• Website/blog: https://nostalgiaking.com/
• IG: https://www.instagram.com/skemerichards/
• Mixes: https://soundcloud.com/Hotpeasandbutta

Philly legend Skeme Richards dives deep into the rich tapestry of music culture, exploring the intersection of funk, hip hop, and the art of DJing. As he recounts his formative years growing up in a city pulsating with musical heritage, Skeme illustrates how funk, soul, and disco served as the soundtrack to his childhood. His parents and grandparents instilled a love for music that would eventually define his career. He reflects on the rich cultural landscape of Philadelphia, highlighting the importance of Philadelphia International Records in the development of disco and the communal spirit found in local block parties. These experiences not only shaped his identity as a DJ but also sparked a lifelong passion for collecting and preserving music.

The conversation delves deeper into Skeme's experiences as a DJ and collector, emphasizing the joy of digging for rare vinyl records. He discusses the evolving music scene and the resurgence of funk, particularly in Japan, where he has found a second home among fellow collectors and enthusiasts. Skeme's belief in the importance of lineage and honoring those who paved the way for future generations is a recurring theme throughout the episode. He shares anecdotes about his interactions with hip hop legends and how these relationships have enriched his understanding of music. Skeme's philosophy on DJing transcends mere performance; it's about creating a meaningful connection with the audience through the music he plays.

As the episode culminates, listeners are treated to Skeme's insights on the balance between commercial appeal and artistic integrity in DJing. He challenges the notion that commercial music lacks authenticity, asserting that many of the beloved tracks we cherish were once commercial hits. By embracing both the underground and the mainstream, Skeme demonstrates how DJs can navigate the music landscape while staying true to their roots. His unwavering dedication to music as an art form and cultural expression resonates throughout the dialogue, making this episode a rich tapestry of stories, insights, and reflections on the power of music to inspire and connect.

Mentioned in this episode:

Reissued classics from Be With Records

Get 10% off at bewithrecords.com using the code ONCEADJ

And I'm delighted to have with me Scheme Richards.

What's up, world?

What's up now?

I was.

I was doing some research.

Whether I've done enough.

We'll soon find out.

And I was thinking about, how do I really sort of introduce you?

Because I think in my head sometimes when I approach interviewing someone, I've got an idea of kind of.

It's heavily on, like, how I perceive them.

And it's like I think of you as this kind of someone somewhere.

It's kind of like, you know, in the A team, when they need someone, it's like, right, we need this.

This funk dj.

Who we gonna get?

Right, let's get Scheme.

He's our man.

I'm not describing it very well, but this is kind of like how I think you in my head, because you're like, oh, like, jetting off to Japan and all this sort of thing, like international sort of funk hero.

But then there's all the other stuff around, collecting and things like that.

So I was thinking, how do I best introduce you?

But then I kind of looked at the website, obviously it's like, well, Nostalgia King is actually just a really, really good way of putting it.

So we'll kind of get into a bit of what that all is.

So, yeah, so thanks for coming on the show after that bloated introduction.

Yo, thank you for having me.

You know, I mean, honestly, that's.

That's a lot.

A lot of people don't know where to place me because.

Because I'm like.

I do a bunch of things and I'm into a bunch of things.

So a lot of people are like, yo, how do I introduce you?

Like, you're the burger connoisseur, you're the beer connoisseur.

You're like toys and records and.

And so, yeah, it's kind of.

I mean, it's.

It's.

It's a good problem to have.

Yeah.

And it'll be nice to kind of get into all these different things and I think, like, how they all inform each other because it's something that you often get with record collectors is, say, trainers or.

Or you'll get the subset where it is very much sort of toys and things like that.

So it'll be quite interesting to get into.

And I'm excited to have.

I believe you're the first Philly DJ that we've had on.

And, you know, Philly's huge in DJ culture, so really excited to get into that.

So I guess if you could just start off by kind of telling us a bit about sort of where you grew up and what your first sort of cultural influences were, really.

Yeah.

So born and raised in Philly.

So I'm 53 years old now.

Culture was all around me in the city.

My parents had records, they always listened to funk, soul, disco.

My grandparents had records, they always had jazz and gospel in the house.

So in Philly, radio was just always a primarily black city.

So we had all the black radio stations and Philadelphia International Records, one of the most major labels for disco.

Like disco wouldn't be disco if it wasn't for Philly International Records.

Yeah, you know, so, you know, culture was all around me.

Even as a kid riding on a school bus.

Elementary school, the bus driver had eight track player on the bus.

So we're listening to Teddy Pendergrass on the bus.

We're listening to Harold Melvin in the Blue Notes on the bus.

So culture was all around, especially music, you know, music culture was just all around.

And graffiti, I was seeing graffiti since the late 70s, you know, catching the bus and the train to school.

So I'm seeing all of this blossom at the same time.

And it was just black culture.

So it was just, you know, all around me.

And then we fast forward a little bit to what became hip hop culture.

Philly's the home of the DJ, you know, Philly's the home of the DJ.

So I'm seeing, I'm like block parties.

I'm seeing the older guys, but it wasn't the older guys that inspired me to DJ, it was other 10 year olds that inspired me to DJ because I'm hanging out with 10 year olds whose older brothers have turntables.

So we're going to their house after school to practice on their older brother's turntables when we shouldn't have been.

Right.

Did they know you were doing that?

No, no.

So this is, this is 80, 81.

And I'm just hanging out with 10 year olds and it's like, oh, this is what we do.

Because their older brothers do this.

So this is what we do, you know, so I'm practicing them with them.

And then 81 is when.

Late 81 is when I got my own set of turntables.

Actually, I got one turntable and a mixer and we just cut to a cassette tech, you know, so I'm playing rap songs on cassette and he's cutting and scratching to that to get my My hand coordination.

Good.

You know, so just.

Just a couple of things to pick up on from what you said so far.

And this is a bit of a side note, what you said about Philly being really responsible for shaping disco.

What is that?

Was it that the sound of Philadelphia stuff was kind of the early.

Because, like the mid-70s, there was a lot of soul that kind of became disco, wasn't it?

Was it that.

That was a label that was really.

What's the word?

It was.

It was prominent for.

For that.

Because Philly International brought this.

The lushness and the orchestration out and a lot of disco.

So when it.

So when it became lush and, you know, the MFSB and that sound, that Philly sound and that soulful sound, it was more than just disco, soulful disco.

And Philly just Philly bought that.

Like some of the greatest disco songs was Philly.

Right.

Got you.

And then I was just gonna ask as well about.

Because Philly's not too far from New York, is it?

Yeah, yeah.

It's like an hour and 15 minute drive.

So what was going on in New York was going on in Philly at the same time.

Yeah.

So was it easy access to get early hip hop then?

Oh, yeah.

Well, Philly's the second city of hip hop.

Right.

So if you talk to a lot of people, like, I did an interview with Steinsky, you know, Double D and Steinsky.

Steinsky used to live in Philly.

And I remember when I interviewed him, he was like, dude, there was a scene going on in Philly at the same exact time New York was going on.

First of all, we had graffiti.

We always had, you know, guys in the park bringing out sound systems.

Like, we didn't know who Cool Herc was in Philly.

We didn't know who he was.

Our Cool Herc was a guy named Captain Boogie.

And Captain Boogie was the dude that was bringing the sound systems to the park.

