In nearly three decades, the cast of characters and the technology in the DJ realm may have changed dramatically, but one thing has remained constant:
ill techniques.

Hip-hop DJ in 2004 isn’t as easy to define as it once was. In the modern age it can mean a lot of things, and can vary widely, depending on whom you ask. There are technically advanced, futuristic turntablists who make music you can’t dance to, unless you want to throw your back out. There are legendary DJs who started the art form, back on the scene and filling dance floors with kids who weren’t alive when they first started their careers. And there are DJ “composers” who use turntables integrated into symphony orchestras. Hell, they even teach DJing at the esteemed Berklee College of Music, where they would have laughed you out of the Dean’s office if you would have suggested it 10 years ago. The opportunities to express oneself using two decks and a mixer (or, if you prefer to travel light, Q-Bert’s recently unveiled all-in-one QFO) have never been more plentiful.

But let’s go back to the beginning for a minute, because the only way to know about the present is by checking into the past. No one was ever born a great DJ. It requires skill, originality, a great ear, and, almost more than anything else, study and practice.

THE TRUE SCHOOL
DJ Kool Herc is the man who invented hip-hop music, by playing “breaks” (instrumental sections of records that would be repeated for dancers to enjoy, at the expense of the full-length original). But Herc’s technical skills were, by all accounts, limited. The modern-day hip-hop DJ was born when legends like Grandmaster Flash, Jazzy Jay, Afrika Bambaata, Grandmixer D.ST (aka DXT), and Grandwizzard Theodore took Herc’s idea and exploded it, setting off a creative big-bang in the mid-1970s that no one could have predicted. And it’s still going on today.

In the beginning of hip-hop, there was the DJ. But true DJ style didn’t begin to be recognized, explored, and expanded until the pioneers moved beyond Herc’s quickly outdated style. They mixed records together, at first using “needle dropping” techniques (knowing exactly where a break was on a record rather than hearing the beginning in advance through headphones), but always with the intent on using records to make their own style, to put their own imprint on the pre-recorded music they used. Flash made huge strides earliest on with his “quick mix theory,” which he describes today as: “The whole science of taking a piece of music that’s set in stone, on vinyl, and extending it. Audiences on the dance floor in the early 1970s got the most excited where the least number of band members played on a record. That part was always unjustifiably too short, so I came up with a formula how you could expound upon it.”

Flash’s “formula” took Herc’s invention and brought it to new heights, seamlessly creating a way to give crowds the breaks without being hindered by less-than-perfect mixing. As he correctly points out, “Without cutting [Flash’s term for expanding a break] there would be no breakdancing, there wouldn’t be any MCs.”

Flash’s #1 student, a 13-year-old named Theodore, would make another huge step. He brought something into the world that would change hip-hop DJing again, and in a dramatic fashion.

THE ORIGIN OF THE SCRATCH
In the hip-hop world, when it comes to DJing there is nothing that stands out more than the wikki-wikki, the whomp whomp (as Jazzy Jay claims it was once called), the zhigga-zhigga, THE SCRATCH. You can be a techno deck-slinger and get by just fine by blending until the ravers come home. Wedding jocks don’t exactly depend on their backspinning precision. But if you’re hip-hop then you damn well better be able to cut it up, and answer the question posed by L.A.’s legendary Egyptian Lover: “What Is a DJ If He Can’t Scratch?”

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