X-Pressing Creativity

Since the inception of hip-hop in its current form, the DJ has been pushed into the background. Rappers and MCs have taken to the forefront of the genre, claiming all accolades and, as the vocal aspect of the sound, becoming the de facto voice of the music form. On top of that, hip-hop has always fought for recognition and legitimacy in the mainstream, and what success has come in that regard has come to the MC. All that is changing, though.

As contemporary hip-hop crews like Dilated Peoples are quick to point out, the backbone of hip-hop is the DJ, and with individual DJs and DJ collectives like San Francisco’s Invisibl Skratch Piklz paving the way, DJing is fast becoming a respected and revered art form on its own, and it’s about damn time. One of the first DJ collectives to push for this sovereignty was New York’s X-ecutioners (formerly known as X-Men). Made up of four stellar DJs — Rob Swift, Total Eclipse, Roc Raida and Mista Sinsita — this old-school crew (what the Piklz are to SF, X-ecutioners are to NY) makes sure that their voice in hip-hop is heard.

Stylistically, X-ecutioners seem to find their inspiration from jazz music, and with roots planted firmly and steeped in New York musical history, this comes as no surprise. That influence is evident on the crew’s collective release, X-Pressions, on which the foursome mixes old-school soul and jazz, incorporates wicked scratch techniques and vinyl deconstruction and even includes MCs, encompassing every musical aspect of the hip-hop genre.

That jazz influence is seen even further on The Ablist, DJ Rob Swift’s solo release of last year. On it, he fuses his own styles and turntable techniques with the occasional rhyme session, and most notably with a full jazz group — bass, guitar, keys, horn and drums — to create a new sound, one that makes turntables a part of the equation. The result is truly revolutionary, and though slept on by the mainstream market, The Ablist set new standards for the combination of turntablism and its relation to live instrumentation.

The following conversation occurred well over a year ago, at the outset of 1999, as Rob Swift’s solo album was about to be released. In it, Swift, an affable, articulate and intelligent musician, explains turntablism’s relation to jazz, expounds the idea of turntablists as legitimate musicians, describes the process of working with a live band, and speaks a little about his own history and the mindset behind his work.

My older brother was always a DJ and I remember watching him do mix tapes at the house and inviting his friends over to practice. He’s take me to parties and I’d watch DJs play and for some reason, it was like a magnet, it totally captivated me. I remember being in the sixth grade and I asked him to teach me and he did. I took it seriously, man, from the first day.

Growing up, man, I was always exposed to different music. My brother exposed me to people like James Brown; disco from people like Donna Summer; and even people like Billy Squier. Hip-hop — with people like Tribe Called Quest and all the jazz influences and sampling of jazz records — was always like a collage of a whole variety of different, other music, so being a hip-hop artist, I think naturally you’re gonna be exposed to other music and it’s up to you to start to educate yourself about that kind of music or not. Some people like hip-hop beats but don’t realize that those beats come from other forms of music. I always want to try to go out and seek that other music and learn about it and try to understand it, so that’s why I’m so influenced by jazz — it has such a big impact on hip-hop.

As turntablists, we work with sound, and some of us try to express it in a soulful way, others in a crazy way, but it’s all pretty much expression. Like a jazz artist taking his instrument and expressing himself — be it through a horn or drums or whatever — for us it’s a turntable. In that way, the feeling is real similar, which is why we call ourselves ‘turntablists,’ like a pianist or a violinist.

Well, it’s the act of taking a turntable and manipulating the sounds that are on vinyl in a variety of ways, by moving the record back and forth. Basically, that’s the mechanics of what we do. There’s a creativity that comes into play, also, a style, and you just have to practice hard as well. But there’s nothing like seeing it. Seeing brings to life what you hear and allows you to understand what it takes to actually perform all those different things that you hear. A lot of times — for example on my album — someone may hear it and not be able to tell the difference between the sample and the person scratching; they may think it’s all samples. So as far as turntablism is concerned, it’s important for you to be able to see what the person is doing.

Yeah, you understand why things sound the way they do and seeing it makes you like it even more because it looks so dope, you know?