Right.

So that's 70s, that's still.

It's black culture.

What was going on, black culture wise, in New York was going on in Philly.

Yeah.

You know, at the same time.

So.

And I remember doing an.

Doing a party in Rhode island and Special K from the Treacherous Three was there.

And I'm.

I'm DJing.

And he's like, you're from Philly, aren't you?

And I was like, how do you.

How do you know that?

He was like, because I can tell Your styles.

You're.

You're a Philly dj.

And he was like, you know, buy me a Long Island Iced Tea and I'll tell you some stories.

And I'm like, this guy's.

He's trying to hustle me.

He wants me to buy him a drink.

So I buy him a drink, and he starts telling me all of these stories of, you know, the Philly influence on New York.

Did you know it was Special K at the time?

Yeah, I knew it was Special K.

Yeah, I knew it was Special K.

And he told me.

He was like, never let anyone from New York tell you that we weren't coming to Philly and we weren't inspired by what was going on in Philly.

Right.

So.

And then he started mentioning names of DJs in Philly from the late 70s, early 80s, that if you're not from Philly, you don't know who they are, but they're OGs and legends.

And I was like, this guy was in Philly because you're naming names that even people in Philly aren't naming.

So, yeah, what was going on New York was going on Philly at the same time.

Like, Philly is the second city of hip hop.

When artists was.

Was performing, they was coming to Philly.

Records were being broken in Philly.

Public Enemy got broken in Philly before it got broken in New York.

Really?

Yes.

Lady B, which was our.

How can I explain?

Lady B.

Lady B was our.

She was the first person who had a hip hop radio show in Philly.

She also had the 12 inch to the beach, y'all.

The hip hop 12 inch to the beach.

All which.

I don't know if you remember, but it was on Tech Records, TEC Records.

So that was 78, right?

Right.

So she was important for breaking all of these artists that were coming from New York.

Like, very important.

She was the first person to play hip hop on the radio in Philly.

She had a station on AM radio, and then she moved to FM radio.

But, like, Lady B was important for bringing a lot of New York acts and breaking them here.

The reason why Chuck D wears the Phillies hat all the time, that's because Philly broke Public Enemy.

He doesn't just wear it just for the sake of wearing it.

You know what I'm saying?

He's not just wearing it for the sake of wearing it.

He's wearing it because.

So we were getting everything.

Like, we had the clubs, like, After Midnight where, you know, LL Battle Jazz Fresh and.

Or Not.

LL Big Daddy Kane Battle Jazz Fresh and jazz.

Fresh smoked Big Daddy Kane.

And this is.

This is.

And that's what I'm saying, like this is.

Philly is so important for many reasons.

The reason why every DJ turns their turntables to the side.

Yeah, that's Philly.

Right.

That's not a New York thing.

That's not a disco DJ thing.

That's not a.

It's not a hip hop thing.

It's a Philly and technically DJ cash money.

Yes.

Right.

So we.

Philly is the second city of hip hop.

It's the second city of hip hop.

Oh, and you know what?

And I'll break one other thing down to you.

I know I'm going on a tangent.

No, no, go for it.

But as we know, Molly Ma, Rocktown Shantae, Bismarcky, MC Shan.

Pop Art Records was responsible for Roxanne Shantae was responsible for Molly Mall was responsible for MC Shan's the Bridge on Bridge Records.

That was a Philly label.

If you look at the.

If you look at the phone number on the bottom, it's a Philly label.

Label.

Pop Art Records was around the corner from me.

So Lawrence and Dana Goodman, they're responsible for putting Craig G out, MC Shan out, Biz Markey out.

Nobody, nobody in New York was messing with them to put them out on record.

They had to come to Philly.

These are the stories that people don't tell.

I suppose it's interesting.

I've talked to a few people about how sometimes when you're local because you're local, you kind of get ignored.

Because.

Because, because you're accessible.

So maybe it's just being part of it.

Is that being.

Oh, there's these guys that aren't from around here, you know, they.

They maybe get taken a bit more seriously.

Well, at that time, no, but at that time it wasn't necessarily that.

Because New York had a lot of record labels, but New York didn't have hip hop record labels.

Pop Art was a hip hop record label.

They had Def Jam, Philly had Pop Art.

And it was independent and they had the money because Pop Art label had been in business doing Doo Wop 10 years before.

They were already in business.

So they knew the record industry, they knew distribution.

You would record and Pop Art today on a Friday.

Your record was out next Friday and on the radio.

So Pop Art is also responsible for Steady B, because that was Steady B's uncle.

Right.

So there's.

So there's so much inner workings and.

Yeah, yeah.

So given that you started DJing when you were that sort of age, 10 or 11 of him.

How quickly did you pick it up?

Because I think sometimes when you.

When you're a kid, you can just learn things so quickly and.

Because I guess part of it's that you don't have a lot.

You don't have worries about paying the bills and this, that and the other.

Was it.

Was it easy to pick up?

It was easy.

I mean, you have to think the most impressive impressionable mind is a child's mind, right?

So.

And there was no like YouTube.

There was no, like VHS.

You basically went to a block party, saw something, or went to your friend's house, saw something, and then had to memorize it until you got home.

And you memorizing, you forgot a lot, which meant you made it.

You made your own style.

You created your own style because you forgot the identical way that somebody else did it.

So it was super easy.

It was just like riding a bike.

And when you love something and you gravitate towards it that hard, it's easy.

It's easy.

Did had the battle scene sort of started at that point then because you've got quite a few sort of big battle DJs really, haven't you?

From.

From Philly.

Like you say, cash money.

You got Jeff winning world championships and things like that.

Was.

Was that quite.

Did you see a lot of that when it was developing?

That was.

That was always around the DJ battles was all around my OG that.

That kind of took me under his wing and schooled me really on DJing.

He's the OG.

He's 78.

Right before Jeff, before Cash.

His name is DJ Groove.

He's before all those guys.

He was already battling a guy named Cosmic Kev.

Like my OG was the guy cosmike Kev was the.

A year or two younger guy coming up.

Yeah, right.

So that was already.

Already battling the Park Jams, who had the loudest sound systems, was already going on the original Spin Band, who created the Transformer Scratch, already going like all of these things.

Force five Spin Bat and Force five Production Band.

And like all of these guys.

And so the DJ battle thing was already gone.

That's what we did.

You know, we.

That's what we really did.

Like New York was the.

Was more so, you know, Cold Crush versus Fantastic.

Yeah, right.

The MC Billy was the DJs battling.

So that was going on since the.

It was a schoolyard battle and I lost.

So I lost my little crate of records because we used to battle for records or battle for equipment.

So I lost my crate of records.

It's, you know, It's a little 5, 10, but it was my lunch money that I saved up to buy those records.

So I never lost a battle since, like, after that.

That's a hurting feeling.

Yeah.

You know, that's a really hurting feeling.

So the battle thing has been going on in Philly since the beginning.

I've just been watching Squid Game and like, I don't know, I feel more distressed at the thought of a 10 year old losing his records.

Yeah, you know, that's brutal.

Yeah.

But you know what, though?

That.

That's what made me who I am today.

That hurt feeling and that losing, you know, B boys battle for sneakers.

Like, you had a fresh pair of sneakers.

Were battling for sneakers.

You know, DJs were battling for speakers and equipment and records.

