Rachel Crick Photography

So here we have the DJ JS-1 exclusive interview.  When I read this interview I laughed out loud.  It is controversial, a little bit cocky, certainly entertaining and it is guaranteed to piss some people off.  Maybe this will be the push I need to get y’all to leave some comments on my blog. LOL.

Scattered throughout this interview are photos of DJ JS-1 taken when we first met,  as well as a snippet from his new album No Sell Out, and really cool video montage.  Enjoy the read, and the music.

And now…..

Why DJ JS-1 would rather eat a ham sandwich…..

First, I’m DJ JS-1 born in Queens, New York, in the mid 70’s. I’m a hiphop dj, producer & graff writer. I’ve been doing this since the late 80’s. As a graff writer i write Jerms. I’ve been deejaying for Rahzel since 1999 and I am also one of the Rock Steady Crew deejays. Anyways, you probably haven’t heard of me for a few reasons. You’re lazy and you only listen to what’s on the radio. LOL. Well, that’s part of it, but I’ve always been the true meaning of independent. I never had any label or any publicist or fancy-manager-chick or any of that to support what i do. I simply do everything myself and maintain quite fine that way. I may give up some publicity at times or my name may get left out of discussions it should be in, but for every person that doesn’t know, there is some that do and love it. If you like indie hiphop and the raw-boom-bap, east coast sound, then at this point, you should have heard of me. Jeeeesh, just go on google.com and type DJ JS-1!

Yeah i have a new album called NO SELLOUT dropping in late June on Fatbeats. I just recently dropped a full length album for SADAT X of Brand Nubians last month, but this is my own solo album. It has over 40 MCees and 20 new songs. I produced the whole album. It features some of my favorite MCees, both older and new. I have features from KRS, Pharoahe Monch, Canibus, Large Professor, Rahzel, Killah Priest, Chino XL, EMC

That is a really dumb question. It was difficult for many reasons. Spending lots of time traveling makes doing anything hard. Between my schedule and all of these different artists, it gets crazy trying to coordinate. Then, like i said before, i do everything myself, so it’s a ton of work. Musically the most difficult part is getting people to use the beat you specifically wanted them to use, and then making sure artists who are on the same songs but are not recording at the same time, write similar verses to fit the concepts. Over all, it’s not soo bad except for the amount of time that passes because of conflicting schedules and occasionally, extremely lazy rappers. LOL.

It usually goes something like this…  I’m driving somewhere in my car, accidentally flip to a local radio station playing hip-pop and hear the new Kayne or Lil Wayne or whoever the clown of the year is. It usually puts me in a bad mood when i hear shit like that, so when i get home, i rush into the studio, close the door and start making some beats that sound the way we like it. Then I’ll make something and get this idea or feeling that a specific MC or group would sound good over this track. Next i hunt them down, if i don’t have their info. After i connect with them i explain what I’m doing, many of them know me already and know what i do, etc.. Then i usually send the certain beat i want them to use, explain the concept and set up a time to record vocals or nowadays many of them send me their vocals. Then i arrange and sequence the track, add the scratches and sound fx, and we’re on our way. 95% of the time all the ideas are mine, from the beat, the concept and feel of the song, the chorus, etc. The hard part is sometimes getting people to rhyme over the beat I want them to use. If you give a rapper several choices, they will always pick the beat that sounds the closest to what Jay Z would think is the “club-banger”.. DERRRR…DORKS…  LOL. it’s soo true though.. Rarely do they pick a beat that suits them or what their fans want, in my opinion, so i try to force them on specific beats. I don’t make club-singles, i make good hiphop songs to listen to. So, for my album, i try to avoid that style of stuff. I have a feel for this album i was trying to stick with.

