Grandmaster Roc Raida RIP! (1972-2009)

This summer has been tough for me losing idols. First it was Michael Jackson, a man I emulated from adolescence throughout my teenage years. Then we lost DJ AM, an incredibly dope dj I had just seen five weeks earlier with another of my idols Dj Jazzy Jeff. Next Raida, WTF God?

I've taken a lot of time to mull over this, and actually wrote unpublished blog entries on this very subject. The one I wrote for Raida on my phone at a bar, got completely deleted... Sweeeeetttt! So I'll begin again, and maybe republish the one about AM tomorrow.

Raida e-mailed me days before his accident about possibly bringing Roc Raida's Gong Battle for Supremacy to New Orleans. I never returned the e-mail fearing that he wouldn't want to be bothered with business while he was recuperating. The next few weeks were shrouded in mystery as to exactly what happened. There was report that he had to have surgery, and was in recovery; but no specific details on Geo's board. Then out of the blue, I get the news.

Official Statement from family

Roc Raida was particularly significant because if not for the X-Men. I would have never become a dj in the first place. Who knows where I would be or what I would be doing. I remember the first time I heard X-Men Style Beats from the Return of the Dj Compilation. I couldn't begin to understand exactly what he was doing. All I knew was he did it using turntables and records and nothing else. This began my infatuation for beat juggling. I spent months and months trying to do "that thing that Raida did". I had never seen a video, I just kept listening to it over and over and over trying to make sense of this new and seemingly impossible concept. Soooo much money spent on double copies of records. That became my crack. "Yo man you got two copies of that??" All trying to duplicate, unsuccessfully I might add, what the X-Men were doing.

Then I bought X-Men in Xercise... It finally began to make sense. Wow! I was still waaaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyy far away from their skill levels, but at least I had the first set of stepping stones. Watching them candidly break down each particular routine, the level of showmanship they displayed while doing these routines, the body tricks, and the overall musical composition was just mind-blowing.

"So this was the footage that led up to the Raida's 95 World Championship??"

Over the years, I would get more and more videos, Xecutioners 97 European Tour was another mind-fuck... This was some next-level musical instrumentation. It all really seemed impossible as if these guys were from another more advanced musical planet. These guys really fueled my obsession for what had been deemed "Turntablism", and I as a young man I was looking for something to fill a void in my life that had been occupying itself with recreational drug use (yeah I said it). So I delved deeper and deeper into this world and deeper and deeper into hip hop culture.

I was never in this for fame, or girls, or money. I was becoming a musician for music's sake. I was tired of being just a casual listener, a consumer, a wall-flower. I wanted to contribute. In my little sugarcane hometown, there wasn't much for me in the realm of dj inspiration. I had to move to Lafayette before I would even meet someone else that was a dj, much less a scratch dj. So I continued to create in a bubble, that's when met the first members of the crew Beauregard Breaux and T-Mike Girouard, these guys shared my love for all things hip hop and were down to help me figure this turntablism thing out. So for the longest time it was us in a room with three turntables and two mixers, just figuring it all out. I would learn scratch-drumming, Mike would learn a simple juggle breakdown, Beau would learn a scratch. We fed off of each other, and learned. It began to snowball until we all felt confident enough that WE could actually battle and win.

All of this wouldn't have happened if not for Roc Raida. I only met him once, to ask he, Rob Swift, Mista Sinista, and Total Eclipse to sign the jacket of X-Pressions at the State Palace Theater in 1998. So I never really knew him besides the correspondence I had with him through emails. But the emails meant a lot to me and he helped me on the path into what I am today.

So Raida, you meant a lot to me. If it wasn't for you, there truly would be no me.

Rest in Peace Brother Roc Raida, you were the personification of a Grandmaster.

Hey, It's a brand new day...

So what's up everyone... I hope you guys have read the DMC NOLA blog. Well, it seemed inappropriate to continue with the DMC theme for any longer. Since that fateful day the world has lost two important figures in djing DJ AM and Roc Raida RIP, but that's another post. It is my mission to give my readers not ONLY information on deejaying, music, or whatever, but a real portal into my day to day life, my opinions, things I like, my hopes and dreams, setbacks, failure, success, joy, madness.

I am a lover of all things done well. I am a soul searcher, and this blog is just as much for me as it is for whoever reads it. This is therapy... a sort of live public journal, which is what I believe the original purpose of the "blog" was meant to be. There are so many different types of blogs and all have a certain amount of entertainment value. Mine will be no different. I will offer you something more valuable than entertainment. I will offer you a portal into my mind and thoughts, a real piece of me for you to take, digest, and regurgitate however you like. If you keep reading, I'll hold up my end of the bargain and continue to crank out intelligent, legible things.