Nobody wants to lose, so you want to hone your skills to be the best that you can be, you know, so, yeah, imagine coming home without your creative records.

That's hurt.

Was there kind of a feeling in the community, in the air in Philly when people were getting recognized?

So when people was kind of getting these big accomplishments.

So you had, you know, cash winning the DMCs, you had Jeff winning the Superman battle, and then you obviously had Jeff and Will getting the first hip hop Grammy representing Philadelphia.

Did that have a kind of an impact for the city?

Oh, most definitely.

Because we thought we were riding high.

We were.

We were on top of things.

And.

But the gift and the curse of Philly is it's not New York.

Right.

Which is still a major city.

Yeah.

Philly was.

Is the, like in the five largest cities in America.

We're in the five largest cities in America, but we're still always overshadowed by the New York thing.

Right.

And which is gift and a curse.

Like we're in history.

We're in the history books.

Cash.

Jeff, like DJ Miz, who won after that, you know, I was gonna ask.

You if Miz was from Philly.

Miz is from Philly.

He won after that, like, Philly was Philly.

There's a million and one Jazzy jets from Catch Money in Philly.

Those were the guys that made it out.

Yeah, right.

Those were the guys that got famous.

Because my OG was in the.

The Superman battle the year Jeff won.

I think he was in it because he battled.

He battled.

Not Steve.

Steve D.

I think he battled Steve D.

Right.

So we had a whole city full of that.

So we were riding high on pride.

Right.

But once again, we're not the media Capital like New York is, so nothing keeps getting told about or, you know.

And in Philly, we never documented things.

We just lived it.

In New York, there's always someone documenting what's going on.

Mostly that's not from.

In the culture, documenting.

We didn't have that in Philly.

We were just living the moments in Philly.

So we thought we were riding high, but when you think about, we're still riding high, because without us, there would be no Transformer scratch.

Yeah.

Without us.

Without us, everybody can turn their turntables back to disco style.

Right?

We, we.

New York created it.

We elevated it.

And then the west coast beast junkies in it elevated, like, you know what I'm saying?

Like, it was that type of flow.

So.

But we're the middle ground, which technically is the most important ground to everything, because that's where the style really came.

And Philly bought style.

And then even, like the legacy.

We.

Like the neo soul as well.

The Neo soul, yes.

Yes.

Jill Scott.

The roots, that whole.

We.

We.

Philly did so much.

I mean, the roots are still riding high.

Oh, yeah.

You know, and I mean, we've just had so much.

Like, we.

We've.

We're.

Philly is so important for so many things.

And I think even.

We don't even give ourselves credit on a lot of things.

But I'm still here.

And I'm like, I've seen all of this stuff revolve.

And I'm like, yeah, we had pop art records.

We had.

I mean, Roxanne Shantae's first video was shot in pop art's basement.

Like, all of these things.

I'm like, we need to start taking credit for ourselves and letting the world know.

But Philly's also selfish at times.

Where people want to tell their story.

Yeah.

And they don't want to tell the story of the city, you know, and so it's wild.

And even.

Even then, there was a guy named Disco Rat.

He had a crew called Disco Rat and the Rat Attack Rattatat Pack.

And he used to ride around in a van with a giant rat drawn on the side.

Crazy sound system.

I'm in Denver.

This was seven, eight years ago.

I'm in Denver and a homie.

DJ Al was like, yo, there was this guy out here named Disco Rat that I don't know.

And I was like, wait a minute, was his name Disco Rat?

And he was like, yeah, he moved.

He was in the military and he moved to Denver and I was like, that's the guy.

So he brought hip hop DJing to Denver.

Right, Right.

There was no other hip hop DJs.

He bought hip hop DJing because he was in the military and moved to Denver.

So Philly's lineage is ridiculous.

Yeah, we inspired everybody.

Like, anybody who says they wasn't inspired by a Philly DJ is lying because you turn your turntables that way, so obviously you are.

Well, someone that I'm trying to get in the process of potentially getting on is too tough.

I.

I see Too tough all the time.

I see them all the time.

Yeah.

And you know, like, I wasn't up on.

Is it tough squad.

Sorry.

Yeah, I wasn't up on Tough crew.

But then listening to his cuts and the beats and things like the.

Like the way they used some of those brakes.

Yeah, you know, just like what?

Yeah, you know, another crazy story, the history of the SB12.

So do you know the original way you could.

The only way you can get an SB12 back in the day was used to have to know somebody that owned a studio and a studio had to order it.

Like, you couldn't just be a producer, be like, I'm going to order an SB12.

It's not like now where you can just order from wherever.

It didn't work that way.

To get an SB12, you had to know somebody to own a studio.

So the first person in Philly we saw with an SB12 was Madtronics when he performed in Philly.

Right.

That's the first time anybody saw SB12.

And we were like, what?

What is that?

Because we were still rocking 808 to 909s and he had SB12.

Fast forward.

This was 80, 88, 87, 88.

The first two SB12s that came to Philly, one went to Jazzy Jeff, one with the Will Smith.

Will Smith lives around the corner from me.

Will.

I used to be at Will because my OG DJ was Will's original dj.

Right.

Like, I knew, I used to be at Will's house all the time.

Will gave the SB12 to my OG to produce for him, and Jeff had his.

I W up inheriting the SB12.

The first one SB12 that came to Philly because my OG got in 87, 88.

I'm over there all the time making beats.

By the time 89 rolled around, right before 90, once again, another machine that we had in Philly before anybody had steady B and pop art had an MPC 60.

The one with the.

With the.

With the flip up screen.

Yeah, right.

The first one, the Lindrum one.

Nobody and Steady B's Camp wanted to learn how to use it because they thought it was too.

It was too.

I mean, nobody knew how to use it.

It was like.

It was a heart machine.

My og, who's the scientist, was like, give me the machine.

I'm gonna take it.

So when he took that, he gave me the SP12 and was like, that's yours now.

So I have the original SB12 that came into.

The first one that came into the city, which was Will's SB12.

Crazy.

So, you know, there's so much lineage like.

Like people.

People always talk about New York and.

Yeah, but we had, like, the SB12, you know, 87.

There was.

It was in Philly.

Yeah.

So how did kind of digging develop for you then?

So once again, that's the thing that's always been there, like, seeing or hearing things like Bob James, Mardi Gras hearing things like what we used to call the telephone break, which was last night, changed it all.

Yeah, right.

Because we didn't know there were certain records that we didn't know that we would hear.

Like, maybe New York, we would hear Cold Crush tape or something, and we'd hear somebody rocking us, like, oh, what's that?

And they'd be like, oh, that's so and so.

That's the so and so break.

And you'd be like, oh, that's that.

Because most of those songs were popular songs, you know, so going to the record store, I used to go to Funko Mart.

I used to go to Sound of Market Gold Electronics and Funko Mart especially, had a guy named Chino.

And Chino knew every break.

He knew every break.

So if you wanted something, you would just be like, yo, the record I heard on so and so.

And he could tell you what every break was.

But a lot of it, just like digging should be.

It's trial and error, you know, it's.

You see something, the COVID looks funky.

Let me buy it.

Let me see if there's a break on it.

Right?

Or.

One of the foundations for me was Octopus Breaks.

And I don't even know if you know, you know, octopus breaks.