First, a SELLOUT is someone who is doing something against their better judgment, strictly for money and fame, etc.  Back in the day, before HipHop grew into a business, if you copied someone, did something someone else was already doing, or tried to make a pop record to please radio formats or cornball record label a&r’s, you got labeled a SELLOUT and abused by other MCees. Today, it has become the norm to copy what is popular, labels look for the “next” whoever is “hot” right now, and EVERYONE, including so-called indie artists secretly want to be Jay-Z and impress radio crowds who will never like them anyways. Everyone spends most of their time trying to figure out how to sell-out. It’s insane.  Even Kayne was running around with a back-pack talking about Rawkus records when he first dropped. Now he is in a shiny suit, with a sonic-the-hedge-hog haircut, Kool Moe Dee’s glasses, and singing (BADLY) with an effect on his voice only  because that was a popular trend. what a loser.  So, much like everything i make, I’m trying to give the late 80’s / 90’s hiphop fan something they can still appreciate.  I’m using older production techniques and styles to give my album that feel. I don’t want it to sound like everything else that’s out today.

Yes of course. There is a lot of new music that’s out that I love, but you just might not know of it. I like Marco Polo & Torae’s new album. I like EMC (Masta Ace, Strick, Punch & Wordsworth), the new Blaq Poet album, Akrobatik, etc.. There is a lot of good music, it’s just that now you have to do research in-order-to find it. Even when you go online everything is soo flooded that you have to look for what you want. That’s the main difference in why soo many artists are successful. It’s options… If you have your CD in every major store, right up in the front, and the store takes 100 copies, you are going to sell more than the guy who cant get his CD in every store and if they do, they only take 5 copies. So naturally they are going to sell more. That plus the industry machine that supports them with publicists, promotion, TV appearances, and magazine/newspaper writers who are given a press release and simply print it word-for-word. If the playing field were evened out, more artists could thrive instead of the ten that do well. Here’s a different way of looking at it… There is 300 million people in the United States. It would be a safe estimate to say that almost every in the country heard of and knows who Kayne West or Lil Jon is, right? So lets just say only 200 million people know who they are, and those 200 million people have EASY access to purchasing one of his albums at their local store like Wal-Mart, at the mall, and online, right? Ok, well, he only sold 1 or 2 million records? But 200 or more million people know of it, heard it, have access to it? So does 198 million people think its bad or not worth listening to or buying, right? That’s not good numbers for all that hype and promo. On the other hand, some indie groups, who no one heard of, and all the stores won’t take their album, have only a 100,000 people who might have heard of them or know where to buy their music. And, they sell 15 to 25,000 albums. Now those numbers are much better in comparison, right? So maybe if they had equal billing, exposure and access to their albums, they would sell a whole lot more too. Anyways, bottom-line is, there is enough deejays and people to play, buy and support the popular shit, I fight the losing battle with pride and do what I love for the “other” hiphop fans. Can’t just be a ying, gotta be a yang…

Well I do have lots of time to kill in airports, planes, trains, and automobiles, that’s for sure. I’m always thinking about something. That something usually ends with “what the fuck is wrong with everyone, or how can people be this dumb..” Actually, I enjoy people watching at airports. It can be soo entertaining watching some idiot try to ram his gigantic suitcase in the overhead even though there is NO WAY it will fit. But being serious, I’m always plotting my next song or album and constantly in thought. What most people wouldn’t know is that I love history and sometimes take my time on planes to read and research stuff that I like to debate and argue other people over. I enjoy politics and debating that too, so you’ll usually find me reading something like that on the plane, besides thinking of ways to take down the Black -Eyed Peas once and for all! LOL

