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In this special episode, we sit down with mixtape legend J.Period for an in-depth conversation about his journey from LA to New York, the craft of storytelling through music, and what it takes to sustain a prolific creative career in the ever-changing music industry.

J.Period shares intimate insights into his creative process, from his early days discovering hip hop through Beat Street to becoming one of the most respected mixtape curators in the game. We explore his collaborations with icons like The Roots, Lauryn Hill, Nas, and Q-Tip, and discuss how he's adapted his craft in the streaming era while maintaining artistic integrity.

This conversation goes deep into the philosophy of curation, the importance of resilience in creative work, and how to balance prolific output with quality and family life. Whether you're a DJ, producer, or creative professional, there's invaluable wisdom here about staying authentic and building a sustainable career in music.

Guest

J.Period - Legendary mixtape DJ, curator, and storyteller known for his innovative blends and narrative-driven projects. Creator of iconic mixtapes including The Best of Lauryn Hill, collaborations with The Roots, Nas, Q-Tip, and many more.

Key Topics Covered

1. Early influences: Growing up in LA and discovering hip hop through Beat Street
2. The move to New York in 1999 and starting the DJ journey
3. The craft of mixtape curation and storytelling through music
4. Building relationships with artists like The Roots, Lauryn Hill, and Nas
5. The evolution from physical mixtapes to streaming platforms
6. Apple Music's DJ program and finally getting DJs compensated
7. The philosophy of resilience: handling rejection and failure
8. Balancing prolific creative output with family and personal life
9. The importance of authenticity and gratitude in the music industry
10. Upcoming projects and live performances

Notable Quotes

"Failure is an essential part of success. I would not have been able to do any of these things unless I tried and failed eight, nine, ten times on the road to figuring it out."

"The only thing they've ever been able to do is pay the copyright holders. No one has ever figured out how to pay the DJs until Apple Music."

"If you tell me no, I'm just going to figure out another way to do it. That's why I'm where I'm at."

"What you bring to a thing is what you will get from it. The amount of arrogance and ego and expectation you bring will be matched. But if you're grateful and humble, that will affect the outcome too."

Connect with J Period

1. Instagram: @jperiodbk
2. Twitter: @jperiodbk
3. Facebook: J Period BK
4. YouTube: J Period BK

Special Thanks

Big thanks to Dan Lish for connecting us for this conversation.

Upcoming Events

Live Podcast Recording with Dan Lish

1. Date: January 30th, 2026
2. Location: Canopy Menswear, Derby
3. Contact the show for details

Just before we get into this week's show, I just wanted to say big thanks to everyone who's listened, commented, shared, subscribed, done all of that sort of good stuff for the show this year. I've really enjoyed doing it and we've had some wicked guests on. So yeah, hope it's been enjoyed.

We're going to be back in early January, kicking off, got a load of episodes recorded, so there's plenty going to be plenty to go at and going to do a few projects, going to put together a little kind of like beat tape compilation project thing that I'll shout up about in the new year. Gonna be doing a live podcast recording up here in Derby if anyone's interested.

So hope people have a good break, have a good new year and Christmas, get a bit of a wind down if they can and yeah, speak to you all in the new year. In the meantime, enjoy this week's episode. This has been well over a year in the making, so really happy to get it recorded and to get it out.

Some super interesting stuff in there about curating mixtapes and like some real deep dive on J Period's process. So I really, really hope you enjoy this one. And yeah, let's get to it. Welcome back to Unto DJ Anyone.

If you've not liked, subscribed or shared, what you doing? We need these numbers to help keep building the show. And with us today, I'm absolutely delighted to have an absolute mixtape legend.

J Period, how are you doing today, sir?

Glad to be here, I'm feeling good. How you feeling?

Yeah, I'm good. Thanks very much for coming on. And a big shout out to Dan Lish as well for linking us up.

Yes.

And just while we're on the subject with Dan, I'm going to be doing on, I think it's the 29th of January, an in person podcast with Dan at Canopy Menswear.

Okay.

Derby. So yeah, if anyone wants to get in touch and find out details, just give me a shout. You know, the more people, the better.

So yeah, how you doing today then? You good?

Feeling good? Yes sir, Glad to finally be here. We've been trying to coordinate this for a minute.

Yeah, it's been a while. And you were saying this is the first Interview in your new space?

Yes, this is the first interview I've done in my new space. So welcome.

Nice. Honored to be here.

So yeah, as we were discussing, really where we start with the show is just really looking at what your earliest memories are around music and that sort of inspiration that kind of set you on this path.

Well, you know, it's funny, the mixtapes I do are kind of combination of music and storytelling and I always ask a very similar question when I'm starting my interviews because I really do feel like what people heard in their house growing up is very, very impactful before they imagine themselves, you know, to be an artist. And in my case, you know, my father was a musician, my father's also a teacher.

So I feel like there was really always music just around in the house as a kid. And that might have been, you know, folk music. It might have been, you know, rock and roll. It might have been from my sister who's a little older.

I got, you know, fishbone and Red Hot Chili Peppers and more punk and ska and you know, for my folks I got folk and rock.

And I just was born at the right time and discovered hip hop when I was just a kid and, and I think that, you know, that really took over everything for me from there.

So what was the first hip hop that you got into?

Well, you know, I remember very vividly seeing the movie Beat street and just being completely blown away.

And you know, I grew up in, in Los Angeles and you know, that couldn't, you know, the burned out Bronx couldn't have looked farther from the place that I was from.

But there was something about it that just was captivating and fascinating and you know, when know, sort of graduated from college and, and had my choice of where to go, I was like, I, I, I want to go to New York. I want to be closer to hip hop. And that's really what started my DJ journey.

So what year was that then?

I went to New York in 99 and it was right out of school. I had been DJing kind of a little bit in college, but not necessarily on turntables. I hadn't really learned how to rock on turntables yet.

And when I got to New York, I, I had a little party, I think, for celebrating my turntables and someone heard me, asked me to DJ another party. And then, you know, kind of it started from there.

Did you say 99?

Yep, 99, right.

Because there would have been quite. So were you sort of anywhere around the LA scene then? Like the underground scene?

Well, to be honest, I was too young. You know, growing up I just was a fan.

I definitely was, you know, sort of a participant in the sense of I knew about the LA hip hop scene and you know, I was buying mixtapes on Mel Rose.

But what I was fascinated with was, you know, New York hip hop and, and at that time, you know, it was Kane, you know, it was Rakim and, and that was what sort of captured my imagination.

But I definitely got, you know, Dream Team and some of the LA based crews and I was around for the early days of K day, which is a really important la, you know, west coast hip hop station. So you know, I was soaking it up. But I feel like at that era it was still really New York flavored hip hop. You know, that was kind of the epicenter.

So. So were there specific DJs at that time that you were kind of locked into?

You know, I remember getting mixtapes like Mr. C, there was a DJ named Silva Surfer who was operating in, on the west coast. And then there was a, an underground radio show called the Fly ID show that I used to listen to with good friend of mine Justin Crowley.

And we would just spend know every night tuning into this AM station to hear all the underground hip hop. So those were kind of the main outlets that I got it from.

So what was it like then, sort of landing in New York? Whereabouts did you basis? Did you go? Straight to Brooklyn.

You know, my first year I was, you know, kind of in the, in Manhattan on the Upper east side in a little apartment.

But then by the following year I found my way to Brooklyn and pretty much, you know, put my feet down and camped out and really felt at home in Brooklyn and, and you know, the better part of my New York life has really been spent in Brooklyn.

What were your first steps then in terms of DJing beyond those parties then? So it was kind of parties. Did it all just grow word of mouth or did you have a bit of a plan?

Well, I, I have kind of a little bit of a, of a, a detour. But when I was my junior year of college I was, I was my.

So let's see, my sophomore year I was DJing parties, but with CDs, like with CDJs and just sort of selecting like, you know, in the Jamaican sense and didn't know how to use turntables. My roommate, my sophomore year had turntables.

I would sneak in and teach myself a little bit and, and it wasn't even necessarily a dream, it just was like, I want to know how this Works. And. And so from those parties, I think I. I built up at least a confidence of. Of, you know, what to play and how to move a crowd and so forth.

But it wasn't really until I got to New York and. And when I was my sophomore year in school, I was overseas and I had connected with RO Crew and met DJ Scribble.

So when I moved to New York, I literally went to the Rocksteady anniversary and tried to track down DJ Scribble. And sure enough, he remembered me and was like, man, if you're really trying to get started, I'll take you to come, you know, help you out.

Yeah, he's probably saved you a lot of time in the journey there as well, right?

Oh, I mean. I mean, you know, knowing someone like Scribble at an early part of my career and seeing, you know, this is when he was doing traffic jams.

He's on MTV, he was DJing for the Fugees. He really was the man. And he kind of took me under his wing and. And sort of gave me a shot and didn't really have to.

So I definitely credit him in a big way for. For my journey as a dj.