Yeah, man, totally, and it also allows me to experiment. A lot of turntablists, if you ask them who their influences are, they name a lot of jazz artists. But when you see them perform, sometimes it’s hard to understand and you think, ‘How could John Coltrane influence this guy if he’s doing this?’ So I wanted to show people through my album just how these jazz artists influence us, and what better way than to use a person on, like, keyboards? Do a song with a jazz instrumentalist, but incorporate the turntable in there and allow people to see how they fuse together. With songs like "Fusion Beats" and "All that Scratchin’," I was basically the fifth instrument in the band, and we were just going back and forth talking to each other with our instruments.

Yeah — bass, guitar, drums horn and I’m on the turntables. It’s a set band.

Not too long. They’ve always been a band, so they’ve always been doing stuff, but I linked up with them and it’s been cool because working with them enables me to do things that I’m unable to do by myself, you know?

Naw, it wasn’t, and that’s why I truly believe that the turntable is an instrument. Because we totally clicked, we understood each other when making the song. And you know, we deal with the same kind of notes and tempos that bands deal with — eighth note and quarter note scratches, four bar riffs — it’s all the same thing. So when I did the songs with them, we knocked them out quick. Rehearsing with them for our shows was also easy.

The only distinction I see is the difference in styles between the East Coast and the West Coast. On the West Coast, DJs put a strong emphasis on scratching — manipulating just one turntable, be it the right or the left — whereas DJs in the East Coast put a strong emphasis on everything — being able to scratch a little, being able to manipulate two turntables, beat juggling, being able to do tricks, being visual as you do your routines. But recently, I’ve seen that a lot of up-and-coming DJs are putting an emphasis on everything, from the West and the East. Now, the new up-and-coming DJs want to be able to do everything, which is really good.

Yeah, like two years.

Yeah…oh yeah, man. I’ve learned how to be more driven, how to achieve my goals — ‘cause when you’re battling, your goal is to win the prize or make a name for yourself and there’re certain steps you have to take in order to succeed in doing that. I also learned a lot about how unfair life can be. You can be in battles and lose to someone when you really didn’t because a judge may not like you, or for some other reason.

Yo man, that feels real dope ‘cause we’re kinda making history. You had the pioneers like Grandmaster Flash and Grand Wizard Theodore — who are responsible for creating it — and now groups like X-ecutioners and Invisibl Skratch Piklz are responsible for maintaining it and making sure that it doesn’t die out…and it one point it almost did, people couldn’t even be bothered by a DJ. They were more focused on rappers and what was going on in the rap scene. Since we kept it up — we were like, ‘Forget it, I don’t care what anyone says, I’m gonna still be true to the turntable and expose it as what it is and what can be done with it’ — people started to catch on again. So it feels dope, and my whole thing now — my goal — is just to show people that it isn’t just cute to watch, this is something that’s creative and takes a lot of skill, like any other instrument. And that’s why I wanted to do a song in the context of other instruments, to show people that.

That’s the thing — you gotta respect all the elements of hip-hop. It always bothers me when I asked a DJ, ‘Yo have you heard the new Nas album,’ and they’d say, ‘Naw, I haven’t.’ Like, how can you call yourself a DJ and not be aware of what’s going on in the MC world? And vice versa — how can you be an MC and not be aware of what’s going on the DJ world? It’s all together. We did that on the first X-Pressions album and I insisted on doing that again on The Ablist. It’s okay to focus your art, but at the same time, if you’re going to do hip-hop music, you gotta be true to it. Once you start separating things and once you start dividing the aspects, that’s when the music becomes…just less fun. So I’m trying to bring it all together under one house. On my album, I put emphasis on production — being able to put a beat together; I’m putting emphasis on rhymes and being lyrical — because I like lyrics. I like listening to my Mobb Deep and my Kool G. Rap. But I also like listening to my Q-Bert and my Mix Master Mike, so I gotta keep the scratches in there, and my first love out of all the art forms is DJing anyway, so obviously I’m going to project that more. But you gotta try to show a little bit of everything if you’re going to do hip-hop music.

Just showing the world that people like myself, DJs, are artists and need to be respected and should be taken seriously. The way I see it, there’s no reason why, for example, like on the MTV Awards, there isn’t some type of DJ category. Like, it was cool to see Mix Master Mike on it with the Beastie Boys, but at some point I’d like to see Mike by himself up there.

I don’t know. The way I see, people are just now adapting to the whole revolution going on with us making vinyl, making our own albums. So maybe in another couple of years, people will be ready for it, maybe not now, but it has to happen regardless, man. You know, it’s art.

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