This is an easy answer. I LOVE Serato. Of course you should use it, duh. Ok, I LOVE records too, always have, spent TONS of money on them, still have a bunch and I love people who collect records, that’s great. However, many of the people who collect records don’t have to tour around the world and play those records or carry them 13,000 miles to Perth, Australia. So, once i knew that i could do everything with Serato records that I can with regular vinyl, of course I got it immediately. Now I’m not destroying my records, don’t have to break my back carrying records, can bring 200,000 songs with me everywhere I go, etc…  Look, when it comes to new gear, if you don’t get with the times, you are only fooling yourself. Records are like a horse-n-carriage, Serato is like a Ferrari. Understand? I’m not knocking vinyl, like I said, I collected it my whole life. To me, the main issue with Serato is that now EVERYONE with some mp3’s thinks they are a dj. There is whores all over who now DJ. Ooops, did i say whores? I meant, chicks with breast-implants, who wear very little clothing, have no DJ skill, excellent blow-job skillz, an iPod and extensive knowledge of Pussycat Dolls songs. Anyways, for that reason Serato sucks! Watching washed-up producers, old rappers with no work, whores, d-list reality tv stars, and young kids with famous parents all become “deejays” is kinda terrible. BUT, the same goes for people who collect actual vinyl too. I know lots of people with great collections that cant dj for shit. I don’t wanna hear them try to spin either. Whether its a large collection of mp3’s or a large collection of vinyl, if you suck, you suck. I always say this… I have a HUGE collection of baseball cards, but that doesn’t mean I can play centerfield for the Yankees. Like Hank Shocklee (Public Enemy producer for those who don’t know) told me… As he was growing up, he couldn’t wait to get the new drum machine or piece of equipment, learn it, and be better than everyone else with it. And I agree. I have serato and will abuse you with it… LOL

Biggie

Ham N Cheese Sandwich

Nas (is that seriously a question?)

hahahahahaha C’mon, stop it! No trendy shit…

There is no East Coast. You mean, NY & Philly VS rest of the country, LOL.

Chemotherapy

White Castle!

Lebron (but really John Stockton)

Wow… De La Soul for a few reasons…

Democrat VS Republican

I’m clearly a third party guy, but I would say Republican

MY ADIDAS (R.I.P. JMJ)

I like the guy who makes his all his own music better

whew.. i know i’m going to leave some people out but off-the-top-of-the-head..here goes.. Jimmy Page, KRS, James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Roger Waters, Ozzy, Tom Morello, Rahzel, Redman, Al Green, Todd Terry or Mantronix, Pharoahe Monch, Paul Simon, Dj Premier, Robert Plant, Black Violin, Common, Rick Rubin, Chris Martin of Coldplay, George Clinton, GZA, Phil Collins, Bill Withers, Antibalas, De La Soul, Soulive, Chuck D, Frankie Limon, Paul McCartney, Slick Rick, and Jim Morrison. (there is obviously a lot more…)

Hands down, by FAR the craziest thing ever said to me was this….  I have to set it up first… We just got off stage doing a festival in Canada and a group of girls came over to get mix cd’s, autographs, and talk, etc.. They all eventually walked off but one girl stayed behind. She seemed normal, we were talking about music and stuff like that. I wasn’t trying to “get groupies” or nothing like that, I’m married. Anyways… after a while, this girl hints that she is trying to be “groupie-like”, LOL, and then whispered in my ear… “I want you to fuck me with your foot.” WHAT?!?!? Did I not hear that correctly? But, she wasn’t joking and explained to me that she has this fetish and wants a “big-toe” in her now! LOL. needless to say I was speechless. Talk about putting your foot in your mouth! LOL. But, that has always stood out to me as the craziest thing anyone ever said. Oh, and one time some kid did argue with me that Lil Wayne is the best rapper ever, so actually that is the craziest thing anyone ever said to me.

I have no free-time. Well, when I do take time away from producing & deejaying, I like to watch basketball games, baseball games, play basketball, draw, do graff, annoy people, hang with my wife, play with the dog (I have an insane pug with anxiety issues), read US history essays online or books, watch history & discovery channel, argue with people that we didn’t land on the moon, and cook (but not clean up after myself)

Damn, that’s tough, there is a lot I would like to change. I don’t wanna legalize marijuana, that’s dumb. I get great weed now, and I don’t get taxed on it! I would however like to change the voting laws. I do think you should have to pass a test in-order-to cast a vote. It should not be “your right” to vote unless your vote can be based on an educated decision that you make by knowing the facts and history of what is going on in our country. You need to pass a test to drive a car, but you can blindly pick the guy in charge of the world’s largest nuclear weapons stash? Weird. You can vote, one year after you are allowed to see an “R” rated movie. That’s even crazier! So in 12 months, you gained soo much wisdom, that previously you couldn’t handle seeing BORAT but now you can pick the guy in charge of the free world. Hmmmm. Watching the people who line-up to vote at these past elections is sad and scary for our country. Whether it’s two red-necks with shotguns who would shoot the shit out of a defenseless animal and an abortion clinic doctor or it’s two blindly-excited naive college kids who drank the Obama Kool-Aid in between blasting the latest T-Pain album, it doesn’t matter, they know very little. They know little about how government works, about the history of our country, about the making and passing of bills, and most things that are very important when making a decision as big as picking a president. Without a 3rd party who gets equal billing and a voting test to ensure the voters are informed with facts, we will never have a fair and normal election in the country. We should go back to the way it was originally constructed by our founding fathers. No Vice President candidates. The winner is President, the loser is Vice President, end of story. A little unity people… Hello!