I know them, but I don't really know about them.

Did that predate Ultimate Breaks and Beats?

Yeah.

So Octopus Breaks, the only people that got octopus Breaks was really East Coast, Philly, New York, Boston, Baltimore.

And Octopus Breaks was the precursor Ultimate Breaks.

So octopus breaks is 81, 82, 83, somewhere around there.

And that was the foundation for a lot of things.

Right.

That was the foundation for a lot of things.

So we heard a lot of things that we're like, oh, what's this?

And then now we're going out to seek out these records.

And if you know certain record stores, if you know it's a rock record and you go to a store that has rock records, a lot of times the store owners knew music, so they could say, oh, that's Billy Joel.

That's Billy Joel, 52nd street album, that Cool J rap wound up sampling.

So that was how it was.

So digging was another thing that was.

Is just like that discovery.

You heard a DJ at the park jam, he's cutting two whatevers, and you're like, I need that.

You can either ask, and even if you ask, you still have to find a record, you know, so, yeah, digging has always been a thing.

And I've always dug.

I've always dug whether it's comic books, whether it was toys, whether it's VHS tapes.

Like, digging has just.

It's always been me, you know, in.

In general.

But the records just took it to a whole nother level because it's my profession now.

Yeah, yeah.

This sometimes happens as well.

I had something I was going to ask you then.

So was Octopus breaks was that break beat Len?

That was.

Yeah, that was.

There would Brick be Lenny?

That was breakbeat Lenny.

And like, Lenny knew all of the breaks because Lenny hung out with the guys in the Bronx.

Yeah.

So Lenny.

Lenny was the man.

Rest in peace.

Lenny was the man.

And he had the foresight to be like, let me cop these records that they're rocking in the Bronx.

Yeah, he had the foresight.

So, I mean, there's.

There's certain breaks as well that.

That you trace back to there.

And obviously things like Ayman Brother and all that sort of thing that they're still Now Apache.

Things like that.

They'll still be used in sort of in like, sort of chart pop music and stuff like that as well.

They've just.

They've been everywhere.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I'm so impressed.

Whoever's doing the licensing for commercials and everything now it's somebody that's young, cool and hip.

Because they're picking James Brown, they're picking Sharon Jones, they're picking a lot of good music.

I'm like, this isn't an old guy.

This is somebody.

I mean, they're probably an old guy.

Who knows?

But they're young, cool and hip.

Who knows, like, oh, Sharon Jones.

This.

This James Brown works for this type of song, you know, but, like, you gotta give up, like, the ultimate credit to Bambotta because Bambotta was the master of records.

So like a lot of the stuff he was playing that was comped, you know, the Bronx guys in general, but Bambotta was the master of records.

Yeah, I think as well with, with sort of nostalgia and things like that, particularly with what you're saying about music, it feels like you've got to hit it at the right time.

So when you're going into something that's throwback, I guess it's different with kind of what you do day to day because it's, it's all kind of part of the brand, part your identity.

But I guess when you've got these guys like you say that are picking out the James Brown and things, you've got to do it at a time when that's the right sound for people.

So say it was done 10 years ago or 15 years ago when EDM's a big thing.

It might have just landed wrong or, you know, Bruno Mars has timed it well when he's done all this sort of throwback stuff.

Right?

Yeah, it's all timing.

It's all timing.

And right now is the time for good music.

Yeah.

And all fats.

It's commercials, whatever.

Like right now is the time for good music.

Because we did a nice 10 year stretch where everything was bad music and commercials and it was like cheesy.

And you know, nobody's creating jingles anymore.

No one's creating actual songs for TV shows.

You know, it's kind of just like, where's the, where's the Bob James doing the TV show Taxi intro and like, you know, like we don't have that anymore now whoever's doing the TV show interest, they're, they're unknown guys.

It's just like, oh, let's get this musician who has a keyboard and get him to make up a jingle for.

But it's not the same.

Yeah, that's always bugged me, you know, that my gateway to Bob James was so.

My gateway to kind of smooth jazz was probably the Family Ties theme tune got me like Tom Scott and that sort of world.

And then the Taxi theme tune was my gateway to Bob James.

But then I was like, why on the album does Taxi sound different?

Because it sounds more saturated as well as being a shorter version.

It just, it sounds warmer on the TV show, doesn't it?

Yeah, it does, it does, yeah.

So, you know, I mean, but we're at that time, we're at that time where we need, you know, quality, you know, over quantity now we need quality and we're seeing that in the club scene.

We're seeing that a lot of parties are.

It was heavy techno, heavy house for a while.

Now it's kind of toned down and now people want disco.

People want really good disco now.

And it's, it's just, it's, it's a time change because you figure we had hip hop for how many years and we were like just dominating everything, hip hop wise, every sound.

Everybody wanted a hip hop sound, R B, you know.

And now things are kind of going full circle and it's like people want disco now, People want James Brown again, Sharon Jones, you know.

So we've kind of like gone off timeline here, but whatever, right?

It's, there's, there's some more pressing issues at hand, right?

So thinking about disco, you get, you'll get certain sort of mixed series and things like that where it's kind of like.

It kind of feels a bit like someone's just kind of got access to a thousand pounds or whatever.

They've gone on discogs and they've gotten a certain kind of want list and then they've got their set and it's a bit of a flex.

But it's like, I mean I'm.

I'm all for sort of technology and development and stuff, but I don't often buy off discogs because I think I like to go and find things that just look interesting and different.

But it, it does just feel like this, that with disco's, like it'll bump the price up a certain stuff.

It maybe takes a bit of the excitement out of digging or it makes the challenge of digging a bit different, doesn't it?

100, 100.

Like I'm not anti discogs, just like I wasn't anti ebay.

A lot of people were anti ebay.

But I wasn't really looking for records, I was looking for toys and it was toys from Japan that I couldn't find in America.

So in, you know, it worked.

Digging for records.

I'd rather go into the real world to find records.

I want to go into the shop, right?

Because I come from an era when you went into a shop, the were no turntables or portables to listen to, right?

You bought based off of you knew what it was or the album looked good, the COVID whatever.

I still believe in going into record shops or flea markets, right?

I believe in handing this Guy, my money, him giving me a bag of records.

I believe in building relationships with dealers so that dealers know, like, oh, SK listens to this.

This is his lane here.

Listen to this.

You might like this.

Like, Discogs isn't going to recommend music.

It's like Spotify recommends music, but it's like, come on.

It's not really a recommendation.

It's just like your algorithm.

Yes.

Right.

So I want to be able to hand this guy my money.

And I bought records internationally from Amsterdam to Japan to wherever, Germany.

And they'll be like, hey, do you want me to send you the records?

And I'm like, no, because eventually I'm going to come to Germany, I'm going to come to Amsterdam, I'm going to go to Japan.

I want to hand you my money, shake your hand, and thank you for finding or sourcing these records for me.

Oh, nice.

Right?

Because it's the relationships, and I built relationships with people.

You know, with social media, it's become really too, too, like, not social anymore.

It's social media, but we're not really social, right?

No, it's brought.

It's broadcast and gamification, isn't it?

Exactly.

So I want to be like, hey, let's go grab a beer and talk shop.

And then we can exchange records of money.

But, like, let's go have a beer.

Let's go talk.

Like, I want to, you know, talk.

