Page 24 - Arts Management Magazine Iss 1

AMM GrandMixer DXT
talks
with
AMM: Tell me about the birth of Hip Hop.
Grand Mixer DXT: Being a child of the planet I was unable
to detect rhythms that spoke to me. But with Hip Hop the
rhythms spoke to us, and we responded. In our natural desire
to synchronize with the universe, we felt things that connected
us to time and space correctly, and we gravitated to it because it Grandmaster Flash was inspired by Kool Herc. Africa Bambata
felt good. And what we’re calling Hip-Hop felt good.
AMM: You took a vinyl record that was intended to be listened
to on a turntable and you utilized it in a very unique and musical DXT: He played music that spoke directly to me. He played
way. How did “scratching” come about?
DXT: The invention of scratching goes to Grandmaster Flash
and Grand Wizard Theodore. What I did was more of an in-
novation, not an invention. My innovation was to make the
turntable an instrument. Scratching
was where a DJ, like a DJ on a radio
station, would cue the record. You edit
it to make sure you’re cutting it at the
right spot. That applies when you play a
record and you’re not going to blend it,
you’re going to cut it in to the next re-
cord. Well sometimes you made a mis-
take, and you cue too loud or you go
over the spot, or you’re practicing and
the fader will go over the spot. That’s
how scratching started. My contribution
to Hip Hop was taking the idea of
scratching and being more percussive
about it; controlling the pitch to be
more melodic and varying into more
syncopated rhythms and timing, which
became known as turntable-ism.
24 Arts Management Magazine I www.ArtsManagementMagazine.com
AMM: Having done that, how do you view music now; where
Rap and DJ inspired music, techno music, and so many forms
of electronic music are so popular? Did you ever imagine that?
DXT: When you’re in the midst of innovation and you’re in the
moment, there is no plan. My inspiration was to raise the bar.
I did a song called “Crazy Cuts.” There was an intro verse that
explains what I was doing. “Late one night in the Boogie Down
Bronx, the Grand Mixer was working hard trying to innovate
new forms of scratching to elevate Hip Hop.” So that was my
goal; to innovate new forms so that the elevation of turntables
could continue.
AMM: Apparently you accomplished that mission because now
we have this whole world of DJs and turntables that really ap-
pears to have been sparked from the hit record “Rockit” you did
with Herbie Hancock.
DXT: The next day after that record came out, everything changed
as far as electronic music was concerned.
AMM: Tell us a little more about the evolution of Hip Hop.
DXT: Well Kool Herc was the seed. He planted the seed of bringing
young people together to listen to music, via turntables and not
live musicians, because very few people had instruments, so
that was the way of entertaining ourselves and each other. DJ
was inspired by Kool Herc. I was inspired by Kool Herc.
AMM: What about him inspired you?
music that spoke to all of us, and that’s why he is who he is. He
played a collection of records you didn’t hear on the radio. They
weren’t hit records or popular records; but they were great re-
cords and great music. No one else did that. I was a b-boy danc-
er, what they call “Break Dancing,” and so we would follow him
around because he was the only one who had that collection of
records and all my other b-boy break dancers would follow him
around just to go to his parties and dance to meet girls.