This bother a lot of people, mainly deejays. I like to say this… Find me ANY producer in the world and i will destroy them on the turntables. (a real credible producer with multiple songs or album out with credible artists on them, not some turntablist kid who put out a wack scratch-album and thinks he produces). Next find me ANY turntablist and i will destroy them on the production side. I cant think of any turntablist who has produced more solo albums and songs with as many credible names as I have. Especially on their own with no label or help. When you sit back and really think about it, there may only be a few people who fit into my category. It’s hilarious and it annoys people because its true.

I would first, wave the wand and make the person deejaying be an actual dj. Not some trendy Asian whore in lingerie playing an iPod. Next I would wave the wand and eliminate Fatman Scoop’s voice from being played over EVERY single song that comes on. That’s sooooo wack. All these djays playing other deejays mixes or remixes with Fatman Scoop over it screaming “put ya hands up” and all that nonsense is HORRIBLE! When all the best deejays spun back in the day, they played the actual song and if they were gonna mix it, they did it live and there was no one screaming “independent ladies and who’s fucking tonight” over it. They ruin all these songs. If i was one of those commercial artists I would HATE that they ruin my song and then don’t even play the real version in the club. They play the version they downloaded with Scoop yelling. I mean at first the idea was alright, but jeeeeesh, EVERY song has that now. C’mon people, slap yourself. Then I would wave that wand and take the $50,000 they give some wack techno-house deejay and give it to a dj who can do more than mix two cd’s together, sipping a fruity drink, headphones on the shoulder, foot-tapping, first-pumping, with a good publicist. Fuck them dudes in their ass. Oops, then again, they like that shit, literally. LOL. I would take Tiesto’s pay check and give it to Rob Swift….

Go buy this… Ultramagnetic MC’s Critical Beatdown (Listen to it a lot..you wont understand it, but listen), The complete album collections of De La Soul, EPMD, A Tribe Called Quest, Rakim, Masta Ace, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, KRS-ONE. Public Enemy’s first 3 albums, Slick Rick’s The Great Adventures of…, RUN DMC (You should know this!), Mantronix (Do your research), Big Daddy Kane’s first 3 albums, Kool G Rap’s first 3 albums, Del the Funky Homosapien (You might not get it, but listen!!!), Main Source’s Breaking Atoms album and anything Large Pro did, Wu-Tang Clan’s 1st album and the group member’s 1st solo albums…Buy Ghostface’s collection! Gangstarr – everything…they’re are the epitome of hiphop to me. Stuff like this… there is tons, but you need to know these people, listen and try to understand…

First, lets get this outta the way. If there is not scratching on your song, its not a hiphop song. Find me a hard-rock song without guitar on it? lemme know when you do… I don’t care who you name or what song you come up with that is good and everyone loves…I repeat…no scratches not hiphop… no guitar not hard-rock… So now.. Gangstarr epitomizes hiphop to me because they are original, they make their OWN music, they perform on stage, the DJ and MC get equal credit, they have scratching on everything, and they never do what trends dictate, they make trends. That’s what hiphop is all about to me. Other groups hire popular producers are use a bunch of different producers. I don’t know when or why that became the trend but that is THE WACKEST THING in the world to me. It’s not your album if you didn’t make it? If you hired a bunch of people and then picked a beat from different producers “beat cd’s” then you DID NOT MAKE AN ALBUM. The best groups of all-time ALL made their own albums and that is hiphop. Public Enemy, A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Gangstarr, Hiero Crew, Dilated Peoples, etc.. Even Kane, G Rap, Rakim, etc.. they would usually stick to one main producer like Marly Marl to put the album together. That’s why all those groups have cohesive albums. Not just a bunch of random songs put together… Like here is the radio song produced by Timbaland, and here is the underground one produced by Premier and here is the thug one produced by Swizz Beats, and here is the r&b song, etc, etc.. that is SOOO CORNY. So for all those reasons and more, that is why Gangstarr and groups like that mean so much to me.