So did you DJ for a while before you started doing the mixtapes, or was that quite, quite early?

I mean, you know, to be honest, I started out just playing clubs, and the mixtapes were more just something I had done as a kid. I used to make pause tapes of all my favorite records, really, just to put my favorite songs together.

And when I started DJing, I had a day job at a design company. And so what I decided I really wanted to do was to start making little mixtapes just for myself.

And so the early mixtapes were my demo to get club gigs. It was just me rocking a party, and I would give that out to club owners and people that I met.

And then, you know, after that, I started getting ideas of, oh, I want to do a themed mix I want to do it all New York hip hop mix. So I made a mixtape called Beats from New York and literally printed, you know, after work on the.

On the fiery printer at the design company and, you know, printing the sticker labels and doing it all like that. It was more just like, you know, I don't know, like a project, you know, it wasn't necessarily a strategy.

And so what happened was, you know, I made a couple of these mixtapes for myself, and then again, as a kind of attempt to be closer, I took it to Fat Beats, I took it to the DJ Honda store, and I put them on consignment in those stores and. And what, you know, what happened? But some people started to come and they play them in the. In the store and be like, oh, what's that?

And then the mixtapes start to sell. So now I'm like, okay, this is interesting. And I start, you know, making different themes. But this is long before, you know, what I get known for.

And those mixtapes, it's really just djing and rocking parties and making different kinds of demos. You know, maybe it's a dance all reggae mixtape, maybe it's a hip hop old school mixtape. And.

And that was really where it started, you know, the seed for what became, you know, kind of what I'm known for was that a friend of mine I had met who was DJing for Afu, Ra, who was, you know, under Premiere, had a record called Whirlwind Through Cities. So I had connected with a crew called Zion I, which is out of Oakland, and they actually took me for my first kind of tour to really DJ overseas.

And when I was there, this was in Brazil, I met this DJ name, Brown, who was DJing for AFU. And G. Brown saw what I was doing, and the mixtapes I was making was like, yo, like, let me show you how to really do this officially.

And he's the one that took me around to Canal street and Fulton street in Brooklyn and 125th in Harlem to, you know, see the vendors, see how, like, the actual industry of it was conducted. And that just excited me, you know, in a way to try to figure out how to crack that system.

This is right after, you know, Ether, basically. So Nas is really kind of feeling himself, and he just starts telling stories.

And I had my mini disc recorder on the table, and I'm listening to him tell these stories, and I just was like, you know, what would be amazing is to take that and mix it with the music and make, like, almost like a storybook about Nas. And so I go up to him at the end of this and I say, yo, I have this idea for a best of Nas. Can I get a drop? And, you know, which is like a cosine.

You know, this is Nas with J period. This is the best of Nas. And I take that little drop home and I make, you know, this mixtape that was just my homage to Nas.

And, you know, a couple people had, you know, friends of mine at the time had grown up with Nas, had little basement demo tapes, just, you know, coincidence and me feeling like, okay, I'm supposed to do this. And so I make this mixtape and I put it in the stores, and within a few months, I open up the source, and the tail of the tape is my Nas mixtape.

And so this is where, you know, stuff starts to really kind of take off. And I get asked to do another one of these for Big Daddy Kane. And Can I just.

Can I just ask on the N Worm?

Yes.

Was there any kind of thoughts of, this is my big opportunity to do something, to step it up a level. Did it have, like, a pressure involved?

I mean, you know, the. The secret, honestly.

And.

And I don't know, it's. It's. It seems a little bit simplistic, but to be honest, I just love this. Like, I was never thinking about that.

I just wanted to be a part of it, you know? Like, I really just wanted to be in the room and get to see it, you know, in person after growing up far away. And it was a kind of off in the clouds.

So for me, the opportunity to just be in the mix was, man, it was like a dream come true. And so, no, I definitely wasn't thinking about anything like that. You know, I'm a competitor.

I'm always trying to challenge myself to do better and better in general. And I think that once I saw the door open up, a little bit of what this could be like. Yeah, absolutely.

I was pushing and trying to see what we could turn it into. And I. I don't think it was driven by a strategy or an ambition. It was more just like, what do we have to do to make this work? And.

And, you know, and that. And that, you know, I Think that was the pressure, but that's the kind of a pressure I apply to myself with everything I do.

It's just like, how do we. How do we do this the best as possible?

And I think, you know, that impulse has really served me well because, you know, there's a lot of people who are approaching it as a strategy, as, like, how do I blow up? How do I do this or that? And watch them all fall by the wayside and I' here. And, you know, that's because, like, I'm happy to be here.

And it never wears off. You know, like, the magic of this doesn't really wear off for me. And I think that going back to those early days, it was the same thing.

It was just like, how do we do this in the illest way possible? And that led me to Canal. And then I'm looking at the mixtapes like, everybody's got a girl in a bikini on their mixtape cover.

How do we separate ourselves out? So I started doing art pieces for my mixtapes. This is ultimately what leads me to Dan Lish, is that I wanted them to stand out visually as well.

I wanted it to tell a story. And so, you know, the Nas leads to. To an opportunity to do this for Big Daddy Kane, but still, nobody really knows who I am.

And when I tried to interview Kane, he thought I was some scrub. Like, I had to send my manager Tamir back to interview him again because he was looking at me like, who. Who are you?

So had he asked you to do the tape?

Well, the Lyricist Lounge was doing a tour, and I had been DJing some events for the Lyricist Lounge in New York. And so they asked me. They commissioned me to do the mixtape. And Kane didn't really know.

But what happened, which was dope, was that once it was done, out of courtesy, out of respect, Kane was my favorite. Like, I sent them to Kane, and I get a call a week later like, yo, Youngblood, you know, need you to send me some more of those mixtapes.

We, you know, the folks at the shows are really feeling them. And I was like, man, you know, like, send some more mixtapes.

And, you know, by the third box, Little Daddy Shane, who's Kane's little brother, is like my best friend, because, you know, I'm lacing them with something that they haven't had in years, which is like a product to get people excited. I'm reminding people of how dope Kane is. And now this mixtape gets, you know, into other magazines.

Yeah, so just a couple of questions on that.

Yeah.

Given that your first one was Naz and the kind of illmatic syndrome of.

How do I. Oh, the sophomore. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Was there any of that?

I mean, what's funny about it is, you know, I would say a little bit, yes. There's, like, always the sophomore. Jinx is definitely a thing and people know about it. So I do think I had it in my mind, but I also.

I'm always trying to outdo myself.

So I think that what I discovered on the Nas mixtape in that you could combine these stories in the music, but it had to be a certain balance because people weren't used to hearing that on a mixtape.

By the time I get to the cane and there's a little bit more knowledge of what I'm doing, I feel like, okay, I can push the envelope a little bit more and be a little more thorough with the interview. So I think that that was really the way it started to evolve, was like, I love music, I love storytelling.

How can we find the best way to mesh these things together?

And, you know, the cane one was an evolution from that, the Lauryn Hill one, you know, which I'm rocking the shirt right now, that is really the one where it sort of. It grew to its fullest expression. And again, because I. I love Lauryn Hill.

So, like, if I was going to do this for Lauryn Hill, for Kane, man, it had to be done right. It wasn't even about what other people are going to think of me. It's like, what are they going to think of me?

You know, what is Kane going to think of me? What is Laure Hill gonna think of me?

Was it nice with Kane or was there anything in it, given that he used to be a dj, because he was. It was he business DJ at first before he wrapped?

Yeah, well, Kane is just, you know, a hip hop encyclopedia in all the ways. Like, he. He is hip hop. So, you know, I think that, you know, it wasn't necessarily a pressure in terms of.

Of as a dj, but again, this is a guy who is a legend. So, like, how are you going to represent that in the proper way and show improve? You know, it's. It's like as a dj, I'm just trying to.

To hold this artist in the. In the highest light. And so if I've done that, then I've accomplished my goal, basically.

So then with the Lauryn Hill one, was that. Was that another one where it was commissioned by a third party, or was that direct?

No, that was me. That was. I mean, I don't know that the cane, even you could say, was a full and proper commission.

Like, I was commissioned to do it, but it was sort of for the opportunity at that. You know, the Lauryn Hill mix was me just really, really wanting to hear all of her music in one place.

And, you know, we got the score and, you know, we got miseducation. And then, you know, she had a moment where she's kind of not in the public eye, and that's the moment where I was compelled to make this.

So that also is this crazy aligning of the stars where I wanted to do this. I had no way to get to Lauryn Hill. And one night I'm out at a club and meet Rohan Marley, son of Bob Marley.

And I give Rohan some of my mixtapes, and, you know, myself and Tamir, you know, who I used to work with, we end up hanging out with Rohan the whole night. We have this incredible time with him, and the following day, he's moving to Los Angeles. And I'm like, man, give me your address.

I'll send you more mixtapes. And sure enough, a few weeks go by and I get a call and it's like, yo, Jay, period. You know, send me some more of those mixtapes.