Yeah, that's really nice.

So for me, that means more than buying online.

And you get the better deals when you actually know the dealers.

Because I found great records that I was looking for for years and could never find.

And a dealer would be like, yo, this is your lane.

Or, oh, I know you've been looking for this record.

Yeah, you know.

Yeah.

And I think what you get with that is you kind of.

You'll find the people that are the quote, unquote, real ones.

Because I think what you get with the Discogs thing, I'd like.

I don't know if you listen to the episode I did with Mr.

Thing, but we kind of talked about that situation where someone just, like, decided to jack up the price because of the interest.

And.

And I think with Discogs and, And things, and.

Well, I mean, you've always had it where people just go by the book price, haven't you?

And it's like that they maybe won't even consider the.

The conditioner.

That's the book price.

So that's what it is.

And you kind of like, I can't pay that.

I've seen Guys buy a G minus copy of a record because it was rare or was the only one known, you're spending a lot of money on the G minus that you can't play just to say you've got it.

Yeah, right.

Like, I don't understand that concept.

And that's what we're dealing with when we're dealing with discogs and we're the prices being jacked up on like VG minus copies that you can't really play, you know.

And I'm a working professional, working class dj, so I need to be able to play these records.

I think especially, I don't know if you've noticed, but you play quite a few sort of hi fi bar type sets and things like that, don't you?

If you're in a hi fi bar on their system and your records got a crack on it, crackle on it, or you know, a scratch on it that really cuts through.

And I think that's the difference.

Not all DJs are created equal.

Right.

What separates DJs are their crates.

Right.

I don't care how technical you are, that's not the separation.

The music is first.

That's the separation.

You could be like.

Because like when people list their top 10 DJs, if you notice, hip hop guys will always name hip hop guys because there's so much into cutting and scratching that they're not sitting back and being like, well, actually so and so is a better DJ than so and so.

And they're like, why?

Because this guy's cutting.

It's like, yeah, it's not about cutting and scratching when you're playing for the dance floor.

Right.

There's disco DJs that are worlds apart from hip hop DJs because these disco guys are going to take you on this crazy journey of music that you've probably never heard before or might have heard, but not played that way.

Most hip hop guys are going to stay into a lane of playing 90s hip hop.

They're going to stand to, you know, they, they have a formula and the formula doesn't grow.

That's why in the present time, it's hard to break new underground or independent hip hop because people want to stay with what they know and what's safe.

Yeah, right.

Disco guys and half guys will break records all day long.

Yeah, I suppose.

Yeah.

I mean, I think what you maybe get with Hip hop is, it's, it's also the kind of almost like authenticity police.

You know, it's like, oh God, have they done it on an SP or an NPC or you know, have they lived this life?

And, and there's so many sort of things to it.

And it's very easy to be like this isn't like it used to be and, and yeah, very.

And all that.

You know, it's, it's.

I guess it's a thing that's.

Yeah, it's the purest of hip hop.

Yeah.

But like so to get back to your thing about the record bar playing certain records, like for me I'm a stickler.

Like I've been to Japanese record bars before they became Americanized.

Like I've been to Japan, I've hung out.

And the one thing where western world, America, Europe gets it wrong.

And I'm not gonna say gets it wrong because it's, it is what it is.

The DJ selection.

Right.

If you're at a high five bar, jazz, funk, soul, anything 70s, whatever was made for hi fi sound systems was made for and along sound systems.

90s hip hop was made for club sound system, bass speakers.

Yeah.

Right.

So you playing it on a hi fi system, it's not the same effect as playing it in the club.

Right.

So DJs don't.

When I pack for a hi fi bar, I'm packing for a hi fi bar.

That's really interesting.

Yeah.

I'm not packing like for the club.

Right.

Because why do I want to play these bass heavy speakers, these bass heavy songs that don't sound good in a hi fi spa.

Yeah.

It's even kind of for home listening.

I got some nice sort of hi fi gear.

Nothing crazy, but there's certain.

Like I've got an old Rotel amp, got it all recapped and stuff.

And then if I play, if I play hip hop on that, it, it really struggles with it.

I have to roll the bass right off.

Exactly.

And that's what I'm saying.

Like it's like the equivalent of that Playing hip hop In a high five bar is the equivalent of DJs going to the club and redlining.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

To me, to me that's just a personal thing because I know sound.

I'm not a sound engineer but I know what sounds good.

Yeah.

And I feel like sticking to being a hip hop DJ and listening to only hip hop.

You kind of lose or not.

It may not even had the notion of like ah, jazz sounds better in this type of environment.

Like there's a difference the way music is supposed to sound.

A lot of people don't have that air on how things are supposed to sound.

You know, Whenever I do a mixtape, like a physical cassette tape, I record it at home.

I play it on one deck, I take it to the car, I listen to it at the car deck, right?

Because I need it to sound good in all those places.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so if I get a record, if the record is recorded kind of low, because there's a lot of 12 inches or 45s that are recorded low that I'm like, I can't take this record out, I can't play it.

But some people will play it because it's that record and they have to play it.

But I'm like, now you got the gains all the way up on that record, right?

So I pay attention what sound system I'm playing on.

Because if this sound system is super loud, okay, now I can bring this record because me turning the gain up isn't really going to affect it.

Yeah, I've got, there's like, I want to say it's an RCA series, this sort of five record comp and one of the volumes, it's got loads of old, like the Jamaica Cats stuff.

It's got like, you know, like all the old like Don Blackman and things like that.

Really good songs.

But it's a horrible pressing because they've just put too many tracks on and you kind of want to take it out.

But you're like, do I?

And yeah, yeah, like I've left, I've left records home.

After the first time I played him, it's like, oh, this isn't going to work.

You know, so now I have a whole stack of records.

I'm like, I can never take these records out and play these in a certain.

I mean, unless it's a certain sound system.

But like most times I'm like, if it's just a bar set up, I can't take this.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, so that's the other thing.

It's, it's now you're packing records, but you're packing records for specific places you're playing because, you know, oh, I played this record at this place before and it didn't sound good.

Yeah, I never thought of it like that.

Really?

Yeah, yeah.

So certain records I just leave home, man.

A lot of like hip hop 45s that from the 80s.

He's like, oh, this doesn't really like, this is, this is low.

Like a lot of the.

What is it?

Bismarck?

Your vapors on 45.

Right.

It's like low press.

And you're like, oh, and what is it?

Coolty wrap or cold chilling?

One of the cool T Rap 45.

It's like low.

And you're.

You're like, you.

It sounds good at home.

Yeah.

But you take it out and you're like, oh, this is low, you know, so those are records.

I'm like, I can never carry these records out again.

Yeah.

And I think sometimes when you hear.

When you hear it, particularly sort of with singles, there's a bit of things.

How did this even get out of this?

Get distributed, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

Well, you think about.

A lot of those were for jukeboxes, so it didn't matter.

A lot of the 45s were jukeboxes, so it didn't matter.

Nobody was playing it on the radio or in the clubs or at the block parties.

It was jukeboxes.

Yeah, yeah.

So.

So go.

Let's go back to timeline for a bit then.

So when did you kind of start DJing out beyond battling?

So I never wanted to be a professional dj.

Let's just.

Let's just never want to be a professional dj.

What did you want to be?

Well, I didn't want to be a DJ because DJing was just something that I always did.

