from the ’90s in DC, when he was working at 12-Inch Dance Records, battling with the O.G. Goonies crew and dropping mix cd’s. All of us had tight backpack straps and lived to juggle doubles of pretty much anything that was recorded in D&D Studios. Dirty Hands was still DJ Static, The Trooperz were repping in DMC battles at the old Black Cat and State of the Union was in its prime. Eventually Rocktakon moved on to Turntable Lab in NYC, downplayed the scratch nerdery and started building his name on the club circuit. Turntable Lab got its weight up as a brand and business and started transitioning from its turntablism niche into a driver of hipster DJ culture.

I was also expanding beyond my purely underground hip-hop background but in a different direction – away from the popular trends towards deeper soul, house, electronica, funk, world music and the like. I gave up my big room mainstream club aspirations as other peers of mine dominated that lane just as the music was becoming increasingly unbearable.

So considering that I come from the same scene (that now feels like centuries ago) but went in an entirely different and non-lucrative direction, Roctakon’s screed is a pretty fascinating assessment of a world that I don’t really encounter but check in on occasionally.

It’s stuff that I know but I’m not living day to day.

On the worst place to dj:

I’d say the current manifestation of bottle service clubs in NY is one of the worst scenes ever. I mean its dead but nobody will admit it, they just try and keep it going, its like going to dj a funeral, but nobody will look at the body. 1Oak will stay around and so will the B&T spots but the rest of ny bottle service will die in the next year or so and i say good riddance.

On life as a touring club dj:

Its lowest common denominator shit like you just end up playing Move Bitch and Party Up by DMX its miserable..

Yea some football player counted 9 hundred dollar bills onto my laptop cause i was not playing the Plies song he wanted quick enough…

This is a popularity contest and don’t forget it. being nice and kissing ass and knowing the right people and being likeable…

Dude might be experiencing burnout, and I’d counter some of his assertions that creativity doesn’t matter in the commercial world with examples of really skilled and technical cats that can rock for the boo-boo heads, but… he’s dropping mad nuggets of truthiness in this jont.

[photo: matthijs rouw]

I want to talk about gain control today. Because it’s really out of control.

As DJ’s, we’ve spent hours, weeks and years honing the various aspects of our craft: mixing, scratching, blending, programming a set, reading a room, digging for new sounds, mastering various types of equipment, learning about different genres of music…

But truthfully, most of us fail at monitoring and maintaining optimal sound levels. It’s the one aspect of the craft that has been completely abandoned and I’m aggravated about it.

If you’re not wearing earplugs at any show or nightclub these days, you’re in for a brutal assault. A few years ago, I started leaving a set of earplugs in every bag that I use. My regular day bag, my dj bag(s), travel bags. With the type of schedule I keep, I never know when I might end up at a party, a show or a session, and I ALWAYS have to be prepared with plugs.

With most DJ’s these days, if you take a look at their mixer at peak time, the meters are slammed in the red, their gain knobs are maxed and their master volume knob might be topped out too.

Red means “Turn the volume down, you asshole!”

If there isn’t any dynamic processing in the signal chain, at best the music will sound horribly distorted. If there are compressors and limiters and they aren’t set right and/or you’re pushing them too hard, you’ll get that irksome pumping sound. At worst you’ll blow a speaker or two, or all.

Then you have people on the dance floor looking like this:

[photo: addicted2salsa.com]

These people are not enjoying themselves.

Understandably, many sound systems are poorly set up and maintained. They make it difficult to pump the music so people feel it in their chests and asses, but aren’t being assaulted. Note that I said “difficult” not “impossible”. Our own judgement and attention to detail are the best tools for creating an optimal experience for the folks on our dance floors.

- EQ your tracks as you play them.
Cut those shrieking mids or that rumbling sub-bass. You’ll often find that perceived loudness increases with clarity as opposed to simply cranking it up.

- Start your set with optimal gain levels.
This might seem so basic but it’s so misunderstood. Unity gain is generally marked on most volume controls as the 0 (zero) level. That means that the signal coming into the channel is the same level as the signal going out. YOUR JOB IS TO MAINTAIN UNITY GAIN ALL NIGHT. You should set your master and the front end processing (if you can access those controls) to allow you some headroom over the course of the night, but you should NOT use your individual channel gains for overall volume control.

Gain creep is a fact of life for the DJ. Over the course of a gig, the amount of distractions grows, the energy in the room increases, the noise floor increases as more people pack into the space, and one must compensate. But rarely is this done with any sort of specificity. For far too many DJ’s, louder is always better.

- Walk the room.
I regularly leave the turntables to assess the volume levels. Some folks find this odd. (“What are you doing out of the dj booth?!?”) If it’s a room I’ve never played before, I do this a lot. Few of us have the opportunity to always play clubs with optimal DJ booth monitoring, so it’s almost a given that the sound in the booth will differ drastically from the sound on the floor. YOU MUST ALWAYS BE AWARE OF WHAT YOUR DANCE FLOOR SOUNDS LIKE.

Please, all of you. You’re killing folks out there. People going home from parties with migraines and ringing ears. Sound systems being blown. Records sounding like crap because of distortion. We all want our parties to crank, but ultimately Bob Marley knew the way things should be:

“One good thing about music, when it hits you feel no pain.” (Trenchtown Rock)