And I was like, send out mixtapes. And over time, I developed this relationship with Rohan where we became friends still to this day.

And, you know, again, because I didn't really have an agenda, it was just like, wow, what is happening? This is insane.

And so, you know, in the course of that, once I felt like he saw that I wasn't there to take advantage, I was like, listen, I have this idea. Is there any way you can give me, you know, Lauryn Hill's contact or email and I could just pitch this to her and. Or put me in touch?

And he said, well, you know, that he basically. He said, that's got nothing to do with me. In other words, like, you know, I can't, but here's her email.

And he gave me her email, and he said, you know, you can send her a message and explain what you want to do. I was like, amazing.

So I go home and I write my college best, you know, email to Lauryn Hill, and I send it off, and within five minutes, I get a response back that's like, thank you Very much. But no. And I was like. I was like, okay, number one, Lauryn Hill just wrote me back, like, what the. Number two. Damn, you know, like, that was quick.

And then number three was just like, huh, like, trying to figure this out. Like, what. What's behind that? You know, like, she felt so strongly about that. She responded right away, like, that's interesting.

And so I went to sleep, and I woke up the next day, and I was like, you know what? I would love to have Lauryn Hill's cosign, but I don't need Lauryn Hills cosign. I'm going to do it anyway.

And I wrote her back politely, and I said, with all due respect, I'm compelled to make this. I'm going to make it anyway. And it was just like, you know, insane thing to say to your hero. But I. That was how I felt.

And I kind of sat with it until I decided, like, no. Like, I will regret not doing this if I don't do this. She doesn't know me. Let me show her who I am. And so I made this mixtape on my own.

And what was crazy about it is that another aligning of the stars moment happens to where I'm sending off. You know, this is pre Internet, pre YouTube.

I'm sending off for, like, VHS tapes of interviews so that I can get a little bit of what I got from Nas or from Kane, but I don't have any way to get to her. And then one night, they announced that she's going to perform at Deaf Poetry. And I'm. And I'm already going. And I'm friends with all the poets.

And I'm like, okay, this is another magical moment. I sent her an email like, hey, I'm going to this thing tonight. I would love to get that drop from you. And again, like, super ballsy move.

You know, send it off, go to the thing. And sure enough, in walks Lauryn Hill. And in another one of these magical moments, there's a guy filming her.

And the guy filming her kind of moves his camera, and he's like, joel and. Which is my name. And I look at him, and I know this guy. And.

And it just was one of these things where she sees me know him, and it's like, okay, like, you must be legit. And so, you know, I kind of say to her, you know, respectfully, you know who I am and what I'm there for. And she says, you know what?

Not before the show, but if you hang out, you know, after the show, I'll see what I can do. So, you know, I back off, leave her alone.

She goes and does her thing, comes back through, and sure enough, you know, comes to me, and she gives me the nod and. And gives me the. The drop of all time. I mean, you know, this is Lauryn Hill with J, period.

This is the best of Lauryn Hill is what I got from Lauryn Hill. And I walked around the corner to make sure nobody's there, and I was like, rocky at the top of the stairs. Like, I was jumping up and down.

You know, this was inconceivable that some thing like this would happen. It was impossible, but it had just happened.

And so that night, when I go to get home from this event, another crazy thing happens, which is that one of these VHS tapes that I'd ordered that never arrived, it was actually a Japanese import bootleg cd. And on the second CD was this whole CD of interviews with Lauryn Hill. And that is the.

That is the seed of the Lauryn Hill mixtape, is that I had the drop. I had these interviews, and I was like, I need to make something that shows her who I am.

And, man, oh, man, you know, when I made it and I sent it to her, I got no response. And there's something called Mix Show Power Summit, which is like a DJ convention that used to happen every year. And as it happened, the.

You know, the year after I went to that DJ convention, and the IT tech in charge was Mulaney Hill, Lauryn Hill's brother. And when I introduced myself, he got up from behind the table and came around and just gave me a hug, and I was like, oh, wow, what's going on?

And he's like.

And he took me by the shoulders, and he's like, listen, man, he's like, I have to tell you, my sister has had your CD in her CD player in the kitchen for three months, and she won't take it out.

And I just was like, you know that thing where you, like, walk out of the room and come back in the room just because, like, you can't believe what has happened? And that was sort of how I. I was told that she had heard the mixtape.

And again, it's like I'm pouring all this love into these things, and I just want these people to feel seen. You know what I mean? Like, there's so many versions of Lauryn Hill out in the world that people, you know, like, assume about who she is.

And mind you, most of them are completely wrong.

And I can say that, you know, now that I know her and they're all just the thing that happens when a person is too famous and you can't access them and you assume and so forth. But. But what happened from this mixtape was that I really got to connect with her.

And so that then leads to a real relationship where by the following year, I'm being asked to go on tour as her dj.

And, you know, it's just sort of this thing that I can't really explain, can't really predict, but I'm watching all this love that I pour into this thing get fed back to me in these amazing ways. And, you know, and this is also the Lauryn Hill mixtape just takes off. Like, it just goes crazy for me.

And, you know, for the next several years, people are, like, holding it up to me and, like, can you make this for Mary J. Blige? Can you make this for the Roots? Can you?

And this is sort of now how all these relationships really start to become solidified, including Q Tip, who, you know, I run into walking outside a Sirius satellite radio, and he. And he's like, man, I go to give him the Lauryn Hill mixtape, and he's like, yo, can you do that for me? And I was like, man, like, you're.

You're literally my favorite. Tribe Called Quest is my favorite. And so I say yes.

And again, you know, it's like, okay, you know, if I'm asking you, you know, you have an opportunity, Adam, to make a Tribe Called Quest mixtape for A Tribe Called Quest. What are you going to do? And so, you know, and that's what was in my mind. And so I decided that I couldn't just make a mixtape.

I needed to make the definitive mixtape, like, the mixtape that will settle all debates forever.

And so I start reaching out to all these artists that I've met, you know, De La Soul, I don't really know him, but I'm like, yo, I'm doing this thing for Q Tip. And literally everyone who hears the words for Q Tip is like, yes, I'll do it. And so I send out 15 asks and I get 15 yeses.

And that is the sort of beginning of the Q Tip mixtape as well.

Yeah, I mean, that was my entry point with you as the Q Tip tape.

And it was like, it really sets the bar, you know, for what and what an artist artist mix is, you know, on the subjects of the shout outs, like you said with Lauren Hill, one, the only time I've kind of gone to a gig and got an artist shout out was Percy P. Was playing up there. And my friend, who's a lot more confident me than me, kind of just ushered him into the toilets, was like, yeah, can we get a shout out?

And it was, you know, obviously the sound quality is terrible and it's right. I don't think he's enjoying it, you know. Did you used to go. Go around? Were you quite vigilant with getting shout outs?

Oh, yes. Oh, my God. I mean, the other thing is, the thing I referred to a second ago, mix show Power Summit.

This is something that was sponsored by the record labels and a company called RPM used to literally fly the DJs to Puerto Rico or the Bahamas or Dominican Republic. And then you.

And then you'd have a captive audience with all the artists because the record labels would send all their artists down basically to interact with the DJs, who, you know, would control what got played, what gets played on the radio. And so that was where I was like, you know, my recorder to everybody. And I've seen some funny things.

I've seen certain rappers, like, really not want to give a drop. And like, I saw a rapper knock a DJ out once for asking too many times.

I won't say who the rapper was, but when I went to ask him, I asked in a very polite way. But I, But I asked. And I think that I just have always been fearless in that way of like, you know, ask.

Ask permission, ask forgiveness, you know, not permission.

Yeah, yeah. It's like, I guess there must be so many times where they get asked for the drop and then thinking, what is this going to end up on?

Well, I think it's all timing. I think with DJs, you know what it's going to end up on. It's going to end up on a radio show or a mixtape.

And is it going to be a good one?

Well, that's where you got to kind of. You know, some of these DJs, you might know, the first year I'm out there, you know, people aren't really giving me the time of day.

By the time I did the Nas and the Cane, it's like, oh, shit, Jay. Period. Oh, yeah. And that's how, you know, like, you got to kind of work that. But it's really all about respect.

It's about, like, earning their respect.

It's about showing them respect and it's about, you know, conveying to them in that little moment you have with them that you're going to help them out, like you love them. You know, what do they want more than a DJ out there in the World singing their praises like that's, that's everything to an artist.

So you know, that's kind of how, how I would work that.

But again, you know, don't underestimate the power of being happy to be there, you know, like, because you're never going to roll up on someone and be disrespectful if you're happy to be there. Like you're not, you're never going to be a dick to someone if you're happy to be there. You're like, oh my God, this is amazing.

That's gratitude, you know what I mean? That's humility. Like those things are, are essential. Cuz everybody has an ego in this. So like, you know what I'm saying?