Yeah.

That was just a part of who I was.

So it wasn't.

I didn't.

Never looked at it as special.

It was like, oh, I dj, I go to school, I do my homework, and I dj.

Right.

So after battling, my first official party that I did was an elementary school party.

It was the end of the year, and we used to have this thing called Color Day.

And the school was broken up into blue teams and red teams, and they would just do, you know, tug of war and all these other things.

And my teacher asked me, who knew I DJed, asked me if I wanted to DJ color day after party.

So I carried my little turntables five blocks up, me and my friends, couple of speakers.

And my speakers were like.

I never liked speakers in cabinets.

So I took the speakers out that my grandfather gave me and put them in milk crates and wire tied them in milk crates and stuffed it because it just looked cool, you know, it looked cool.

So.

And that was my first party.

So that was 85.

That was my first official, like, oh, I'm booking you as a dj.

And then from there it was like, okay, now I'm doing shows, I've got MCs.

So now I'm DJing for my MCs at shows.

So that's 87, 88, you know.

And then it just trickled down from there.

Like, at the time, I was DJing for Bahamadia for a little bit.

I had a group named Toucanon that put out a 12 inch.

Like, we.

I was doing a lot of different things, but I never.

By the time the 90s rolled around, I was more in production mode than djing mode.

Still djing, but it was like, oh, I got an SB12.

You know, I'm trying to make beats.

My OG was like, here's the 12.

Like, you take this SB12.

I got the MPC, now do what you do.

So I was more in production mode, but still DJing.

But I was focused on recording songs and making beats and rhyming and stuff like that.

And so it's always been a steady uphill of like, oh, you're still DJing.

Because that's when the Funk 45 scene started coming back around.

Yeah, I was gonna ask you about.

That and that tone and like, all of the J.J.

whitefield and all those guys.

And so that hit me because that funk sound was like, this is the sound that I remember as a kid, the James Browns.

Yeah.

Because I was listening to one of your mixes and it was.

It was making me think about that about.

Because for me, the thing that sort of introduced me to.

To that.

That scene and that sound was Brain Freeze.

And I was thinking if that had a impact on, like, if that was kind of the catalyst for a scene growing or if it kind of came around at the same time as it.

Kind of came around at the same time.

Because I'm already hearing the kept Darches of the world.

I'm already hearing the Dante Carfag.

I'm hearing this.

But then that was just the icing on the cake.

The Brain Freeze and the product placements.

And it was like, oh, you know, but I have to give shout outs to DJ Cash Money.

Because Cash was buying Funk 45 in the mid-90s.

So Cash was like.

I was going to a couple of Cash's parties where Cash was dropping deep funk 45.

So that along with the Cap Darties, along with the Brain Freezes, the Cut Chemists and stuff like that.

Was just like, this is ridiculous, you know?

So, yeah, so, I mean, that just took it there.

And yeah, I've been heavy funk 45 since.

But I'm a vinyl guy.

Like, a lot of guys are like, oh, I'm a 45 guy.

I play 45.

I don't discriminate.

I'm 45, I'm LP, I'm 12 inch.

Yeah.

I think that the.

The 45 thing kind of came around again, didn't it, a few years ago.

It became.

Became a big sort of focus.

Yeah.

But it wasn't the same as.

Yeah, well, there's just been so many reissues and things.

And that's the problem.

Yeah.

It's reissues and it's not funk reissues really.

It's hip hop.

Yeah.

Right.

And for me, I don't need hip hop on 45.

If I've already had the 12 inch from 30 years ago, if I've already had the LP, if we've already burnt it out on Serato, I don't need it on 45.

Right.

If it was an original pressing from 86, that's a different story.

But I don't need a song that we burnt out in the 90s.

And we've seen it on MTV Raps and we heard it on the radio, we heard it in the club.

I don't need it on 45.

Now we've.

We've exhausted that.

And that's a lot of that is coming out now where it's like, it's the top 50 of the decade.

Yeah.

45.

Yeah.

There's things I'll buy.

Because it's just 12 inch hip hop from the 90s either seems to be dirt cheap or really expensive.

Yes.

There doesn't seem to be much of a middle ground.

And that's the thing that I really.

Me and Supreme Laroque.

We have always said this.

When everyone started buying 45s were like, great, buy them all.

Because now 12 inches are cheap.

And now we can go back to buying all of the disco 12 inches.

Yeah.

Because now disco 12 inches are cheaper, you know?

So for me, this is perfect.

This is perfect.

Right?

Because now I can buy these disco 12 inches that were $200 before.

Yeah.

And now no one wants it in their $50 12 inches.

Now that for me is golden.

And a lot of people just kept buying 45 and I'm like, if it's not a 45, that's like, not everybody's gonna have in their crate.

Like everybody's got like, impeach the president now, right.

Everybody's got it.

Whether they got the bootleg, the reissue, or the original records like that.

I'm like, I'll never carry those records off the house again.

Because once Again, what separates DJs are their crates.

And if I go to the party and there's four DJs on the bill and everybody's got the same bootleg or reissues, what's the point?

Yeah, right.

So I.

I'm not anti bootleg because there's a lot of bootleg records.

I mean, Octopus Breaks, Ultimate Break, like Dusty Fingers, like, that's what they were.

But if everybody has those in their crates and you're going to the party and I play my original third guitar, Baby Don't Cry, or I Want to Play It.

And if somebody plays a bootleg now, I can't play my original because you just played the bootleg.

So I got.

I'm a stickler for, like, if things were bootlegged, I leave those home.

Especially if I know it's the.

It's the hot record.

I leave those records home.

Yeah.

And.

And I think if you've got the opening dj, I did an opener for Craig Charles the other week, who has the show on 6 Music, and I was quite like.

Like, I don't DJ a lot now.

Most of the time that I do, it's things where people are sitting around rather than they've gone for their big night out for Christmas.

And I was really kind of unsure about whether to play things that are too familiar or not, because I didn't want to.

Like, it's.

Ever since I read one of Supreme.

Laroque did an article a few years ago about being an opening dj.

And it was really good and it was really good food for thought.

So then I was like, just making sure that I got like the Don't Play list and this sort of thing, because you don't want to make it too difficult for the rest of the DJs to kind of keep that energy up.

Yes.

But I think you've got that danger as one of the later DJs that you're going to have had someone that's done that.

Right, Right.

Yeah, you're correct.

Like, I, like, I love being an opener.

Yeah, Love being an opener.

Like, it's funny when me and my og, we were.

We would perform, like, we would actually be rhyming, performing.

And he was.

He was a stickler and he instilled this in me.

He was like, yo, I don't care if we go first or we go last.

He said, because if I, if we go first, we're going to make sure that nobody wants to hear anybody else on the lineup after us.

If we go last, we're going to make sure that everybody forgot what they saw before us.

Yeah, right.

So as an opener, I'm trying to set the tone.

And if I'm setting the tone now, you've got to follow the tone.

Right.

But I'm.

I like to ease in because I had people open and they just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang.

And I'm like, oh, my God, now I gotta.

I gotta just tune this down.

I gotta start him with like some mellow jazz just to cleanse the air.

Yeah, yeah, A bit of a reset.

Yeah.

So, you know, it's.

I mean, there's an art to being an opener, but that comes with experience and that comes with years of you djing and also not having this ego where I gotta come in and show improve.