Money…  That changes everything. Once big money got involved, hiphop became big business and is run like a Wal-Mart. What’s funny is that now since everyone has been losing money because of the internet and changes in TV programming on MTV, BET, etc.. the business is changing again as we speak. Well besides the obvious money-driven record labels ruining music, there was a way in which it went down, to me… First, i firmly believe that all record label execs are old racists who completely enjoy putting money behind idiots like Lil’ Wayne, Lil’ Jon, and Jay-Z who help destroy their community, ruin childrens minds, and enforce black-stereotypes. They must sit around counting their money, dying laughing while watching kids try to be like Jay-Z with guns and drugs in their community. Two bird with one stone, booom! And if you ever see or meet any of this label people, you’ll get the drift. So you have these labels who sun positive rappers (labeling them underground a lot of the time) and pushing and promoting guys who claim they kill people, have killed people, claim they sell drugs, do sell drugs, get arrested for guns, rape women, etc…  So that takes away from how much “good” music is going to reach the public. Then, comes my controversial idea.. Women ruined hiphop. Hold on, before you go crazy… In the early 90’s EVERYONE dissed r&b, dissed singing on songs, and doing wack dances. Even Q-Tip blatantly dissed R&B music and people who make it. (fact) Then comes along Puffy…  He decides to take popular hiphop tracks and put R&B singing over it (Mary J. Blige) and coin the phrase “hiphop & r&b”, which worked, but doesn’t make any sense. T-Pain and R. Kelly make “rhythm & blues”, i think not…  Anyways.. this music was radio-friendly for the scared program directors who feared Wu-Tang and Black Moon, and so the way to get on the radio was to have EVERY song have a “singing chorus.” This began the major shift, to where singing, cornball dances, and FEMALES loving every song and singing along started to happen. You started to see  hard-core street artists like Nas, Biggie, eventually Jay Z, and even Method Man have radio songs with singing. That is absurd, but yet the girls sang along and money rolled in… Remember Nas in a pink suit singing? Once these guys become sex symbols, it fucks with their brains. Look at Common now, and think back to when he made hiphop songs. Anyways… So then comes Timbaland in the late 90’s and adds in the drum-n-bass grooves to Aaliyah songs and the girls go even crazier. So now, because no one can think of an original idea, they all run to Timbaland to get drum-n-bass sounding beats with singing over it. His double-time grooves and an emergence of down-south artists at the same time, then lead to all these wack bounce beats with singing and now yelling over it (the South likes yelling chants for some reason) All the while catering to women, dancing and clubs. The golden era of hiphop was different. People were trying to write the best verse, have the sickest flow, find the craziest sample, do the best scratch, and now it’s how do I get 15 year old girls to dance to my song and request at “da club.” As this shift in the music happened, it gave radio stations and MTV, BET an excuse to not play the “harder” stuff and keep playing the “fruity” shit. Its funny though, because most of the songs girls love are abusing girls… all the skeet skeet skeet… anyways..  So during this shift, because of people like Puffy and Gay-Z talking only about money, cars, clothes, and how many records they sell, everything turned fruity altogether. You have wanna-bee thug dudes with mean faces in shiny shirts and slacks dancing in some ghetto club with a blue drink in their hand. its completely insane. Jam Master Jay is better off….  And look where we are at now… because the dance thing, fruity shit, singing thing, and all that has now been lumped into one “mash-up” of crap, we are stuck with electro-dance songs with auto-tune by Fergie…I’m good, I’ll go back in listen to my Alkaholiks albums…

WAY more.