Like you're not going to out ego. People just go in there and try and get what you need and you know, like whatever make your impression and that's. And that's kind of how I roll.

Yeah. And something I was thinking about as well before when you said about Lauren coming back to you quickly.

It's always nicer to receive a no than receive nothing, isn't it? Like I've had quite a few where people are like, yeah, it's not for me.

And it, it's so annoying because you just think like this person's got such an amazing story, you just really want to get into it but like you know, they've got their reasons and stuff and there's a myriad of them but.

Well, you're not going to get everything from everyone. But I think you got to feel that out also.

Some people, you know, Q tip when I, when I even with him asking me to do it, when I went to do the interview, he gave me 15 minutes. He's like, you got 15 minutes. Now what happens is I ask the right questions in those 15 minutes, that 15 minutes turns into 30, 45 an hour.

And we ended up with Q tip for two and a half hours because I'm asking him the right questions and you know, like Kopelka, nobody knew what kopelka is like, you know I found out what Kopelka is in that interview. You know what? Nothing. Kopelka makes you vomit from tribe. That's gefilte fish. That's Q tip trying to say gefilte fish. Like who would have ever known?

You know, it's like these things are ridiculous. Or the story of Jade don't walk away and how that baseline becomes award tour. And those are things.

Yeah, these are things that were revelations that came out of the Mixtape. Like I saw an article somebody wrote about that fact.

That fact was revealed on the mixtape and it was done by taking the Jade record and the Weldon Irvin and the tribe and laying them together in a way that makes you go, oh, like I can hear it. Like I can, I can hear how it came together. And yeah, I mean that, that was.

The thing too, I think on that point as well, when I was listening to it again the other day, the way that you do that bit.

So for anyone who's not aware, it's yes, explaining the kind of sample source and the inspiration and all these sorts of things and, but, but the way it is on that mixtape, it really kind of sucks you into concentrating on it and analyzing it and stuff. It's, you know, in a way that I don't think a lot of things in mixes would generally pull you like that, you know.

Yeah.

And that one, I think as much as the Lauryn Hill is sort of the most fully formed version of, of my mixtape series, the Q tip one, I don't think I could ever replicate or attempt again. It was just like this crazy force of energy and then again and then me just feeling like I have to do this right. Like you know, everything about it.

Like I had a sound engineer from, you know, Alex Moulton, shout out Alex, who was an electronic music DJ and engineer. But I was like, I need this to, to sound right to anybody.

It's got to sound super official and man, like those records have really stood the test of time. So, you know, I'm really, really proud of that one.

Was that prior to your doing these sorts of mixes, was there anyone else doing anything remotely similar that inspired you or you kind of got takeaways from?

I mean, to be honest, I never heard any mixtape that attempted to tell stories. It really was an idea that I had because I loved stories and, and I wanted to know what it would sound like.

And I think that this is an artistic form that is really a labor of love, like to, to kind of work through the details of all of this and figure out the way to make it accessible for people is like a years process that again is just driven by a desire to make it, you know, into something really unique and, and unlike anything else. I think, you know, like, I don't listen to other DJs, mixtapes.

I have my favorite DJs and you know, Jazzy Jeff and there are DJs whose mixes I really like.

I, you know, I got a small subset of people's, but they're nothing like, what I would do, you know, like, you know, I love what Neil Armstrong used to do with the samples, like, before anybody else was doing that stuff. I mean, I don't know. Like, I don't. I don't really listen to other mixtape DJs in that way. I'm just trying to make an album, you know.

Like, what I was trying to make was De La Soul is Dead. You know what I mean? Like, I'm trying to make something that is so much a thing that it feels like an album.

I think that's really what it was, is I wasn't trying to make mixtapes. I was. I was trying to make albums and.

Or audio movies, you know, documentaries, which is how we describe those pieces sometimes, because that's kind of what they are. And. Yeah, and I think that in a lot of ways, everything that I've done since then in every form is all really derived from that.

It's just this desire to figure out a way to make the music come to life with the stories and make the stories come to life, you know, with the music and.

And just how that connection is really a magical thing if it's finessed, you know, in the right way, like a award tour, you know, sketch, or, you know, any number of those moments that are on those tapes. Because it was, you know, it was that for me.

And when I'm making it and I'm discovering this, I have the excitement of a kid listening, you know what I mean? Like, you know, as if I'm on the other end of it. Yeah.

So what did you study at college?

Well, I studied multicultural psychology. I had what's called an individually designed major. It was multicultural psychology and religious studies and Jewish studies, because I'm Jewish.

And so I think in the beginning it was looking at kind of different cultures and connections and overlaps. And at Stanford, they had this program where you could kind of propose a major.

And what I was interested in was the intersections of all these different things, not unlike as a dj.

And my major was really about how all these things intersect, how cultures intersect, you know, the psychology of how we compose our identity and sort of, you know, everything from, like, sort of mixed identity and. And this is in. You know, I did this in 95. You know, this is ahead of any of those study programs anywhere.

And it just was something I was interested in. I saw kind of the world going in that direction. So, you know, that was kind of the. The academic side of it.

But I do feel like all the things I studied are really much present in the work that I do still to this day. So, yeah, so, I mean, if I wasn't doing this, I was on track to be a teacher.

You know, that's what both my parents were and probably what I would have done. I think I do that a little bit, you know, as a dj. But, yeah, that's. That's kind of what I studied in college. Yeah.

Because I suppose you've kind of got with this narrative, it's like, what's the melt input that made these things happen as a sort of fundamental concept which maybe goes over well.

It's funny. Funny you should use that term because right now we have a project called the Art of the Crossfade that I'm doing with, actually a professor at usc.

And the whole idea of this is that the original notion of a melting pot is that everything becomes like a homogenized whole, but that the crossfade is essentially, you have these two distinct entities, and the crossfader is about finding the points of connection between those two entities without erasing either one of them, so they don't have to sort of lessen themselves in order to find balance. And that, to me, is kind of a master metaphor for all of this stuff.

And that's something that we're looking to develop really into a much bigger program to kind of expose some of that about what DJing really does, especially in this version of the world. You know, like, there's so much music, you need a DJ to find your way through it.

There's so much information, you need a curator to help you navigate.

And I think that's what a DJ does is just like sort of take this mass amount of information and go, ooh, that part, that part, that part, that part, that part. And then put it all together until you're like, well, you know, the combination of. That's what the break beats are.

It's like, I'm gonna take the best part of all these records and we're just going to run that back and, you know, until everybody in the whole place is lit up and dancing. And that's really what it is for me. It's like, it's, you know, the spirit of hip hop is baked into it.

And the crossfade is a thing that's is musical, but it's also cultural. Like, it's also, you know, you are in the uk, I don't know your background or your origin story. You know, you don't know mine necessarily.

But here we are by way of hip hop, able to connect and have a conversation and that to me is like a really powerful thing.

How was Stanford for hip hop then? Because that's like a pretty prestigious school, right?

Yes, Stanford. You know, the funny part about that was that, you know, when I started DJing was in a. My freshman dorm.

I just, you know, was playing like a Halloween party and somebody hears me and then they asked me to do an off campus party. And that party, as it happens, was sort of this guy who was connected to the heads of all the black fraternity and sororities at Stanford.

And so I started get. I got. My first gig was the Delta Black Family Gathering barbecue that I DJed. And then I got hired to do another one and another one. And.

And so my dj, my earliest DJ career was really sort of in the black community at Stanford. Like UJIMA was this, that was like the black theme house. There were parties there.

I dj, you know, those parties over the, you know, the time I was at Stanford. And the best way I can describe the energy of those is like an Atlanta house party. You know, it was like step.

Like I don't know if in the UK you guys know about step shows.

And I personally don't.

Well, I mean, there's a whole ritual to parties, like black fraternity and sorority parties, where there's like lines snaking through the party and dancing together and routines and all this stuff. And you just really have to be on point because there's a lot riding on it.

And so that was where I kind of cut my teeth as a dj, being able to rock those parties. I still to this day feel like the parties at Stanford that I would play set me up to go anywhere in the world and, and rock. So that was kind of.

Yeah, so that was kind of the vibe there musically. But also, you know, Tajie Massey from Souls of Mischief was my classmate. And this is in 94, you know, so like this, right after 93 till infinity.

And there, there was, you know, KZSU Kevy Kev, who became a big DJ in the Bay Area, he was on Stanford radio. And so there was a hip hop thing happening there. I was sort of on the fringes of it, but it was there.

Yeah, and I, you know, and also at that time I was getting to go. I was in the Bay Area getting to go to see Cut Chemist and Q Bert and you know, future Primitive Sound sessions in San Francisco. So like I, I got a.

The best part of that world as well when I was in the Bay.

Yeah, that's a good education.

Yeah, for sure. Chemist and all those guys.

So when you were making mixes because like narrative arc and this sort of thing's key, right? Would you get, many times when you're making a mix?

