A blazing DJ with master turntable skills, DJ Skribble has been blowing away MTV audiences in the U.S. and around the world. A member of the young hip-hop group, Young Black Teenagers in the late 80’s, Skribble has set the standard for turntablists around the world. He is the standard by which all deejays are judged.
Has music always been an important part of your life?
Oh my god, since I was a little kid. Absolutely.
What was your earliest recollection of music in the home?
My dad was in a doo-wop group. He was in the Ovations and the Velvetones. I was brought up with music all the time.
How did you get involved with hip-hop?
There was a local deejay in the neighborhood. I saw it and was totally drawn to it. I was 11-years old. I bought my first set of turntables and just started practicing every day.
You were in the hip-hop group Young Black Teenagers. What was that experience like at such a young age?
That’s pretty much the way I learned about music, the industry. It was like college for me.
Explain the transition from a hip-hop artist to deejay.
I was always the deejay of the group. It’s a transition from being a performer, a deejay on stage to being a club deejay. I started in clubs first, then got into a group. It kind of went hand-in-hand. I love performing on more stage-type stuff, more than even playing in clubs. That’s what I live to do is more of the stage stuff. It really wasn’t like a transition. It kind of went hand-in-hand.
What kind of practice or rehearsal do you go through to home your spinning skills?
Just sitting in the room and getting the beat up and start cutting, or messing around with different songs, blending them together and seeing what goes with what, and what work and what doesn’t work. A lot of that goes into what you’re doing. The most important thing that most people don’t realize is programming. You have to program a whole night of music for a bunch of kids to dance to. You don’t want to tire them out too quick. You don’t them to wait too long before something happens. You’ve got to learn what records to play when and how, how long you’re playing that record; if it’s a big record, or if you want to break a record. What is the best time to slip that new record you’re trying to break. There are a lot of little variables.
So during the show you’re constantly keeping an eye on what the crowd is doing?
Sure. You have to. In some clubs it’s all about dancing. Some clubs the bar owner is like, “Hey man, I need to make my bar some money.” So, if you’re a resident of a club – you’re doing a weekly job, you need to know how to get the club happening as far as my club needs to make some money right now. It’s a question of how you’re playing.
How much music do you have to listen to on a weekly basis to get ready for club gigs?
Oh man, I listen to so much different stuff – everything from hip-hop to rock, whatever else it takes for me to do what I’m doing.
What exactly is house as compared to hip-hop?
House music is dance music. It’s four on the floor, like more of a street beat than more of a hip-hop beat. House music and hip-hop are two different things.
Did you have a mentor or someone you looked up to when you first started deejaying?
There’s a lot of people. There are the pioneers of the whole game, Kool Herc. Junior Vasquez on the house, Larry Levan. It’s just so many different influences that I got my drive from.
You’ve enjoyed a great deal of success on MTV. Were you allowed the freedom you needed to perform as you would in the club?
It’s a little bit different. Every night for me I would do something differently,, or what have you. It depends on the place and the crowd.
You’ve put out a number of albums over the years. Compare working on the album to mixing at a club.
Where you’re going with your creativity, it depends. What we try to do is figure out what’s going to happen in the club. What’s going to make the kids go “Ooh-wee” when you play a record? The whole purpose of when I’m trying to do my thing in the club is to make them scream. When I create in the studio I’m trying to figure out what this record’s going to do on the dance floor, how people are going to react – that type of thing.
What is the recording process?
When I’m trying to figure out what’s going to make the club bounce, I try to figure out in the studio, I’m sitting there trying to think what’s going to make these people react. That’s how I try to create music out of it.
How do you feel about fitting into the mainstream?
You have to worry about that all the time, because you have to kind of walk the line between commercial and underground – what people like; what they don’t like. I’ve kind of got to walk the line a little bit.
Do you have any advice for someone interested in becoming a deejay?
Don’t be discouraged. Don’t get in it thinking you’re going to make a million dollars. (laughs) If you get in it for the money, don’t even bother. If you get into deejaying because you love music, it’s something you really, really like to do, then that’s what you do. But if you’re getting into it strictly for monetary purposes, don’t even do it, dude.
Tags: DJ Skribble MTV Young Black Teenagers