No, just play a good set, you know, And I think that's where a lot of cultural aspect comes involved, because being in a black culture and knowing.

Going to house parties in the 80s and being like, okay, the DJ setting the tone to the point where by 2am he's playing all slow songs.

Like it's a progression.

Yeah.

You know, so.

And I, I still take that mentality like, okay, I'm trying to ease people in.

And I love the places that you're talking about where people are just kind of chill.

I love those places because are the people that'll stop and be like, right.

And because they're listening, they're actually listening.

Yeah.

So I love those type of spots.

I love being the opener.

I don't.

I honestly don't have to be the closer ever.

Like, I'm cool with being the opener, setting the tone, you know, so just.

Going back to something else I wanted to ask you about and this kind of comes into collecting, looking at the sort of things you collect, your sort of grasp on pop culture.

There's a lot of different things there.

There's all the anime stuff, the comic books, Star wars, old TV shows.

Where did you find the time to watch the amount of TV that you must have had to watch to know about these things whilst you're DJing and learning to DJ at such a young age, how did, how did you find the time?

When you think about it, coming home from school, there were certain shows you had to watch before you even did homework, before you even dj, there were certain shows, right.

So it was like, you're never going to like, you're going to pass up DJing and homework because you need to watch this show.

So TV was non stop.

Like, TV was non stop.

DJing was non stop.

I would stay up to, like, as a kid, 11 years, I'm up 4:00 in the morning, I'm up watching TV.

Oh, wow.

Like, I've had a VCR.

We've had a VCR in the house since 83.

So I was recording everything.

Every western, every war movie, every war TV show, every cartoon I'm recording.

And I think the TV aspect really comes from my uncle, who was like, he's the TV king, right?

He was the guy that knew all of the movies, knew all the TV shows, the Columbos, the, like, all of the great TV shows.

And like, I would stay up with him late nights watching TV shows, right?

Because, you know, he put that impression on me.

Like, I'm like, I gotta be like him and I need to stay up and watch all these TV shows.

So, like, as a kid, like, I never, I never slept.

I mean, I slept, but it was like, it was nonstop.

Like, TV records.

Yeah, TV records.

So.

But that's what we do as kids.

We've got.

We've got the most energy in the world as kids.

Right.

I mean, and at 53 right now, I still feel 19, I still feel young.

I still feel like I can be up till 5 o'clock in the morning, wake up at 8 and still function.

Wow.

That's never changed with me.

My body, my routine as a kid is pretty much the same routine I have now.

I go to a party, I come home, I fix a.

Throw a pizza in the oven or something.

I watch a Godzilla movie, I watch a kung fu flick.

Like, my routine has never changed.

From childhood to adulthood, it's the same.

And that's what's keeping me young.

Yeah.

So basically you just barely ever slept.

That makes a lot of sense to me now.

Like, I've always needed an early night.

Not me.

That's why I have to DJ places where everyone's sat down.

Cause I can't stay awake enough, like late enough for when people are dancing.

Yeah.

I mean, but it's like my childhood in that regards.

Like, it taught me so much.

It is like having an older cousin who put me on the kung fu flicks.

And, you know, all those things played went hand in hand.

Going to the theater to watch the kung fu flicks and all those things went hand in hand with deejaying.

Yeah.

It all was just youth culture, like skateboarding.

It was Just like all youth culture, you know, and when you're young, it seems like 24 hours is 48 hours.

Yeah, I was going to ask you about that as well, about the kung fu films because like it living over here in the uk, I don't think we've ever had that kind of link between the sort of kung fu films and hip hop culture.

How is there anything particular that kind of fuses the two?

Like, because I'm talking like pre date in all the sampling.

Well, I mean, I always tell people kung fu culture or kung fu movies is black culture.

Right.

Because it was mainly the black kids that made those movies popular.

Right.

We made those.

And it's because it's the reason why black people always gravitated towards Bruce Lee.

Because the same oppression in Hollywood that he was going through, we were oppressed in America.

So we had the common thing, what was the always the common denominator.

And kung fu flicks, oppression.

The Qing and Ming dynasty is oppressing the people.

We gravitated towards that also the flashiness of, you know, the moves and wearing the kung fu suits.

But it was more to it.

So it was cultural.

So all of that just was like kung fu movies was as American as apple pie, as they say.

Like American is baseball.

Like kung fu, kung fu flicks.

That was black culture, you know.

And there wasn't a Saturday that didn't go by that every black kid was watching kung fu on TV or going to the theater.

There was not one black kid that wasn't watching it and then going out after and like making nunchucks and going to the store and buying Chinese stars, you know, like that's what like real ones?

Yeah, real ones.

Like my grandmother, my grandparents used to take me to a place in Chinatown called Asian World of Martial arts.

This is 81, 82.

And Asian world of Martial Arts was the importer for martial arts supplies from Hong Kong, from China.

And it was, it was the importer in America.

It was the importer in America for all stores in Chinatowns across America.

And I would do my little chores, she would give me my money and I would go to the store and I would buy Bruce Lee magazines, nunchucks, Chinese stars.

Like as a kid, like legit, like, oh man, I could poke somebody's eye out, you know, I still have catalogs.

I still got my original catalogs.

Yeah, that I would fill out the form in the bank for mail order to order, you know.

And so, yeah, so like we would buy knives and butterfly knives in and even remember how the Punk scene had the.

The bracelet with the spice on it and everything.

Yeah.

We will buy them from there also, because that was a part of the culture.

Like, that was cool, like wearing spike bracelets.

So.

Yeah.

So getting ready to be in the Warriors.

That's exactly what it is.

So, yeah, I mean, it was.

It.

But all those things were cultural the same way.

The same way.

Hip hop in the.

In the Bronx, went downtown and met with the punk scene.

All those things was happening.

All those things were like these underground subcultures.

Yeah.

You know, which created something.

So kung fu flicks was a subculture.

It was, you know, skateboarding was a subculture on the West Coast.

You know, all these things.

The punk scene, you know, people.

Madonna, and I hate to say it, Madonna is more hip hop than a lot of people.

Yeah.

Because Madonna was at the Roxy's when Madonna was around the hip hop kids, when it was really hip hop, before it was commercial.

She was there, you know.

Yeah, she was.

I was talking to someone just yesterday, actually, about.

He'd read something about Aphex Twin and about how I think he turned down a Madonna remix because he didn't want to because of the way that she would kind of kind of latch on to the.

The scene of the moment and the sort of hot producers of the time and kind of use that to keep herself relevant.

And he just kind of didn't want to be that person who had been big.

But it is interesting how she.

She did that for what, two, two and a half decades.

And I.

I applaud him for turning that down because he's got standards with himself, and a lot of people don't have standards with themselves like me.

I will only attach my brand with or work with people that align with my brand.

It's not about a paycheck.

It's not about.

I, like, I've been offered corporate gigs or, like, commercial DJ gigs.

I'll pass it off to somebody who wants to play commercial top 40 music.

Yeah, I'll pass it off, you know, because it's not me.

I can play it, I've done it, but it's just not me.

And if I'm not having fun, you're at the party not having fun.

Right.

Because now I'm going through the motions, you know, but, like, yes, Madonna has done that for decades.

The difference with Madonna in 85, though, is that's all there was in 85 was that downtown scene.