I suppose it's like if you're writing a book where you just kind of get stuck on going from one place to another, would you get these kind of like, I, I, I used to sometimes find I quite quickly became quite lazy when making mixes.

I remember doing my first couple of mixes and taking like weeks over them and, you know, really going to town on it and, and I, I would like to get back to that because it's really satisfying. But then you'll sometimes have, these days you've just got like records all over your room and just trying to find what goes next.

Do you get that sort of thing much with when you're making these artist tapes?

Man, you know, to be honest, the, the process is so involved when I make those. It's sort of like making a movie or writing a book. I, I start by just doing a ton of research.

So I'm, I'm watching hours and hours and hours of documentary footage. Interviews. The interviews start to draw connections. You know, when you hear a person speak in their own words, you start to go, huh?

Oh, that's the thing they refer to over here as well. So that must be a theme. And you just start trying to do a little bit of that.

And then there may be stories that come up in the interview that you're like, oh, like, you know, set that aside. We got to include that.

And then I think from there it's like, you know, if you could see my desk when I'm doing one of these, it's like a hundred, you know, thousand little scraps of paper and post its. And I'm like, it's like, it's like the movie A Beautiful Mind. You know, it's just like, like it's the whole thing.

And, and then I started literally just arranging and I got outlines and, and it's, it's really, it's telling a story and, and you know, parallel to that obviously is like the music. The energy has to work to tell the story in the right way. So, you know, if you go to a movie, there's like the big exciting opening scene.

There's like, usually it comes down from there to some kind of explanatory sort of moment before it starts to ramp up again. You know, this is all just like the arc of stories.

And if you're paying attention to those kinds of things and trying to recreate those kinds of things, you Know, and you know, intrinsically, you know, what, how this thing's supposed to flow. And so some of it is just that it's like, okay, we got to start with a bang. What's going to go first?

And then when we dip down, okay, what story are we telling? What's like, what's the one story that sort of hints at all the other stories?

And I think that's really how I structured these is as if it was a narrative. And then you know, the. Obviously that doesn't work in a, in a, in a vacuum because it's not just words, it's music.

So that's where the DJ part of like, okay, trying out records or like I'm going to have this blend into that and then maybe I can use that as a bridge to get to that. And then, you know, that's just all the stuff that, that we start doing to, to make those connections. But you know, that's a month minimum.

That's like when I'm under the gun and I was given a lot of money. I've done that in, you know, two weeks. If I really had to go insane, crazy.

Like the James Brown mixtape, which is probably one of my most elaborate and, and one of my favorites. I did that in about 10 days because like, it was like, the movie's coming out, the mix needs to be done.

And man, oh man, I just went up all night every night, mayhem, you know, kind of thing. But again like that, that's just driven by like, man, this is James Brown. Like, this is the Godfather. Like, you this up, you might as well quit.

And so you know that, that really is what drives me with the mixtapes is like, however we can make it, you know what I mean, like official.

I've started reading this book recently on film editing. Despite this guy, Walter Merch. He did, I think it's Walter Merch. He did like Apocalypse now and Godfather 2.

And it's interesting thinking about film editing and trying to draw parallels with music with DJ and stuff.

Because when you were saying about all the post it notes, you see the photos of when they're there with just like the one clip from the dailies that represents every single version of every single shot and stuff. And like having to select from those and just identify the exact cut points.

But also thinking about when I was saying about like where your concentration went, thinking about things with the edit, about like where your focus is and stuff like that as you change scenes.

What's interesting in trying to compare that, I guess to what you're Doing and how you do it is you're the writer, the editor and the director all at the same time with it. Do you ever get people to listen and kind of get their feedback in the process when, if, like, if you're ever unsure of anything or is it purely you?

I mean, I definitely have people that I played things for and have in the past. I mean, that's a tough one. That's a really good question, actually, and a tough one to answer because a lot of this is in my head. It really is.

And I don't know, like, there's a challenge in that to me and like piecing it all together, you know, like the thing you describe with all the dailies, like, I see it in my head, like that's, that's really how it works. Like, and I just start, you know, I go to bed thinking about it, I wake up thinking about it. It's a whole thing, you know, my test really.

And I think, you know, I say this sometimes, like, you know, related to the part about just like loving it is that I'm a fan. You know, I'm a fan first. So my test is when I've listened to it and there's nothing else left that I would fix, then it's done.

You know, until then, it's repetition, repetition, listening over and over and over again. And like, do we really need that verse? Like, man, you know, I think this move better there and those things are just kind of gut DJ instincts.

So there's definitely, you know, people that I'll play stuff for, my manager, you know, Ashley, my wife and, and just get their reaction. But it's more just like the, the tone of their reaction. Like, am I in the. Am I going in the right direction?

You know, like, I don't feel like everyone else can follow all the places that I'm going in my mind until it's like, yeah, laid out. But, but yeah. And then, you know, there's. There's artists that I really, really respect.

You know, when I was making my album, Pharaoh March was like almost a.

You know, every other day we were having a huge conversation about art, about music, about hip hop, about, you know, how the way the world is changing and people receiving music, so many different things like that.

So I think in that way I definitely run these ideas by a lot of people strategically and also just like vibe wise to make sure that it feels right to people.

Yeah, yeah, I, I recorded a mix the other week. I just thought I'd start putting some on YouTube, just like live mixes. And I played this one song and it's just wrong. Still annoys me.

I'm like, that shouldn't have been on there. What are you doing? If you got anything like that, where you're like, I just wish I'd done that a bit differently. Or can you, like, let it go?

Oh, man, that's a tough one. You know, I saw Joey Badass interviewed recently where he was talking about making records is like being a painter where, like, you.

You always look at it and there's something that you would change.

I will say that, you know, with some of these, because of this sort of brutal process I put myself through, of the repetition of it, that when I actually get to the end and. And I can make it through the whole thing, I also have a part of me that can trust me that that's done and just to let it fly. And that's. I think.

I think I've had to develop over time because, yes, 100, there's things I want to change all the time.

There's a few things, you know, something I put out recently that drives me crazy, and now I got to go make a whole other version of it just to get rid of that. And it's literally like a 0.1 decimal thing that no one else would even know about except me.

It's just like a feeling of this thing from one end to the next. So, like, I'm a maniac with those things.

Like, I'm in here, like, literally, like I've had engineers try to tell me, like, yo, like, you can't hear anything less than 0.5 decibels. I'm like, nah, fuck that. You can feel it. Watch. And I'll be in there with my engineer and like, you know, point 1.2. And he'll be like, fuck.

Like, you're right. Like, I don't know what that is, but it just changes it. So, you know, some of this shit is constantly evolving forever.

But certain things, like those mixtapes, I just gotta, like, you know, step back and be like, this is just, you know, it's your baby. You can't change it. You know, Like.

Yeah.

So in.

In the early days then you mentioned having the day job. At what point did you leave that?

I mean, when I first moved to New York, I got a job at a website design company and I was doing, I mean, really, like, basic HTML was the only job I could get. And. And also starting to do some design. So this was like super early days of the Internet and I was like, drawing and storyboarding.

The company went from 25 people to 275 people. And then, like, all those Internet companies, and then it just was gone. So I was already DJing on the weekends.

You know, I was already kind of doing that, but literally, like, it was like maybe the last round of layoffs, because I really managed to survive all the layoffs because I was doing music at the company and no one else was doing that yet. I had started to learn, you know, like Sonic Foundry, Vegas and Soundforge.

And I was doing, like, little edits of audio when literally, I mean, this is again, like, when sound came on the Internet, because there was a time, you know, before that, in the first couple years. So basically I was there until the company went out of business.

The day I got my pink slip, so to speak, Zion, I was crashing in my apartment in New York on their way to Brazil to play this music festival. And I was like, yo, man, like, is there any way I could come and dj? And they were like. They called up the promoter.

The promoter was like, yeah, if he can make his way down here, I'll get him a gig. I'll put him up in the hotel. So I, like, frequent flyer mile to my way to Florida. I got like a $600 ticket, you know, to Brazil. And.

And that really was the beginning because, you know, this music festival was in the middle of a rainforest. I'm performing with Zion Eye. The stage is on the lake, the crowd is on the sand.

There's like a wooden bridge, you know, going to the shore for the artists and so forth. And I just was like, I could do this. This is incredible. And that was like the seed of just like, you know, what would it be like to try this?

And it was right when I lost my job. So I felt like I had, like, I don't know, six months unemployment checks to cover my rent. And.

And that's when I really was like, all right, I'm going to see if I can do this.

And first couple years was just DJing two nights a week, you know, 600 bucks, 300 a night, you know, 600 per week, you know, able to pay my rent kind of thing. And that's where you know, we get into, like, the. The Nas and the other things that start to. To happen. But that was the last day job I had.

Has it. Have you always maintained quite a similar ratio of live DJing to mixtape production?

Yeah, I think so. I mean, I think, you know, my. My birth is as a live dj. I think the people came to know me for the mixtapes, and so they thought that's what I did.

