CAUGHT IN THE MOMENT

Forward: Kavet The Catalyst
Interview: Lyle Matsuura
Image: Aaron K. Yoshino (honozooloo.com)



The Armpit of America Cleveland, Ohio, is home to the infamous Bone Thugs n’ Harmony, the righteous throwing arm and dashing looks of Bernie Kozar, and the kid with the golden touch, DJ Swamp. Bone Thugs got discovered by the head ninja with sass, Eazy-E, who turned the mediocre group from Cleveland into every wannabe gangsters reason for rapping fast in the late nineties. Bernie Kozar, the last great player that ever donned a uniform for the Cleveland Browns led his team to two back-to-back AFC Championship games, only to fall short each time to the legendary John Elway and the Denver Broncos. DJ Swamp is the alien that invaded the Hip-hop DJ world. Rocking all black with a mugger’s beanie and long stoney hair, Swamp took the turntablist scene by mind control, winning the 1996 DMC USA Championships. Never looking back on returning to earth, DJ Swamp has made a career spanning over 12 years of turntable abduction.


Was there ever a time when you smashed a record at a show and later on you were like, “Dammit that was a good record, I shouldn’t have done that?”
Yeah it’s happened a lot. I guess I get caught up in the moment or maybe the lights are dark or flashing and you grab the wrong one. At this point I kind of figure something will happen to most of my records. That’s why if I like something and I know I’m going to be spinning it regularly, I’ll buy as many copies as I can find. I have like 20 sealed copies of a lot of different records just waiting.

Interesting. Through the magic of Youtube, a lot of people are finally getting to see the madness when you took the DMC in ‘96. Did you have everything completely planned out, or was any segment improvised?
I actually messed up pretty bad and completely forgot a record in my stack and had to improv a little, but I did have a planned routine originally.

Now you don’t use headphones during your set. How the hell do you match things up?
Different ways. I use stickers, some records I made specifically to know what’s where, some records you have your pitch memorized, but I don’t make a big deal out of it. I’ll use headphones sometimes if I need to.

You’ve done some prestigious collaborations including Weird Al, RL Burnside, and Kool Keith. What would be your dream collab, or has it already happened?
I’ve worked with people that I’ve dreamt of working with and turned out not liking them after. Other times it’s the opposite, working with people that I would never have chose and ended up really enjoying it. So at this point I don’t have a dream collab.

And lastly, do you intend on doing some surfing or anything typically touristy out here in the isle?
Surfing, snorkeling, maybe some horseback riding. We’ll probably be doing some filming around the island and whatever we can think of that’s cool for that.