So she.

She was a part of that downtown scene.

You know, fast forward to her being the Madonna that we all know, it's like, oh, now you're just doing the hot thing, Whatever.

Whatever's keeping you relevant.

And that's when people will say, well, that's an artist.

And I'm like, there's a thin line between being an artist and the art.

Like, there's a thin line, you know?

So, yeah, it's this.

It's culture.

And I think we've.

We've kind of really lost a lot of culture from the culture.

Yeah.

You know, you lose a lot of lineage now, don't you?

Because everyone's getting things that we're saying.

You saw the algorithms and things.

It's not tribal.

It's not being passed on in the same way that.

That you learn, you know, Japan.

How did Japan sort of come around?

It looks like you do quite a lot there.

That's almost kind of like.

It comes across as almost like your sort of home away from home in terms of DJing.

How's that relationship?

So that's like this.

That's.

That's my second home, in a sense.

It really is.

And I tell people I've been going to Japan since before I had a passport.

And people are like, what do you mean?

I'm like, well, I grew up on that culture.

I grew up in the 70s watching anime, watching shows like Star Blazers and in Astro Boy and all of these TV shows and then Samurai films.

And it was basically like, I used to do this event in Switzerland called Circle Kings.

It's a B boy event.

And two homies from Japan were in Switzerland, and they were like, we want to bring you to Japan.

And I'm like, let's make it happen, you know, because I.

I need to come to Japan.

And they brought me to Japan and it was like.

It was everything that I thought it was amazing.

And I was like, oh, yeah, this is home.

Because it felt good.

The respect level that I have for the Japanese, they saw that and was like, you're one of us.

They were like, you know, more about our history than a lot of our kids, you know, about more about our manga and our anime than our kids.

So they took me on as, like, Japanese.

So it's.

It's like a second home for me, you know, it really is.

So food wise, culture wise, music wise, it's a second home.

So now I'm.

I'm a resident, really.

I'm like, I'm A local.

Yeah.

It must be amazing as a collector because collecting culture is so huge there, isn't it?

Yeah.

So.

And that's the other thing.

A friend of mine, DJ T, who's like one of the OG DJs out there in the B boy scene, and I remember him telling me one time, he said, scheme, if you collect paperclips, there's somebody out here that has a greater paper collection than you do because they're serious about collecting and they collect everything.

I don't care if you say, I collect wire, a piece of wire, a piece of string.

There's somebody who has a crazy string collection, you know, so.

And that's what I love about them, because I'm a collector, you know, and the crazy thing is, like, a lot of people in hip hop are starting to collect now.

There was a time the only other two collectors that wasn't just records, but were collectors.

The only other two people that I can legitimately say were legit hip hop guys that were collectors of things.

Cash money and Bismarcky.

Yeah, period.

I didn't know anybody else in hip hop that could say, oh, I've got toys, I've got records, I've got arcade machines, I got pinball machines.

You know, I've got all these different things.

Movie posters, kung fu movie posters, blaxploitation movie posters.

You know, like me, biz and cash.

And I'll even add Supreme Laroque on that list.

Yeah.

But there was nobody, like, no one could even hold a conversation with us about collecting.

And now it seems like everyone's a collector now.

But we were collecting just from this simple fact of.

This is what we did as kids.

Yeah, yeah.

We were still into these things.

And I feel like a lot of people, they can't focus on collecting multiple things, so they have to be record collectors or sneaker collectors or with us.

It's like all of these things was my childhood, so I needed all.

Yeah, yeah.

I think sometimes as well, it's space that's an issue.

It's like you can just end up filling a house and.

And that.

Have you got any sort of stories you could share about experiences with biz?

Yo, I would be on the phone with Biz and Cash a lot.

And one of the craziest stories, and this is a really crazy story.

So you know Paul.

Nice.

Yeah.

All right.

So this was.

This was years ago, and I get a call from Paul and he's like, yo, I'm selling some of my.

My kung fu posters and kung fu memorabilia and Paul was one of the earliest people collecting kung fu and like VHS and posters and, and movies.

Like, he was the guy because he sold to people like Laura Finesse.

He sold to rza.

He sold to a lot of guys.

So he calls me and he says, he's like, yo, I'm selling some of my stuff.

I got a garage, I'm selling some.

He's like, either.

He's like, you come up Friday and if you don't come up Friday, I'm gonna call frz and I'm call biz and you know they're gonna buy it.

So I call cash and I'm like, yo, Paul just called me.

We gotta go up there.

So we drive to Poughkeepsie, we go to his crib, and he's got stacks of posters of reels of all of the rare stuff.

Me and cash drop a lot of money.

We, we spent a lot of money and we didn't even touch the surface.

The next day I'm with cash and biz calls him.

And you know, biz is animated, He's a character.

And biz is like, ho, ho, you thought you were slick.

You thought you were slick.

Or the Paul nice's crossing and buying stuff.

He drove a U haul U haul truck to Paul nice's house and bought everything.

Wow.

In the U haul.

But that's, that's the mentality and the collector in the one.

Because biz is always a one upper.

Oh, you got this.

Oh, I got that.

Yeah, yeah, right.

So we would be on the phone and we would just be back and forth like, yo, what do you got?

Oh, I got this up.

I've been had that for years.

But do you have this?

You know, so that story, I think that's the ultimate epitome story of biz being a collector is him knowing you was just there and him laughing at you and telling you you didn't buy everything because I just bought, you know, like, he's that guy.

And that's like, for me, that's the ultimate story for biz is that mentality of being a collector and him just basically being like, I'm going to go rent a U haul truck and I'm going to just go buy everything.

Yeah, yeah.

Like, who does that?

Well, am I right in saying he's kind of like part collector, part wind up merchant as well.

You know, I got two of these at home, that sort of thing.

And you know what, though?

And the crazy thing is, and you know, biz had a bad rap because people would be like, Oh, I don't believe Biz.

Oh, he's got this.

But what I tell people is Bizarre was digging before everyone and.

And people like, what do you mean?

Like, well, this person was digging.

I said, yeah, but Biz had Biz marking money.

Biz was going to Japan, Biz was going to the Netherlands.

Biz was going to the UK and buying Crazy Disco 12 inches and shipping back because he had that Warner Brothers money.

Yeah, Right.

So we're all digging.

We're not all spending Biz Markey money.

Right.

And when Biz is like, oh, I've got this 12 inch, and people are like, it doesn't exist.

How would we know?

We weren't going to the Netherlands in the 90s, but Biz was.

Yeah.

So Biz bought this 12 inch in the 90s and it's Netherlands pressing.

And we're so focused on American pressings because we don't know Dutch pressings exist.

People would be like, oh, Biz is lying.

No, he's not.

He bought the 12 inch from the Netherlands.

So he would be the guy that has 2 and 3.

Because business thing was always, I'm gonna buy them all because I don't want anybody else to have them.

Another crazy Biz story.

And I know you remember Big Daddy magazine, and they interviewed him and they asked him what he had.

And Biz talked about having a Godzilla that spits fire.

Like a giant Godzilla that spits fire.

And of course, I think he's told that story before.

And people were like, no, doesn't exist.

What are you talking about?

As a person who's been to Japan, I've seen the Godzilla that spits fire.

Right.

It's a legitimate remote control giant Godzilla that was.