You know, come to find out the mixtapes are. I think, are dope because I'm good as a live dj. So, like, understanding the flow and the pace of how things should move.

Yeah.

Is very, very important, you know, Dave Rest in Peace from De La Soul once paid me the ultimate compliment, which is he said the mixtapes move in perfect time. He said, like a daylight album. And I have this recorded, which was just like, the highest compliment that you could pay me, you know, pretty much. So.

Yeah.

Is there anyone that you've not done one for yet that you'd really love to? Like a sort of bucket list one?

I mean, I've had a conversation with Common for many years about a mixtape. We even went so far as to do the interview. And. And I. I don't remember what happened, but I keep. Every time I see him, I'm like, you know, what's up?

And. And I think that's one I would really like to do. I mean, I've. I've really done.

I mean, there were a couple at various times, like Alicia Keys, and I talked about doing one at one point. I have this amazing version of her doing Tupac Hail Mary, which is, like, mind blowing that, you know, like that Jill Scott at one point.

It's funny, Jill Scott wanted to do, like, a Wu Tang mixtape where she sang over all Wu Tang beats. And. And like, her. Her team was like, no, Jill, you're not gonna do that. So. Because she's ahead. She's a real head.

But, you know, I think what's happened really is that the.

The bar, the raising of the bar has been to the live mixtape, has been to what can we do live on stage with my favorite artists, you know, and so that has by way of, you know, the Roots, Picnic and Black Thought. And then, you know, hip hop 50, they started giving me some crazy opportunities, like Lincoln center, we did Kane and Rakim.

Last year, we did KRS and Slick Rick at Lincoln Center. You know, Questlove recruited me to.

To help MD the Hollywood bowl class of 95 show that we did this summer, which was like, goody mob DJ Quick E40 Method man and Redman, Little Kim, Bone Thugs and Harmony, you know, just like a dream. So I think for me, that's the next challenge is like, okay, how do we do this live on stage? I mean, that's what the live mixtape is, is.

I'm gonna make the mixtape. I'm just gonna do it live in front of you. And.

And we've done that, you know, like, we did this at Sony hall in New York with Rakim and Black Thought and Pharaoh Monch. Sold out. Sony hall made a live album, you know, every year at the Roots picnic.

We've done this, you know, with Most Def, with Busta Rhymes and Eve, with Method man and Redman, Let this Pasture with Pusha T and Two Chains. And again, not necessarily artists that I would make a whole mixtape on, but if you bring them into this cipher, you show that they are real MCs.

That's a different kind of energy, which you don't really get out in the world a lot. So to me, like, in the mixtape era, the rare thing to do was to capture your attention and hold your attention. You know, this is a different era now.

It's got to be happening in front of you, and you gotta. It's gotta hold your attention because everyone else is in their phone. So it's just like, I, you know, I give up on that. That's not gonna work.

We got to do it a different way. So, you know, the in your phone part is I did my album, we did all this content.

We're storytelling with puppets, with cartoons, with all this crazy stuff. Get Dave Chappelle, you know, as the narrator. But then on the mixtape side, on the DJ side, it's more like. Like, let's make experiences.

Let's make events that show this generation what we got to experience. You know, like, to just have your wig blown back and be like, what the just happened, you know, And I think that that's what's needed in the.

In this era. So to me, that's what we're really trying to do now.

Have. Have you kind of. Because that's all the really interesting sort of way of looking at it. Have you reached these sorts of conclusions?

Has it happened organically? Or have you had times where you've been like, we need to do something to change this up? The audience has changed.

I mean, I think it's just a lot of trial and error and. Yeah. And just commitment to figuring it out. You know, the. The algorithm. You know, like, figuring out what drives the algorithm. And I feel like I've.

I've kind of gotten it to a good place now where I'm starting to understand.

And, you know, the beauty of this that nobody really bothers to consider is that my training in psychology is oh, so essential for figuring these kinds of things out. Because ultimately the algorithm is just human behavior turned into a computer program to spit back at you whatever you already like.

And so, like, that's, that's a scary. You know, I talk to Dan about this all the time. You know, that's a scary idea that, that we've removed it.

You know, even like things like AI and so forth, there's an organic quality that is being lessened, you know, as time goes on. And I feel like the parts that, that give the human element, that reinsert the human element into it is really important.

And, you know, understanding, you know, that most people want to just spew their negative thoughts into the Internet because it's anonymous and it's a, you know, receptacle for all of that. Okay, what am I not going to do? I'm not going to have anything negative because, like, that's not what we're doing. We're only.

It's only going to be when you come to my page, you're coming there for the experience, the same experience you get on the stage or listening or any of that. And to me, that's how, you know, I'm trying to approach that.

So if you're coming to me through this little portal and it's controlling, you know, like, how much you can receive, then what can I give you that's still organic? That's not going to be, you know, modulated or artificial? Again, is anybody thinking like that? I don't know.

But to me, that's what that makes me want to do. You know, it's like, if I see, I got kids now, they don't have phones, you know, because I understand what the phone is going to do to their brain.

I'm already trying to counteract it professionally by what I'm doing.

So, you know, there's a lot of those kinds of things that, like, the world has changed, you know, never mind music or art, you know, the art and the music fit in the world.

And so if you can't adapt to the changing of the world, then, you know, either you'll get left behind, your art will not be heard or received, or, you know, you're just going to kind of start to get frustrated. So I think to do this in this era, it's like a full, you know, 360 thing.

You really Gotta, you know, sort of approach everything from the right angle, I guess. I don't know if that makes sense, but yeah.

Yeah, I think so. Yeah.

It's interesting about the algorithms and things, because I think sometimes the algorithms tell you things about yourself that you'd rather not know, or, you know, they tell you you're something that you don't necessarily think you are, but certainly there's certain. Certain things you end up getting. Getting kind of put on your feeds that make you think, is that really me? And, yeah, probably is.

Say, like, on Facebook, I. I seem to just scroll it and. And I consume for the comments because I see something. I think I want to see how quickly this descends into an argument.

A lot of stuff now it's like the right versus the left particularly. Well, probably in a lot of places.

But same here, buddy.

Yeah, it's like a morbid curiosity, you know, just like, how. How is. How has this happened?

I mean, unfortunately, over here, we're on the other side of that. So, like, we're. We're deep in. In the pit. And.

And I think, you know, there's the algorithm that feeds you what it knows you want, which is one aspect of it, but then there's also the other side of it, which is like, what are the mechanisms functioning? Like, what is the human need behind that that is driving that? And so, and how do you feel that.

So it's like either the Internet to me functions either in, like, hate speech or aspiration.

Those are the only two energies that it can, you know, that can occupy the Internet, because either you're giving someone a vision of something that's beyond them, that they're going to aspire, or they're going to respond to that thing like that, because I don't have that and they do and that and that. It's either creating jealousy or creating, like, ambition, you know, but it's creating the wrong kind of ambition in a lot of cases.

So, you know, that's all like, man, you could get super far afield with all that stuff. And again, I think the skills of a DJ man are really, really essential in that world.

And how to manipulate the energy of the room, like, how to understand, you know, what is happening and take it to another place. And I don't know, increasingly I feel like that's what music is accomplishing for people. It's like, it's a. It's a. It's like a escape almost from.

From reality. So, you know, and again, an escape could be fun. It could be like, you know, we're gonna all do drugs and, you know, get up kind of thing.

Or it can be like, we're gonna give you some truth, you know, which is, I think, how hip hop, you know, functioned in the 80s, you know, like, is up. Let us tell you what's really happening. And, you know, and people really gravitated towards that. So, you know, it's interesting.

You do have the Kendricks, you know, you do have people that are still using hip hop in the way that it's supposed to be used, you know, to fight all of that, you know, that you see happening out in the world. But I also am kind of a starting to evolve into a person that thinks that, like, the dichotomies that were given are just.

It's just like, why am I choosing between this and this? This is not the actual things. Like, there's, you know, there's a lot of those and that. And again, right and left.

Dave Chappelle right now is doing an amazing experiment. He opened a comedy club in Yellow Springs, Ohio. And this is a very red right area. Okay. But where he is is a very left kind of progressive area.

So he said to me, straight up, that he opened this comedy club in this area as a cultural experiment to try to basically bring people culture 300 at a time. So what does he mean by that?

What he means is that if he puts something that people love there, of people of a certain kind that understand what you and I understand, that that's going to be like a magnet, and it's going to draw in all the people from the surrounding areas until you're suddenly in a room with people, and you're like, oh, my God, there's more of us than we thought. And that really is a thing.

Like, I think that creating these spaces where people start to feel connected to each other, that is countering the energy of, you got to be this or you got to be that. You got to support this. You got to support that. And so that's. That's kind of what I'm about, is like, we're looking for the points of connection.

Like, super easy to find the points of disconnection. You know what I mean? Like, super easy to find the divisions.

They're trying to stoke them on you every day, but, like, much harder to find the connections, much harder to find the commonalities.