If you were a fan of the DMC NOLA blog, I've imported the posts from so you can go back and reflect. I was very proud of that blog, and I will be returning to it when the time comes to do DMC NOLA II. Now it's time to get to work on the new baby.

Thanks,

Management

Reflections of the love you took from me...

So, I've just taken some time out to reflect on things. Basically things are good, but you know life is really what you make of it. I'm struggling and striving to do more every day. Maintaining focus and clarity are probably the two hardest things for me to do besides, quitting smoking and quitting procrastination. I'm glad to be alive to be going through it with all of you. I don't really have anything profound or even interesting to say today, except:

RIP Aaliyah!!! I wish I could have known you...XOXOX!!!!!!!!


Sincerely,

A Fan

The Skateboarding Analogy

So I've been having a lot of discourse with my non-deejay friends, about my open letter to deejays blog. I don't want to be jaded, so I felt the need to better understand exactly what has happened. Was I really over-reacting?? Was I right on the money?

The feedback I got was overwhelming from my deejay friends. They all applauded it. But it was my non-deejay friends that still didn't get it. After a lot thought, I've come up with what I think is the most appropriate analogy. So ladies and gentlemen, I give you my skateboarding analogy...

The following was pulled from my post on the the turntablist network's message board...

Read original thread

My problem with the current paradigm is that somewhere along the way someone came along and altered the rules... Your "look" or "image" became more important than your skill set or your talent as a producer/composer. DVS systems have only stood to reinforce this trend, because no longer did your average dj have to start at the bottom, spending lots of money buying records and countless hours learning how to mix. He could simply jump ahead in the line over the djs with superior music knowledge and the collections to match. It made it easy for them to learn to mix records. It's also allowed promoters to start calling the shots instead of the djs themselves. Even worse is the promoter/dj who thinks he's a better dj than anyone he could possibly book. Somehow, someway the integrity has been stolen from us.

I believe it happened so fast we didn't even have time to react. Or we possibly just blamed it on a "new trend" as we all scrambled to get Serato, Final Scratch or whatever else was commercially available at the time. While most of us were spending our time arguing about traditionalism or purism on message boards such as this one, these people were re-writing the rules to include themselves.

This has been a sore subject with me lately and I've done plenty of arguing about it.

The best way to understand what has happened is by using a skateboard analogy.

A skateboarder starts out at the bottom of the sport. Then by practice, dedication, and lots of studying, he begins to progress. As he is progressing, the sport is also progressing along with him. Therefore, it becomes a lot harder with each passing day for the skateboarder to become recognized and a whole helluva lot harder for him to become famous. Eventually once he has matured or developed his own style, he begins to seek out the approval of his skateboarding peers. Either he starts going to contests or he makes his own "sponsor me" video to send out to companies. That becomes his first foray into marketing. Not until YEARS into his career does he ever become concerned with trying to market himself. And he surely wouldn't have anything to market if he hadn't spend a good chunk of his life dedicated to the sport. If he couldn't do any tricks or he didn't have any style do you think he would ever win a contest or get sponsored or gain any sort of acceptance from the "Old guard" skateboarders????

Why is skateboarding like this? SKATEBOARDING is run and policed by other SKATEBOARDERS or former SKATEBOARDERS. There is a system in place to prevent outsiders from changing the rules.

Essentially what has happened here, is akin to a gang of skateboarders that become pros and took over modern skateboarding simply because they bought skateboards. Instead of learning tricks, they just learned how to market themselves. Instead of going to contests or making sponsorship videos, they just started acting like they were already pro. We've essentially been gotten over on by a bunch of posers. A whole bunch of people who walk around holding their skateboards that are talented enough to ollie onto a curb have basically taken over and made doing fancy tricks and actually having talent obsolete.

Think about it. Prior to the DVS trend, it was the dj who had the most talent and or records that would get to dj the big parties. Why? They earned their position. What we've got to figure out is HOW DO WE TAKE THE POWER BACK?? How do we change the rules back to the way they used to be?? What do we have to do to restore the natural order in the dj game??



Thus is the crux of my argument... Now let's get to work on fixing things...

Michel Gondry, your videos are awesome...

I feel the need to big up one of my favorite music video directors... He's the director of The Science Of Sleep and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind... He's brilliant!









Hope you enjoyed that as much as I did!!! Also check out the Daft Punk's Around the World video. I would've added it, but I couldn't embed it.

Anyone remember when RapCity played good videos??

Bionik Brown Videos...