djpezdotcom

Driving through the countryside of Jamaica, I found sound system after sound system set up outside of small one room shack type bars. I’m not talking about the heavily populated touristy areas like Negril, Montego Bay and Ocho Rios. I’m talking about Boston Bay, Port Antonio and Long Bay. There were huge sound systems that blasted Dancehall Reggae. These bars were as common as booming car systems we have here in the States. I was amazed, not surprised, to find such bass in Jamaica! After all, this was where HIP-HOP got its roots. What am I talking about? DJ Kool Herc and his magnificent Herculoids. Check out this Wikipedia explanation.

Clive Campbell (born April 16, 1955), also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City. His playing of hard funk records of the sort typified by James Brown was an alternative both to the violent gang culture of the Bronx and to the nascent popularity of disco in the 1970s. In response to the reactions of his dancers, Campbell began to isolate the instrumental portion of the record which emphasized the drum beat—the “break“—and switch from one break to another to yet another.

Using the two turntable set-up of the disco DJs, Campbell’s style led to the use of two copies of the same record to elongate the break. This breakbeat DJing, using hard funk, rock, and records with Latin percussion, formed the basis of hip hop music. Campbell’s announcements and exhortations to dancers helped lead to the syncopated, rhymed spoken accompaniment now known as rapping. He called his dancers “break-boys” and “break-girls”, or simply b-boys and b-girls. Campbell’s DJ style was quickly taken up by figures such as Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash. Unlike them, he never made the move into commercially recorded hip hop in its earliest years.

You really need to go to Wiki and check the rest!

So where is HIP-HOP going? Fuck if I know. Some say HIP-HOP is DEAD! Not too sure about that. RADIO 1 is killing it, sweeping it under the rug. But there is a hell of a lot of dope HIP-HOP out there.

I’ve been listening to Pharoahe Monch, MURS, Abstract Rude, Raekwon, Freebase 808, Beast to name a few. If you want to hear that OLD SCHOOL HIP-HOP, come check me at East End Martini’s Deep End on Friday Nights!

Flashback Friday at East End Martini Bar in Chapel Hill, NC. Come check me. All the old school you need to get you through til next weekend. But next weekend I will be dropping old school bombs over Atlanta: Friday Feb. 11 I will be at King Plow and Saturday night Feb. 12 at Octane. Holla.

P

What is the best exit strategy for a disc jockey who has been in the game for years? Is there such a thing? A colleague of mine and friend for some time has called it quits after 13 years. He wasn’t spinning fancy nightclubs but he rocked the local bar scene here in Chapel Hill and he would be quick to tell you about his dj train wreck mixes quicker than I would. DJ PJ has been an icon in Chapel Hill for years. He has been the selecta at Players and various bars and clubs in the surrounding area. DJ PJ and I started in the same town, spun in the same bars/clubs and we even had class at UNC-CH together. Although he will be just down the road in Hilsborough, NC, he will be missed. I only hope to see him outside of his new profession; Assistant District Attorney. Cheers Jeff!

Welcome to my world! I will update this blog from time to time with show reviews, dj reviews, music reviews and anything else that I feel you all would like to know about. I also have a gmail account where you all can download mixes I create at shows or in the studio. All downloads will be free of course and you can use them for whatever. Most of the music is free to me so why should I charge? I belong to a music pool where I listen to the new tracks, evaluate the tracks, give my feedback on the tracks and then I am able to download these tracks for free through digiwaxxmedia. In other words, I am NOT jacking these tracks. I also purchase tracks through iTunes and lavamus. All mash-ups and remixes are bought from crooklynclan.net.  ”Damn pez, you just gave away your music sources!” Its all good. If I can help out fellow djs out there, I am only helping raise the bar here in this local dj scene*. They can play the same music as djpez, but they can’t spin like djpez! Overstand!?! Good.

*The local dj scene? What’s that? Well, I really like M.Dot, L n Japanese, DJ Rang, FunkJunkie, DJ Trizzack, Sammie Automatic, A-Minor to name a few.