And I think one of the things that's true about the world, and I talk about this in my career and as a dj, is the metaphor, is that the plane flies where you're looking. So if you're looking up, if you're aspiring, the plane will go up.

If you're looking down at all the fuck shit below you, you're going to start to slowly descend until you're down there and either you're crashing or you're surrounded by that.

And I think it's the same in the, in the world right now, where it's like, if you're constantly fixated on the negative, if your algorithm is feeding you more and more and more of that, yo, get away from that. Like, go the opposite direction and, and go towards connection and towards people and experience. And that's how we get out of this.

Because like, most of the shit they're trying to push on you. When you sit down alone in a room, you know it's not true. You know, like in your heart you know what's right. You just have to.

Other people have to have that experience. And music to me is like, there's no better medium to do that, you know, like, it's invisible. It's.

It's gonna, it's gonna make your body, you know, unlock in a way that you can't even control. So, you know, I think that that's a lot of what I'm thinking about these days.

Like, you know, whether it's the algorithm or how to deliver the right kind of art to people in this moment where it's like, man, it's just people are really starting to give up and no wonder, you know what I mean? So, yeah, yeah, so, yeah.

So, you know, and I think at the root of that, in terms of hip hop, Hip hop is an incredible medium for that, you know, to, to reimagine things, to take an idea and flip it and show it to you a different way. So that's, you know, that's kind of what I'm, I'm about, I think, in this moment.

Amazing.

So speaking about connections and probably getting a little bit more obtuse might be the word, I'm just wondering, because you've had this journey where you had to really fight to get the content you wanted at first, and as this trust has come, you've been given more opportunities.

Still have to fight.

Right. Because what I was going to ask you was, are you in a position now where you get access to multi tracks?

I would say yes, I am in that position.

Does that feel good?

Well, I was in that position a few years ago and it did feel good, except for the fact that most of what I made, I couldn't actually put out some of it, but you know, the thing that's happened recently is that everyone has access to multi tracks by way of Serato. And so it started to get very interesting seeing what people do with that and, and how they manipulate those things.

I am having a lot of fun not just taking multis. I've done a couple things where I took multis and reimagined them in a different way.

I did a version of Michael Jackson want to be where you are, which is basically like the strings that are buried in the background kind of brought all the way out. And then, you know, the Serato stems version has allowed me to start doing that live. So I did a thing last year with.

It was a tribute to high tech, the producer from Cincinnati with the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra and. And a guy named Derek Hodge, who's a bass player for Robert Glasper and also a conductor. A conductor. And then Daru Jones, the drummer.

But, but, but what mechanically was dope about that is that I'm able to mute out the music parts so I can have, let's say the dilla chops and the drums running and then all that frequency space in the middle is the orchestra filling that up and it's really incredible. So that, that has been.

What's been exciting to me about Stems lately is, is just making these Frankenstein hybrid things that weren't possible before.

Yeah.

But it's always fun to go into those original recording sessions and just see what's there and to try to understand how these magical things were made out of those parts. You know, some of those Michael Jackson records, you could have all the parts and you still don't understand how they made it into what it was.

It's like. Yeah, that's the Quincy Jones of it. It.

Well, I, I did a little thing age ago where I just pulled out just the, you know, the one note guitar line from I want you back. And then just like when I pulled that out, you kind of realize how almost like the arrangements just ridiculous because they just.

The whole track dances around that note.

Yeah. I love some of these song exploder things where they start, you know, taking the samples and showing you how they, you know, like.

Like what obviously I'm inclined to do on the mixtapes.

But there's a cool thing visually you can do in the Internet where you're sort of taking the waveforms and you're stretching them and showing how this and this and this. So I love those things. Those are pretty cool.

Yeah, yeah. Just going back then because we've talked about people you'd like to have worked with and didn't.

Have you had anyone that's approached you where it's just kind of not felt right?

I mean, there have been a few situations where something was in the process of happening and didn't. You know, I've had. I mean, not necessarily in. In that way.

I've had a couple folks that I started to do things with and it felt a little weird and it just kind of dissipated. I had one rapper steal all of the tracks for a mixtape and make their own mixtape, which is pretty up.

And then it turned out their manager had done that and not them. And I, I ended up sort of settling it with them later. But yeah, I mean, you know, there's. There's definitely some things like that.

I've had things where I got a handshake deal for a certain amount of money for a mixtape, and then that artist goes behind my back to someone else to have them to Cornerstone to have me do it for free and just like, man, you know, whatever. But, you know, a lot of that stuff is like a manager trying to like angle on something. It's. It's rarely the artists themselves that's doing that.

If they are, you kind of don't want to mess with that person anyway. So, you know, there's always some of that going on. But I don't know, I. I try to be around people that are giving off, you know, good energy and.

And the people that are not, you can tell pretty quickly. Yeah, you don't want to with them.

You did the Tony Hawk's music as well, didn't you? For one of the games?

Yeah. So that was. Well, actually, you know, by way of DJ Hero, which is up there.

I was, I was, I was in the original DJ Hero and that developed a relationship with Activision where I got asked. They found out I was a skateboarder as a kid and they asked me to do the music for that, which was awesome.

That's sort of been part of my journey as a producer, you know, graduating from DJing and, you know, making blends and chopping things apart to remix and then actually, you know, making my own stuff. So that's one of the sort of earlier iterations of. Of my original music showing up in something. So that was pretty fun. But that was the.

That was the only skateboarding video game I did.

Have you done much more in that space then?

I mean, I did some things with Activision, you know, like I said, DJ Hero. I was brought back to do some other stuff for DJ Hero later, but in the video game space. I haven't done stuff in a minute.

We might actually be working on something now with Activision, but we'll see.

And also, you've won a lot of awards, something I noticed on my research. Are there any particular ones that are more special than the others?

Man, I mean, honestly, like the work on Hamilton, which is just, you know, stratospheric, you know, massive enterprise got me my first Billboard, my only Billboard number one album. So that's obviously a really, really big deal. And it got me a gold record. That's a really big deal.

But, you know, I'm not necessarily in it for the awards. The awards, I think, are acknowledgement, you know, that I'm. That I've done something, you know, worth remembering.

And I think that's more important to me than that. But yeah, the, you know, I'm looking at it right there is the, the Billboard one. And I definitely keep that something to aspire to.

Yeah.

So just going back then, I know we've kind of visited this quite a lot, but in terms of like, accessing things you've talked about, the stems and things like that, has it been been fun doing. Doing mixtapes in later times when there's just so much rippable dialogue and interview stuff online?

You know, it's funny, that's a. A question no one has really asked me in this era. And it's so true. I mean, I have pretty much a blank canvas now.

Like, I, I have unlimited power and, and I, and I say that in terms of being able to go and get any piece of audio, any clip, any. Anything. With some exceptions, you know, there's some things that might not filter in the right way.

But yeah, I did a project recently with a, A sneaker designer where I basically was pulling little inspirational sound bites from things and realizing like, oh, wow, like I can take anything from anywhere. You know, I can do anything with anything.

Yeah.

And that. That really is fun. So samples that I might have always wanted to, you know, mess with that I couldn't before, I can take and start playing with.

But I think the, the creativity that that stuff inspires is pretty awesome. It's been like, I don't know, a thing that gets me excited again.

Some people feel that way about AI and kind of what's possible, you know, in that kind of. Of Pandora's box. But. But for me, like, the stems has really been my exploratory, kind of fun thing that I've been working with.

Yeah. Yeah. I started doing a, like an artist mix. I Suppose you'd like a concept artist mix 10, 15 years ago. Ghost face one.

Ah, nice.

Yeah, I wish I still had it, but this is, this is back probably pre Ableton, this is probably Cubase era, but I think I've run out of steam quite quickly. But it was so nice because he's done this like he'd done this album where it was just like his kind of lessons on life or something like that.

And there was so much fun stuff to just pull out of these things. You know, it is nice when you can get. Just go, oh yeah, Soul seek. Let's get that please.

Yeah, the, the ease of it is something that some people can exploit, you know, to a negative. Obviously there's a million people thinking they can do whatever because of stems and because of the sync button. You know what I mean?

But I mean, I don't know, you know, real heads know, you know, whatever value that has anymore, but also like, you know, again, these are things that are felt, you know, so it's like if you can freak it in a way that people feel it, awesome, great. That's the goal.

What's coming up next, man?

So chapter three is going to be coming out hopefully top of next year. And some definitely some exciting stuff on there.

I mean mixtape wise, the live mixtape, we're starting to plan for next summer and kind of what we can do both at the Roots picnic and at Lincoln Center. So that's fun.

I'm also having a conversation I think tomorrow with folks from the Louisville Symphony Orchestra about another kind of iteration of blending those worlds. So I think for me at this stage I'm really trying to just sort of continue to push the boundaries in different directions around storytelling.

So that might be film that might be taking one of these. Story to Tell. Chapter four, which is, you know, still in development is. Is like a multi song story, like a whole piece. So that's exciting as well.

But I don't know, there's been a lot of exciting stuff happening even just this past year.

You know, Questlove has recruited me to help out with, you know, the CBS Grammys celebration for Hip Hop 50 and then the Hollywood bowl class of 95 this past summer. Those things are things where like, obviously you know, I would love to continue doing that. So we'll see.

But you know, beyond that I think it's really developing more original work. Like I'm out in on the west coast now for a stretch.

So I'm going to be doing a lot more making music with the musicians that I work with out here and I don't know, just trying to see what kind of mayhem we can create. The art of the cross crossfade as well, which I told you about, we're trying to develop into a tour.

So if we can get funding for that, I'd really like to take that concept around the whole country and see what we can do with that.

But you know, I think the other thing that's really, really exciting from my standpoint is that, you know, a lot of these mixtapes are starting to become available on Apple Music. So I, I am part of a pilot program called Platoon where I have been able to put my mixes up this whole year.

You know, we've had one every month going up. But then beyond that I have a roster of DJs that I love that I'm about to start helping them to platform.

So we're really going to be building kind of a little army of DJs for the live mixtape. I mean these are all guys who are spectacular in their own right and do big things and so that's really exciting because I think that.

But you know, that's the next phase in terms of what we're building is, is trying to continue to grow the live mixtape into a full experience with other DJs, with artists, you know, performances, etc. So yeah, so that's kind of what we have going right now.

Amazing. Yeah, there's a couple of mixes I've produced for someone on Apple now.

Oh, nice.

He's. Yeah, so I was kind of like his ghost producer on them, but yeah, I'll have to send you one over and yeah, see, see what you think.

It's obviously like nothing like your sort of level or anything, but I mean.

What we're doing is everything from live mixes I've recorded at parties and just putting those up to like some of the more elaborate, you know, artist mixtapes to. Even during the pandemic I was doing versions of those artists mixtapes as live streams and so some of those have been going up there as well.

Yeah, yeah, I do think with this Apple program it is, it's a really good kind of statement of intent to totally kind of confirm the value of the DJ100.

It's the first thing actually in my experience, you know, there have been probably 10 of these attempts between the technology and the platform, from you know, Internet to streaming radio to podcast to whatever that have tried to resolve it. And the only thing they've ever been able to do is pay the copyright holders. No one has ever figured out how to pay the DJs until Apple Music.

And so that's why I agreed to become part of that program.

And, and ultimately I think that because it's Apple, it's a legit, you know, like, real outlet that isn't going to be, you know, like, most of the other ones disappeared after a couple years because they couldn't sustain the math. This one has been built to last, I feel like. So I'm excited, you know, like we're going to be feeding stuff into that system all year long.

Yeah. Do you always feel in control?

And just to give context around that, I mean, sometimes I feel like I take a bit too much stuff on because I'm just excited by it. Whereas if I was a bit more responsible, I'd go, no, that's a bit too much. You know, you kind of. There's other bits of life where you kind of.

Of could be spending that time elsewhere. But ideas are exciting. And I say this because your output is so prolific. Is it?

Do you ever think, I've just taken on one too many things, or are you always sort of firmly in control? It's a very long way of asking that question.

Well, I think the answer to the first part is no, I'm never in control. That's been a reality of this. And me learning that nothing happens in the time that I want it to, it always happens in its own time.

You know, getting frustrated with that is pointless because things happen in the time they're supposed to happen. So I think that's been a really, really big lesson, is like, relinquishing that control. But, but, but also.

And I think that that helps with, you know, a thing that I might have believed what the. This was the moment for that, and I put all my energy into it, and then it doesn't amount to anything.

And then I'm like, well, was that just a waste of time or am I just ahead of time on that?

So, you know, part of the, the trick, if you will, of being prolific is figuring out how to balance your life and your work in a way where they both get your full attention, if that makes sense. Yeah, you know, I got, I got kids, like, I, you know, it's like I got a lot of things vying for my attention now.

It's much more difficult now than it was when I could spend a month on a Lauryn Hill mixtape, you know, I'm not gonna lie to you. But at the same time, you know, there's a part of this which is surrender kind of on a certain level to just the bigger forces.

And I think when you start to feel like you're in control, you're. You're.

You're wrong, number one, and you're arrogant, number two, you know, and you'll be soon taught a lesson that you're not in control if you start to feel like that. But. But I can say that every idea that I have put my time and energy to has come to fruition in some way or another, you know, or. Or did not.

And the lesson, you know, was learned, you know, in it not coming to fruition. But I don't think of it as a matter of control. Like, I. I think in the control part is, like, accepting the parts you can't control and.

And being able to be fluid and flexible and roll with that. That. You know, I've had my heart broken, you know, a million times doing this. I've run into a million brick walls.

You know, I try to teach my kids now a lesson that I never was taught as a kid, which is that failure is an essential part of success.

Like, I would not have been able to do any of these things unless I tried and failed, you know, eight, nine, ten times on the road to figuring it out. And that's the part that nobody really talks about or thinks about or, you know, acknowledges is.

Is that, like, you know, you're gonna fail over and over and over and over and over again doing this. The question is, like, do you let it get you? And, like, do you give up?

You know, that's not the surrender that we're, you know, we're talking about surrender to the, you know, the. The larger forces not to, like, the. And that's where it's just, like, resilience.

My manager, who has managed many artists bigger than me in her time, has said that of all her clients, I'm the most resilient. And I' always laugh at that because I'm like, does that mean I could just take a punch better than anybody else? Like, what does that mean?

But it means, like, I don't take no for an answer. Like, you know, that is why I'm where I'm at. Because, like, if you tell me no, I'm just going to figure out another way to do it. You know, like, you.

You know, that's. That's a thing. So I. I think it's more about that. That's the feeling, you Know of it for me is like how to not let the overwhelming overwhelm me.

And I, and I, again, I get overwhelmed a lot out, you know, like, trying to manage some of these things is too much for me. And I will, you know, you know, whatever, melt into a puddle on the floor for a period of time until I'm like, no, like, I can do this.

Like, we can do this. You know, and there's a. There's. There's a lot of that. Like, you.

You would be surprised how much of that is involved in this, you know, output that just looks like it's never ending flow of, you know, awesomeness. But, you know, understand that that part of my job is to convey that this is a never ending, you know, like, fountain of awesomeness.

It doesn't mean those other parts are not there, but it just means that, like, you know, almost like what you would teach a kid, like, or like when a kid is learning to walk and they fall down and like, if the parents are like, oh my God, no. Oh, you know, you fell, then the kid is like, oh, I'm supposed to cry right now. And that's what they do. But if.

If they fall down and you're like, man, you know, get up, keep going. And then that's what they learn is what you're supposed to do. So it's like, man, those things are real.

You know, it's like those things are really, really real in life that, you know, like, what you bring to a thing is what you will get from it. You know, like, the amount of arrogance and ego and expectation you bring will be matched.

But if you can go into it and you're grateful and you're humble and you're like, damn, this is a miracle what I'm getting to do right now, then, you know, like, that will affect the outcome too. And I've had many people tell me, like, yo, I don't know what it is about you. There's just something I like about you.

And, and like, in those contexts where that was being said, what they liked was that I'm happy to be there. I'm not. I have no ulterior motive. You know what I mean? Like, there is no. And when you do this for a living, man, you encounter a lot of.

And a lot of fake because, you know, that's just what it is. Like, not everybody is the real deal. And a lot of people are trying to pretend they are the real deal, you know, great.

But if you are trying to do this with integrity, then you're happy to be there every time you show up. And, you know, you're never like this. It's more like, oh, you're gonna do that? Okay, watch what I'm gonna do.

You know, like, you're gonna play all the records. You're gonna give me a list of songs I can't play before my set. Watch. You know, like, all that stuff is. Is to me.

You can either receive it as a challenge or you can just be like, I don't know, you know, it's. I'm not supposed to do this, you know, this is too hard, man. You know, I. I have that thought at least once a day.

I just don't let it stop me, you know, like, that's the key.

So that's amazing. Where can everyone find you online if they don't know already, man?

Instagram. J period BK So J, P, E, R, I O, D, B, K. Same on Twitter, same on Facebook. My Instagram is probably the thing I pay most attention to.

You know, we are going to start putting a lot of those videos up on YouTube. So you can also find me on YouTube, J period BK yeah. And you know, if you are ever out here, you know, in the States, you know, come find me.

We will be doing some live shows, guaranteed.

Did great stuff. Right. Well, I'll let you get back to your day, cuz as we've discussed, you're a very busy guy. But yeah, thanks ever so much for your time today.

Thanks to Dan for putting this together again for us. So, yeah, I'll just wish you the best for everything in the future and hopefully speak to you at some point soon.

All right, Cheers. Well, I hope I didn't talk your ear off.

All right.

Salute.

Come on.

Oh, that was nice.